The present invention relates to techniques for creating multiple antenna diversity on mobile telephone handsets, PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) and other electrically small radio platforms. Embodiments of the present invention enable a plurality of antennas to be simultaneously mounted in an electrically small space and yet have good diversity, as indicated by measured low cross-correlations between their 3-D antenna patterns. Diversity is required to combat the multipath problem and is particularly needed when high data transmission rates are required.
Embodiments of the present invention may incorporate various types of antenna devices, including dielectric resonator antennas (DRAs), high dielectric antennas (HDAs), dielectrically loaded antennas (DLAs), dielectrically excited antennas (DEAs) and traditional conductive antennas made out of electrically conductive materials.
DRAs ale well known in the prior art, and generally are formed as a pellet of a high permittivity dielectric material, such as a ceramic material, that is excited by a direct microstrip feed, by an aperture or slot feed or by a probe inserted into the dielectric material. A DRA generally requires a conductive groundplane or grounded substrate. In a DRA, the main radiator is the dielectric pellet, radiation being generated by displacement currents induced in the dielectric material
HDAs are similar to DRAs, but instead of having a full ground plane located under the dielectric pellet, HDAs have a smaller ground plane or no ground plane at all. DRAs generally have a deep, well-defined resonant frequency, whereas HDAs tend to have a less well-defined response, but operate over a wider range of frequencies. Again, the primary radiator in the dielectric pellet.
A DLA generally has the form of an electrically conductive element that is contacted by a dielectric element, for example a ceramic element of suitable shape. The primary radiator in a DLA is the electrically conductive element, but its radiating properties are modified by the dielectric element so as to allow a DLA to have smaller dimensions than a traditional conductive antenna with the same performance.
A further type of antenna recently developed by the present applicant is the dielectrically excited antenna (DEA). A DEA comprises a DRA, HDA or DLA used in conjunction with a conductive antenna, for example a planar inverted-L antenna (PILA) or planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA). In a DEA, the dielectric antenna component (i.e. the DRA, HDA or DLA) is driven, and a conductive antenna located in close proximity to the dielectric antenna is parasitically excited by the dielectric antenna, often radiating at a different frequency so as to provide dual or multi band operation. Alternatively, the conductive antenna may be driven so as parasitically to drive the dielectric antenna.
An important problem facing antenna designers, in particular today where many portable appliances such as computers, mobile telephones, computer peripherals and the like communicate with each other in a wireless manner, is to provide good diversity within a small space. In telecommunications and radar applications it is often desirable to have two or more antennas that give a different or diverse ‘view’ of an incoming signal. Generally speaking, the different views of the signal can be combined to achieve some optimum or at least improved performance such as maximum or at least improved signal to noise ratio, minimum or at least reduced interference maximum or at least improved carrier to interference ratio, and so forth. Signal diversity using several antennas can be achieved by separating the antennas (spatial diversity), by pointing the antennas in different directions (pattern or directional diversity) or by using different polarisations (polarisation diversity). Antenna diversity is also important fox overcoming the multi-path problem, where an incoming signal is reflected off buildings and other structures resulting in a plurality of differently phased components of the same signal
A significant problem arises when diversity is required from a small space or volume such that the antennas have to be closely spaced. An example of this is when a PCMCIA card, inserted into a laptop computer, is used to connect to the external world by radio. Most high data rate radio links require diversity to obtain the necessary level of performance, but the space available on a PCMCIA card is generally of the order of about ⅓ of a wavelength. At such a close spacing, most antennas will couple closely together and will therefore tend to behave like a single antenna. In addition, there is little isolation between the antennas and, consequently, there is little diversity or difference in performance between the antennas. As a rule, about −20 dB coupling (isolation) is the target specification between antennas operating on the same band for a PCMCIA card. For access points (in WLAN and the like applications), which are rather like micro-base stations, even greater isolation is required, about 40 dB being desirable. Such high isolation is extremely hard to achieve with conventional antennas when the access points are the size of domestic smoke alarms and less than a wavelength across. Similarly with laptop computers, isolation between WLAN and Bluetooth® antennas of −40 dB or more is seen as desirable.
A method of creating good diversity at the Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) frequency of 2.4 GHz has been published [“Printed diversity monopole antenna for WLAN operation”, T-Y Wu, et. al., Electronics Letters, 38, 25, Dec. 2002]. This paper describes how to remove the ground plane on the underside of a printed circuit board (PCB) so that the end section of a microstrip on the top surface becomes a radiating monopoly. This is shown in
The antenna system discussed above is relatively narrow band and no method of extending the bandwidth or other aspects of antenna performance, is offered. As described in the paper by Wu et al., this type of antenna does not have sufficient bandwidth to be used in a mobile communications system.
It is part of accepted antenna theory that ‘fat’ monopoles can be designed to have wider band performance than ‘thin’ monopoles, see for example, [“The handbook of antenna design”, O. Rudge, et. al., Peter Peregrinus Ltd, 1986] where rectangular and conical shaped monopoles are shown to have very broadband responses. A recent paper [“Annular planar monopole antennas”, Z. N. Chen, et. al., IEE Proc—Microw. Antennas Propag., 149, 4, 200-203, 2002] describes how a monopole shaped as a circular disk or annulus can have broadband impedance and radiation characteristics. A recent book [“Broadband microstrip antennas”, G. Kumar & K. P Ray, Artech House, 2003] describes how the fat dipole concepts can be extended to printed microstrip antennas (MSAs).
None of the references above make any mention of diversity or of using more than one monopole at a time.
All of the references identified above are hereby incorporated into the present application by way of reference, and are thus to be considered as part of the present disclosure.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an antenna device including a dielectric substrate having a first upper surface and a second, lower surface, a conductive groundplane on the second surface or located between the first and second surfaces, and at least two conductive feedlines formed on the first surface and extending from feed points to predetermined radiating points at edge or corner parts of the first surface, wherein the groundplane does not extend under the radiating points, characterised in that the groundplane is configured as to extend between the radiating points and in that the feedlines are widened at the radiating points and/or are provided with discrete dielectric elements at the radiating points.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided an antenna device including a dielectric substrate having a first, upper surface and a second, lower surface, a conductive groundplane on the second surface or located between the first and second surfaces, and four conductive feedlines formed on the first surface and extending from feed points to predetermined radiating points at edge or corner parts of the first surface, wherein the groundplane does not extend under the radiating points, characterised in that the groundplane is configured as to extend between the radiating points and in that two of the radiating points are located at adjacent corner parts of the first surface and two of the radiating points are located at opposed edge parts of the first surface.
In general, the conductive feedlines are supplied with energy at the feed points by way of electrical connections that pass through the dielectric substrate and through gaps or holes in the conductive groundplane. In this way, the electrical connections can be joined to signal lines on the underside of the substrate without shorting to the conductive groundplane. It is preferred to locate the signal lines underneath the groundplane so as to shield the radiating points and thus to reduce possible interference with the radiating characteristics of the antenna device. Other feeding arrangements may be used and will be well known to those of ordinary skill in the art.
The conductive feedlines may be configured as microstrip feedlines printed on the dielectric substrate in a known manner.
In a particularly preferred embodiment of the present invention, there are provided four conductive feedlines and thus four radiating points on the first surface.
In one variation of this embodiment, the dielectric substrate may be generally rectangular in shape with four coiner regions and four edges, with the conductive feedlines extending into the foul corner regions from a region or regions of the first surface above the conductive groundplane. The conductive groundplane is configured so as not to extend into the four corner regions of the substrate, but to extend to all four edges of the substrate. Four radiating points are thus defined on the first surface at the four corner regions.
In an alternative variation of this embodiment, the radiating points may be brought closer together by locating a first pair of radiating points in two adjacent corner regions of the first surface as before, and locating the other two radiating points at opposed edge regions of the first surface of the substrate between the two adjacent coiner regions beaming the first pair of radiating points and the remaining two corner regions. The conductive groundplane is then configured so as not to extend underneath the two radiating points on the opposed edge regions, but may extend into the two corner regions not beating radiating points.
In an alternative embodiment of the present invention, the substrate may be triangular in shape, preferably being an equilateral triangle. As before, the conductive groundplane does not extend into corner regions of the second surface, and three conductive feedlines are provided on the first surface and respectively extend into the three corner regions thereof to define three radiating points.
In general, similar configurations may be provided on any polygonal substrate, for example pentagonal, hexagonal, heptagonal, octagonal and so forth. Indeed, it is not so much the shape of the substrate that is important, but more the relative arrangement of the radiating points and the groundplane. However, given that one aim of embodiments of the present invention is to provide multiple broadband antenna diversity on a small radio platform, it is generally desirable for the substrate to have as mall an area as possible so that it can easily be contained within a small device such as a mobile telephone handset or a WLAN access point. In order to maximse spatial efficiency, the radiating points are advantageously located at corner or edge regions of the first surface of the substrate.
Notwithstanding the above, consideration of the practical aspects of constructing several diversity antennas on an electrically small platform generally leads to the conclusion that an even number of radiating points is preferable to an odd number, and that a particularly preferred number of radiating points (i.e. individual diversity antennas) is four. One reason for this is that four radiating points/antennas can be arranged to point in four directions mutually at right angles to each other, and coupling between the antennas can thus be reduced. Furthermore, driving the four radiating points/antennas pairwise rather than individually enables greater directivity. Four radiating points/antennas is considered to be especially useful for implementing the BLAST® communication technique developed by Lucent®/Bell Labs® for increasing data communication rates.
The feedlines may be printed on the first surface by conventional techniques, and may be made of copper or other suitable conductive materials. Any other suitable techniques may be used to form the feedlines.
To achieve broadband operation, the feedlines may be wider or thicker at the radiating points than they are along their lengths. This makes use of the ‘fat’ monopole technique outlined in the introduction to the present application. The radiating points may accordingly be configured as rectangles, cones, disks, ellipses, annuli, triangles, hexagons, polygons or other regular or irregular shapes.
Alternatively or in addition, the feedlines are provided with discrete dielectric elements at the radiating points so as to operate as DRAs, HDAs, DLAs or DEAs. The dielectric elements are preferably in the form of ceramic elements have a high relative permittivity, for example ετ>5, particularly preferably >10. The precise configuration of the dielectric elements in relation to the ends of the feedlines determines whether the radiating points act as DRAs, HDAs, DLAs or DEAs, as will be explained in more detail in the examples given hereinafter.
The dielectric elements may have any appropriate shape depending on the operating requirements of the antenna device. In currently preferred embodiments, the elements may have a wedge shape or be configured as a sector of a cylinder with a pointed end and a curved side. The pointed end may face outwardly from the corner region, or may face inwardly. In other embodiments, the elements may have a generally oblong shape. Other shapes may be used as required, for example: triangular prisms, triangular prisms with rounded corners, elongate thin curved elements, bridge-shaped elements, elements shaped as sections cut along a chord of a cylinder, and all of the shapes described here but having a top surface that curves down towards the edge of the dielectric substrate on which the elements are mounted rather than having a flat fop surface generally parallel to the substrate.
In preferred embodiments, the dielectric elements are soldered or otherwise attached on top of the feedlines in the corner or edge regions of the first surface of the substrate. Alternatively, the ends of the feedlines may be attached to a vertical side surface of the dielectric elements, or even extend on to top surfaces of the dielectric elements. The surfaces of the dielectric elements that contact the ends of the feedlines may be metallised, and in some embodiments at least inwardly facing side surfaces of the dielectric elements may also be metallised so as to improve isolation between the radiating points.
In some embodiments of the present invention, it is important that the dielectric elements are positioned on the first surface so that they do not overlap the groundplane, otherwise the antenna device will not function correctly. This is generally the case when the dielectric elements are configured to operate as DLAs or dielectrically loaded monopoles. In other embodiments, however, it is permissible for the dielectric elements to overlap the groundplane, for example when the elements are configured to operate in particular HDA modes.
For a better understanding of the present invention and to show how it may be carried into effect, reference shall now be made by way of example to the accompanying drawings, in which:
FIGS. 7 to 12 show various experimentally measured radiation patterns for the antenna device of
FIGS. 18 to 21 show reflection and transmission plots and a radiation pattern for each of the radiating points of the embodiment of
FIGS. 24 to 26 show various geometries for an antenna device of the present invention.
The two microstrip lines 3 are configured such that the radiating sections 4 point towards corners 9 of the substrate 1 and air disposed at 90 degrees to each other. No groundplane 2 is provided underneath the radiating sections 4.
This prior art antenna device has a narrow bandwidth in operation, and is acknowledged in the prior art to be unsuitable for mobile communications for this reason.
With the ceramic elements 16 in the position shown in
If the element 16 is rotated and positioned as shown in
FIGS. 7 to 12 show the radiation pattern of one of the antennas (i.e. radiating section 15 and dielectric element 16) of the device of
Specifically,
Antenna diversity can be created by polarisation diversity, spatial diversity or pattern/directional diversity. A major reason for the low cross-correlation figures shown in
In summary, the results presented show that placing antennas at corners of a handset can create an antenna system having a very wide impedance bandwidth and effective radiation patterns with positive dBi gain from 1.7-3 GHz Up to four antennas can be fitted onto a handset PCB. The antennas have very low cross correlations indicating that excellent diversity should be obtained from this antenna system.
The particular shape of the groundplane 2 of the embodiments of FIGS. 15 to 17 may be defined as being “comet”-shaped. Starting with a rectangular groundplane with two longer sides and two shorter sides, a trapezoidal section is removed from each of the two longer edges, and a corner section is removed from each side of one of the shorter edges. In this way, the radiating points are isolated from each other by positions of the groundplane while still leaving sufficient groundplane for mounting various other items of control electronics (not shown) on the PCB substrate.
FIGS. 24 to 26 show three different antenna geometries, with like parts being numbered as before.
Referring now to
When three antenna elements are disposed in a triangular configuration with the maximum possible angle between the planes of polarisation (expected to give the best diversity), as shown in
When four antenna elements are clustered with 90° rotations between them, as shown in
If five elements were to be used, the situation would be worse than fox three elements as there would only be 72° between polarisation planes instead of 120°.
Two or four elements thus present the best opportunity to get diversity on a handset, with four being preferable because of the increased diversity options and the possibility of implementing multiple-input multiple-output communications techniques such as the Lucent® BLAST® method.
The preferred features of the invention are applicable to all aspects of the invention and may be used in any possible combination.
Throughout the description and claims of this specification, the words “comprise” and “contain” and variations of the words, for example “comprising” and “comprises”, mean “including but not limited to”, and are not intended to (and do not) exclude other components, integers, moieties, additives or steps.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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0302818.0 | Feb 2003 | GB | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/GB04/00511 | 2/9/2004 | WO | 8/4/2005 |