The Improvement of Radiation Characteristics of a Planar Inverted-F Antenna and Antenna Array on an Artificial Magnetic Conductor

Alexandre M. P. Alves Silva, L. C. Kretly

DOI: 10.14209/sbrt.2004.129

Evento: XXI Simpósio Brasileiro de Telecomunicações (SBrT2004)

Keywords: Artificial magnetic conductor high surface impedance band-gap PIFA ground plane antenna array EBG

Abstract

The PIFA, Planar Inverted-F Antenna, is a type of antenna which has been used in many communication applications. It is a medium bandwidth radiator with reduced dimensions. A PIFA antenna on an EBG, Electromagnetic BandGap, structure is designed and measured, and is compared to a classical PIFA antenna. EBG structures have special electromagnetic properties that are very useful for wireless applications. The EBG structure presented in this paper is the AMC, Artificial Magnetic Conductor, also called mushroom-like electromagnetic band-gap structure. It is a metal-dielectric structure which presents high surface impedance and suppression of propagating surface currents within a frequency band. The AMC is used as the PIFA antenna ground plane to observe the improvement on characteristics such as bandwidth, gain and directivity. A PIFA antenna array is also presented on an AMC structure. The wide bandwidth achieved by the antenna array on AMC is shown. It is also shown that array radiation pattern is steerable in the azimuth plane. Besides, using the AMC, the overall antenna characteristics are improved.

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