The present invention relates to an antenna and a communication device including the same, in which the antenna can be miniaturized further more and a resonant frequency can be easily tuned using characteristics of a meta material, thereby accomplishing multiband and broadband of the antenna.
As communication techniques, especially wireless communication techniques are developed with the advancement in electronic industry, a variety of wireless communication terminals capable of performing voice and data communications with anybody at any time at any place are developed and commonly used.
In addition, a variety of techniques for miniaturizing the wireless communication terminals, e.g., development of large scale integrated circuit elements, methods of miniaturizing electronic circuit boards, and the like, are studied in order to improve portability of the wireless communication terminals, and communication terminals performing a variety of functions, such as navigation terminals, Internet terminals, and the like, are developed as the purpose of using the wireless communication terminals is also diversified.
Meanwhile, one of important techniques in the wireless communication techniques is techniques related to antennas, and antennas based on various techniques, such as coaxial antennas, rod antennas, loop antennas, beam antennas, super gain antennas, and the like, are currently used.
Particularly, as portability and miniaturization of the wireless communication terminals tend to be improved further more recently, techniques for miniaturizing an antenna is required further more, and accordingly, antennas having a wire configured in a helix or meander line form are proposed.
However, the proposed antennas are limited in that the size of an antenna is determined by a resonant frequency, and shapes of the antennas become more complex in order to form an antenna of a fixed length in a narrow space as the antennas are miniaturized further more.
A technique proposed to solve the problem is a technique of an antenna using a meta material.
Here, the meta material is a material or an electromagnetic structure artificially designed to have special electromagnetic characteristics that cannot be generally found in the nature, and the meta material has a special character favorable to miniaturization of an antenna if the characteristics of the meta material are applied to the antenna.
The present invention proposes an antenna system capable of implementing a further miniaturized multiband and broadband antenna by using such a meta material.
Therefore, the present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a multiband and broadband antenna using characteristics of a meta material and a communication device including the antenna, in which one or more DNG unit cells and ENG unit cells are included in the antenna to miniaturize the antenna further more, and a resonant frequency can be easily tuned.
According to an embodiment of the present invention for achieving the object, there is provided a multiband and broadband antenna comprising: a power feeding unit formed in at least a portion of a carrier; and at least one Double Negative (DNG) unit cell and at least one Epsilon Negative (ENG) unit cell formed on the carrier, for receiving power from the power feeding unit and functioning as a Composite Right/Left Handed Transmission Line (CRLH-TL).
One DNG unit cell and one ENG unit cell are formed in the antenna, in which the DNG unit cell may be formed on a left side of the power feeding unit and include a first patch and a first stub formed on at least one surface of the carrier, and the ENG unit cell may be formed on a right side of the power feeding unit and include a second patch and a second stub formed on at least one surface of the carrier.
The power feeding unit may include a power feeding line of a helical shape, and the power feeding line of a helical shape may be formed to have a gap to be spaced from the DNG unit cell to perform coupling power feeding and directly connected to the ENG unit cell to perform direct power feeding.
The first stub and the second stub may be connected to a ground surface formed on a substrate which is formed to be independent from the carrier.
Inductors may be formed between at least one of the power feeding unit, the first stub and the second stub and the ground surface.
The second stub may be a stub of a helical shape, in which one end of the stub is connected to the ground surface, and the other end of the stub is connected to the second patch.
A resonant frequency of the DNG unit cell is determined by a reactance component of a CRLH-TL structure, and the reactance component may be controlled by adjusting at least one of a position of the power feeding line, a width of the power feeding line, a length of the power feeding line, a distance of the gap, a size of the first patch, permittivity of the carrier, a size of the carrier, a position of the first stub, a width of the first stub, and a length of the first stub.
A resonant frequency of the ENG unit cell is determined by a reactance component of a CRLH-TL structure, and the reactance component may be controlled by adjusting at least one of a position of the power feeding line, a width of the power feeding line, a length of the power feeding line, a size of the second patch, permittivity of the carrier, a size of the carrier, a position of the second stub, a width of the second stub, and a length of the second stub.
The DNG unit cell may generate a −1-th order resonance, a 0-th order resonance, and a +1-th order resonance, and the ENG unit cell may generate a 0-th order resonance and a +1-th order resonance, in which a broadband is formed by combining at least two of the 0-th order resonance of the DNG unit cell, the +1-th order resonance of the ENG unit cell, and the +1-th order resonance of the DNG unit cell.
According to another embodiment of the present invention for achieving the object, there is provided a communication device including the multiband and broadband antenna.
According to the present invention, it is possible to implement a multiband and broadband antenna independent from the length of the antenna by adjusting reactance components of DNG unit cells and ENG unit cells.
Therefore, according to the present invention, miniaturization of an antenna can be accomplished, and at the same time, an antenna having multiple bands and wide bandwidth and a communication device including the antenna can be obtained.
In the following detailed description, references are made to the accompanying drawings that show, by way of illustration, specific embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. These embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the invention. It is to be understood that the various embodiments of the invention, although different, are not necessarily mutually exclusive. For example, a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described herein, in connection with one embodiment, may be implemented within other embodiments without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. In addition, it is to be understood that the location or arrangement of individual elements within each disclosed embodiment may be modified without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. The following detailed description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of the present invention is defined only by the appended claims, appropriately interpreted, along with the full range of equivalents to which the claims are entitled. In the drawings, like numbers refer to the same or similar functionality throughout the several views.
Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in more detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. The preferred embodiments are merely provided to allow those skilled in the art to easily implement the present invention.
Entire Configuration of Multiband and Broadband Antenna
The meta material is a material or an electromagnetic structure artificially designed to have special electromagnetic characteristics that cannot be generally found in the nature, and in the technical field in general and in this specification, the meta material is a material having a negative permittivity or permeability or an electromagnetic structure thereof.
Such a material (or a structure) is also referred to as a Double Negative (DNG) material in that it has two negative parameters. In addition, a material having only a negative permittivity is referred to as an Epsilon Negative (ENG) material. In addition, the meta material has a negative reflection coefficient due to the negative permittivity and permeability and accordingly is referred to as a Negative Refractive Index (NRI) material. The meta material was first studied by a Russian physicist, V. Veselago, in 1967, and its specific implementation methods and applications are studied and attempted recently after 30 years from the first study.
Due to the characteristics described above, electromagnetic waves are transmitted by the Fleming's left hand law, not by the right hand law, in the meta material. That is, the direction of phase propagation (the direction of phase velocity) of the electromagnetic waves is opposite to the direction energy propagation (the direction of group velocity), and thus a signal passing through the meta material has a negative phase delay. Accordingly, the meta material is also referred to as a Left-handed Material (LHM). In addition, the meta material has a characteristic such that the relation between β (a phase constant) and ω (a frequency) is non-linear and a characteristic curve of the meta material also exists in the left half plane of the coordinate plane. A phase difference dependent on the frequency is small in the meta material due to the non-linear characteristic, and thus a broadband circuit can be implemented, and since a phase shift is not proportional to the length of a transmission line, a small-scaled circuit can be implemented.
As shown in
Here, both of the DNG unit cell 110 and the ENG unit cell 120 may be a 0-th order resonator using a meta material.
The DNG unit cell 110 and the ENG unit cell 120 may be configured to respectively include a patch 111 and 121 functioning as an antenna radiator, and the patches 111 and 121 can be formed on a certain carrier 100. If the carrier 100 is formed in a general rectangular parallelepiped shape, the patches 111 and 121 can be formed on at least two surfaces of the carrier 100 in a folded shape. Meanwhile, the carrier 100 may be a material having a certain permittivity ρ, a certain permeability μ or both of the certain permittivity and permeability. For example, although Flame Retardant Type 4 (FR4) having a permittivity of about 4.5 can be used as the carrier 100, it is not limited thereto, and a variety of dielectric materials or magnetic materials can be used as the carrier 100.
Meanwhile, a power feeding unit 130 for supplying power to the first and second patches 111 and 113 so as to allow the patches to function as a radiator of the antenna can be formed between the DNG unit cell 110 and the ENG unit cell 120.
As shown in
On the other hand, the ENG unit cell 120 does not include a constitutional component that can function as a series capacitor, and accordingly, it can function as an ENG unit cell. This will be described below in detail with reference to equivalent circuit diagrams.
In addition, the DNG unit cell 110 and the ENG unit cell 120 may include a stub 140 and 150, respectively. Specifically, one ends of the stubs 140 and 150 may be respectively connected to the termination point of the first patch 111 of the DNG unit cell 110 and the termination point of the second patch 121 of the ENG unit cell 120, and the other ends of the stubs 140 and 150 can be connected to the ground surface GND. The stub 140 of the first patch 111 side can be formed on at least one surface of the carrier 100 in a region where the DNG unit cell 110 is formed, and the stub 150 of the second patch 121 side can be implemented in a helical shape at least at a part of a region where the ENG unit cell 120 is formed. The stub 150 of a helical shape can be configured to be similar to the shape of the power feeding unit 130. For example, as shown in
Meanwhile, although it is not shown in
Hereinafter, the operation of the multiband and broadband antenna will be described in detail based on the equivalent circuits of the antenna.
Equivalent Circuit Diagrams
First, as shown in
In addition, as shown in
Meanwhile, the DNG unit cell 110 and the ENG unit cell 120 have a characteristic impedance of Z0 when they are configured as a general antenna, and the characteristic impedance Z0 can be expressed as a parallel capacitor component and a series inductor component.
First, equalizing the circuit in
On the other hand, equalizing the circuit in
As described above, in the DNG unit cell 110, the capacitance value of the series capacitor CL can be controlled by adjusting the gap G1 formed between the first patch 111 and the power feeding unit 130, and the inductance value of the parallel inductor LL can be controlled by adjusting the stub 140. The capacitance vale of the parallel capacitor CR can be controlled by adjusting the gap formed between the first patch 111 and the ground surface GND, and the inductance value of the series inductor LR can be controlled by adjusting the size and the like of the first patch 111.
In addition, in the ENG unit cell 120, the inductance value of the parallel inductor LL can be controlled by adjusting various variables of the stub 150, and the capacitance vale of the parallel capacitor CR can be controlled by adjusting the gap formed between the second patch 121 and the ground surface GND. In addition, the inductance value of the series inductor LR can be controlled by adjusting the size and the like of the second patch 121.
In this manner, overall resonant frequency of the DNG unit cell 110 and the ENG unit cell 120 is tuned, and a miniaturized antenna independent from the length d of the entire antenna can be implemented by using the characteristics of the meta material as described above.
Dispersion Diagram
In the diagram shown in
Referring to
Specifically, it is understood that the DNG unit cell 110 generates a −1-th order resonance, a 0-th order resonance, and a +1-th order resonance around frequencies of about 1 GHz, 1.7 GHz, and 2.1 GHz respectively, and the ENG unit cell 120 generates a 0-th order resonance and a +1-th order resonance around frequencies of about 1.05 GHz and 1.8 GHz respectively. Relatively comparing the resonant frequencies of the DNG unit cell 110 and the ENG unit cell 120, since the resonant frequency of the DNG unit cell 110 is formed to be higher than that of the ENG unit cell 120 at the same order, the DNG unit cell 110 can be referred to as a high band DNG unit cell, and the ENG unit cell 120 can be referred to as a low band ENG unit cell.
On the other hand, the 0-th order resonant frequency of the ENG unit cell 120 can be a low band operating frequency of the entire antenna system. In addition, since the 0-th order resonant frequency of the DNG unit cell 110 is adjacent to the +1-th order resonant frequency of the ENG unit cell 120, bands of the two resonant frequencies are combined, and thus the frequencies may function as a broad-banded high band operating frequency in the entire antenna system. Furthermore, the 0-th order resonant frequency of the DNG unit cell 110, the +1-th order resonant frequency of the ENG unit cell 120, and the +1-th order resonant frequency of the DNG unit cell 110 can be combined to function as a broad-banded high band operating frequency in the entire antenna system.
Simulation for Example of Actual Implementation
Referring to
Result of Measuring Radiation Patterns
Referring to
Efficiency and Maximum Gain of Antenna in Each Band
As is understood from the above descriptions and
The multiband and broadband antenna of the present invention may adjust resonant frequency characteristics of the DNG unit cell and the ENG unit cell by adjusting the shape of the power feeding unit (the position, width and length of the power feeding line), the gap formed between the first patch and the power feeding unit, the position of the stub, the width of the stub, the length of the stub, and the like. However, the present invention is not limited thereto, and if reactance of the DNG and ENG unit cells can be adjusted, a resonant frequency can be tuned by adjusting the shape of all constitutional components included in the antenna system, such as configurations other than the configuration described above, e.g., the permittivity of the carrier, the size of the carrier, the shape of the carrier, the number of unit cells, and the like.
While the present invention has been described with reference to the particular illustrative embodiments, it is not to be restricted by the embodiments but only by the appended claims. It is to be appreciated that those skilled in the art can change or modify the embodiments without departing from the scope and spirit of the present invention. Modules, functional blocks, or means of the present embodiment may be embodied as any of various commonly-used devices, such as electronic circuits, integrated circuits, application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), or the like, where each of modules, functional blocks, or means may be embodied as individual devices or two or more of the modules, the functional blocks, or the means may be unified to a single device. While the present invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to exemplary embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the following claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
10-2009-0017610 | Mar 2009 | KR | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
---|---|---|---|---|
PCT/KR10/01270 | 3/2/2010 | WO | 00 | 11/21/2011 |