Patent Grant
7884778
This application claims the benefit of Taiwan application Serial No. 95123928, filed Jun. 30, 2006, the subject matter of which is incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates in general to an antenna structure with an antenna radome and a method for raising a gain thereof, and more particularly to an antenna structure, which has an antenna radome, a high gain and a simple structure, and a method for raising a gain thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, the wireless communication technology is developed rapidly, so the wireless local area network (Wireless LAN) or the wireless personal area network (Wireless PAN) has been widely used in the office or home. However, the wired network, such as a DSL (Digital Subscriber Line), is still the mainstream for connecting various wireless networks. In order to wireless the networks in the cities and to build the backbone network appliance between the city and the country with a lower cost, a WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) protocol of IEEE 802.16a having the transmission speed of 70 Mbps, which is about 45 times faster than that of the current T1 network having the speed of 1.544 Mbps, is further proposed. In addition, the cost of building the WiMAX network is also lower than that of building the T1 network.
Because the layout of the access points in the backbone network is usually built in a long distance and peer-to-peer manner. Thus, the high directional antenna plays an important role therein so as to enhance the EIRP (Effective Isotropically Radiated Power) and to achieve the object of implementing the long distance transmission with a lower power. Meanwhile, the converged radiating beams can prevent the neighboring zones from being interfered. The conventional high directional antenna may be divided into a disk antenna and an array antenna. The disk antenna has an extremely high directional gain, but an extremely large size. So, it is difficult to build the disk antenna, and the disk antenna tends to be influenced by the external climate.
When the required directional gain of the array antenna increases, the number of array elements grows with a multiplier, the antenna area greatly increases, and the material cost also increases greatly. Meanwhile, the feeding network, which is one of the important elements constituting the antenna array, becomes complicated severely. The feeding network is in charge of collecting the energy of each of the antenna array elements to the output terminal as well as to ensure no phase deviation between the output terminal and each of the antenna array elements. Thus, the problems of phase precision and transmitted energy consumption occur such that the antenna gain cannot increase with the increase of the number of array elements.
In 2002, G. Tayeb etc. discloses a “Compact directive antennas using metamaterials” in 12th International Symposium on Antennas, Nice, 12-14 Nov. 2002, in which the metamaterial antenna radome having a multi-layer metal grid is proposed. The electromagnetic bandgap technology is utilized to reduce the half power beamwidth (only about 10 degrees) of the microstrip antenna greatly in the operation frequency band of 14 GHz, and thus to have the extremely high directional gain. Based on the equation of c=f×λ, however, when the antenna is applied in a WiMAX system with the operation frequency band of 3.5 GHz to 5 GHz, the wavelength is greatly lengthened because the frequency is greatly lowered. Thus, the antenna radome has to possess the relatively large thickness correspondingly, and the overall size of the antenna increases. Meanwhile, the multi-layer metal grid acts on the far-field of the antenna radiating field, so the overall size of the antenna structure increases and the utility thereof is restricted.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide an antenna structure with an antenna radome and a method of raising a gain thereof. A dielectric layer formed with metal patterns is utilized such that the antenna radome made of a metamaterial may be placed in a near-field of the radiating field of the antenna structure. Thus, the beamwidth of the radiating beams of the antenna structure can be converged to increase the gain of the antenna structure and the size of the antenna structure can be greatly reduced.
The invention achieves the above-identified object by providing an antenna structure including a radiating element and an antenna radome. The antenna radome has at least one dielectric layer, which has an upper surface formed with a plurality of S-shaped metal patterns, and a lower surface formed with a plurality of inverse S-shaped metal patterns corresponding to the S-shaped metal patterns. The S-shaped metal patterns are respectively coupled to the corresponding inverse S-shaped metal patterns to converge radiating beams outputted from the radiating element.
The invention also achieves the above-identified object by providing another antenna structure including a radiating element and an antenna radome. The antenna radome has at least one dielectric layer, which has an upper surface formed with a plurality of metal patterns, and a lower surface formed with a plurality of inverse metal patterns corresponding to the metal patterns. A gap between the metal patterns ranges from 0.002 to 0.2 times of a wavelength of a resonance frequency of the radiating element, and a gap between the inverse metal patterns ranges from 0.002 to 0.2 times of the wavelength of the resonance frequency of the radiating element. The metal patterns are respectively coupled to the corresponding inverse metal patterns to converge radiating beams outputted from the radiating element.
The invention also achieves the above-identified object by providing an antenna radome including at least one dielectric layer, a plurality of S-shaped metal patterns and a plurality of inverse S-shaped metal patterns. The S-shaped metal patterns are formed on an upper surface of the at least one dielectric layer by way of printing or etching. The inverse S-shaped metal patterns respectively correspond to the S-shaped metal patterns and are formed on a lower surface of the at least one dielectric layer by way of printing or etching. The S-shaped metal patterns are respectively coupled to the corresponding inverse S-shaped metal patterns to converge radiating beams outputted from a radiating element.
The invention also achieves the above-identified object by providing an antenna radome including at least one dielectric layer, a plurality of metal patterns and a plurality of inverse metal patterns. The metal patterns are formed on an upper surface of the at least one dielectric layer by way of printing or etching. The plurality of inverse metal patterns respectively correspond to the metal patterns and are formed on a lower surface of the at least one dielectric layer by way of printing or etching. A gap between the metal patterns ranges from 0.002 to 0.2 times of a wavelength of a resonance frequency of a radiating element, and a gap between the inverse metal patterns ranges from 0.002 to 0.2 times of the wavelength of the resonance frequency of the radiating element. The metal patterns are respectively coupled to the corresponding inverse metal patterns to converge radiating beams outputted from the radiating element.
The invention also achieves the above-identified object by providing a method of raising a gain of an antenna structure. The method includes the steps of: providing a radiating element; and placing an antenna radome above the radiating element to converge radiating beams outputted from the radiating element. The antenna radome has at least one dielectric layer, which has an upper surface formed with a plurality of S-shaped metal patterns by way of printing or etching, and a lower surface formed, by way of printing or etching, with a plurality of inverse S-shaped metal patterns respectively corresponding to the S-shaped metal patterns. The S-shaped metal patterns are respectively coupled to the corresponding inverse S-shaped metal patterns to converge the radiating beams outputted from the radiating element.
Other objects, features, and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the preferred but non-limiting embodiment. The following description is made with reference to the accompanying drawings.
The invention provides an antenna structure with an antenna radome and a method of raising a gain thereof. A dielectric layer formed with metal patterns is utilized such that the antenna radome can be placed in a near-field of a radiating field of the antenna structure. Thus, the beamwidth of the radiating beams of the antenna structure can be converged to increase the gain of the antenna structure.
The antenna radome 120 is made of a metamaterial, and has at least one dielectric layer. In this embodiment, the antenna radome 120 has, without limitation to, three dielectric layers including a dielectric material layer 121, a dielectric material layer 122 and a dielectric material layer 123. The upper surfaces of the dielectric material layers 121 to 123 are formed with multiple S-shaped metal patterns 212 to 218, and the lower surfaces of the dielectric material layers 121 to 123 are formed with multiple inverse S-shaped metal patterns 222 to 228 respectively corresponding to the S-shaped metal patterns 212 to 218. The antenna radome 120 may also be regarded as being composed of multiple array elements 130.
In the antenna radome 120, a gap between the S-shaped metal patterns 212 to 218 ranges from 0.002 to 0.2 times of the wavelength of the resonance frequency of the radiating element 110. A gap between the inverse S-shaped metal patterns 222 to 228 ranges from 0.002 to 0.2 times of the wavelength of the resonance frequency of the radiating element 110. The S-shaped metal patterns 212 to 218 and the inverse S-shaped metal patterns 222 to 228, which are formed on the dielectric material layer 121 by way of printing or etching, have simple structures and may be manufactured using the current printed circuit board (PCB) process. So, the manufacturing cost thereof may be reduced greatly.
The method of the invention for raising a gain of the antenna structure is to attach the antenna radome 120 to the radiating element 110 to converge the radiating beams emitted by the radiating element 110. The antenna radome 120 is placed at a near-field position of an electromagnetic field created by the radiating element 110. The S-shaped metal patterns 212 to 218 are respectively coupled to the corresponding inverse S-shaped metal patterns 222 to 228 to converge the radiating beams outputted from the radiating element 110, so that the beamwidth of the radiating beams is decreased, and the gain of the antenna structure 100 is increased.
The metal patterns on the dielectric material layers 121 to 123 are not restricted to the S-shaped metal patterns and the inverse S-shaped metal patterns in the antenna structure 100 mentioned hereinabove. Any metal pattern having the gap ranging between 0.002 to 0.2 times of the wavelength of the resonance frequency of the radiating element 110 can be used in the antenna structure 100 of this invention as long as the metal patterns formed on the upper and lower surfaces can be coupled to each other. In addition, the dielectric constants and the magnetic coefficients of the dielectric material layers 121 to 123 may be the same as or different from one another in the antenna structure 100. For example, the magnetic coefficients of the dielectric material layer 121 and the dielectric material layer 123 are the same, but are unequal to the magnetic coefficient of the dielectric material layer 122. Alternatively, the magnetic coefficients of the dielectric material layers 121 to 123 may be different from one another. The relationships between the dielectric constants of the dielectric material layers 121 to 123 may also be similar to those of the magnetic coefficients. When the dielectric constants and the magnetic coefficients of the dielectric material layers 121 to 123 are different from one another, the gap between the S-shaped metal patterns and the gap between the inverse S-shaped metal patterns have to be adjusted slightly but still range from 0.002 to 0.2 times of the wavelength of the resonance frequency of the radiating element 110.
According to the antenna structure, the antenna radome and the method of raising the gain of the antenna structure according to the embodiment of the invention, the metal patterns coupled to each other are formed on the dielectric material layer by way of printing or etching, and the antenna radome is placed in the near-field of the radiating field of the antenna structure to converge the beamwidth of the radiating beams outputted from the antenna structure and thus to increase the gain of the antenna structure. The metal patterns have the feature of the simple structure, and can be manufactured using the current PCB manufacturing process so that the manufacturing cost can be greatly reduced. In addition, because the antenna radome is placed in the near-field of the antenna structure, the size of the overall antenna structure can be further minimized, and the utility can be enhanced.
While the invention has been described by way of example and in terms of a preferred embodiment, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited thereto. On the contrary, it is intended to cover various modifications and similar arrangements and procedures, and the scope of the appended claims therefore should be accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and similar arrangements and procedures.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 95123928 A | Jun 2006 | TW | national |
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|---|---|---|---|
| 4479128 | Brunner et al. | Oct 1984 | A |
| 20030142036 | Wilhelm et al. | Jul 2003 | A1 |
| 20050062673 | Wu et al. | Mar 2005 | A1 |
| 20050200540 | Isaacs et al. | Sep 2005 | A1 |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20080001843 A1 | Jan 2008 | US |
