EP1933418A1 - Abstimmungsverfahren für eine Antenne mit einem variabelen Kurzschlussmittel und Flachantenne mit einem variabelen Kurzschlussmittel - Google Patents

Abstimmungsverfahren für eine Antenne mit einem variabelen Kurzschlussmittel und Flachantenne mit einem variabelen Kurzschlussmittel Download PDF

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Publication number
EP1933418A1
EP1933418A1 EP06077256A EP06077256A EP1933418A1 EP 1933418 A1 EP1933418 A1 EP 1933418A1 EP 06077256 A EP06077256 A EP 06077256A EP 06077256 A EP06077256 A EP 06077256A EP 1933418 A1 EP1933418 A1 EP 1933418A1
Authority
EP
European Patent Office
Prior art keywords
antenna
length
shorting
shorting means
planar
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Withdrawn
Application number
EP06077256A
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English (en)
French (fr)
Inventor
J. I. Epson Europe Electronics GmbH Cairo Molins
Lluis Universitat Politecnica Jofre Roca
Raquel Universitat Politecnica Serrano Calvo
Sebastian Universitat Politecnica Blanch Borios
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
Seiko Epson Corp
Original Assignee
Seiko Epson Corp
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Seiko Epson Corp filed Critical Seiko Epson Corp
Priority to EP06077256A priority Critical patent/EP1933418A1/de
Publication of EP1933418A1 publication Critical patent/EP1933418A1/de
Withdrawn legal-status Critical Current

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Classifications

    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H01—ELECTRIC ELEMENTS
    • H01Q—ANTENNAS, i.e. RADIO AERIALS
    • H01Q9/00—Electrically-short antennas having dimensions not more than twice the operating wavelength and consisting of conductive active radiating elements
    • H01Q9/04—Resonant antennas
    • H01Q9/0407—Substantially flat resonant element parallel to ground plane, e.g. patch antenna
    • H01Q9/0421—Substantially flat resonant element parallel to ground plane, e.g. patch antenna with a shorting wall or a shorting pin at one end of the element

Definitions

  • the invention relates to a new technique used to tune planar antennas by means of a shorting wall.
  • the general application fields of the invention are digital communications, particularly wireless/mobile digital communications, the mentioned multi-layer antennas being ultra-thin or IC compatible, that is, having a thickness of about 1 mm.
  • IC integrated technologies are able to deal with transversal dimensions (W) below the centimetre, and thickness below the millimetre.
  • current solutions tend to combine the antenna and the associated electronics into a back to back architecture, which normally prevents the antenna to be fully integrated into the IC package.
  • transversal dimensions 2 cm and thickness of 4 mm for single layer antennas are needed.
  • multilayer solutions are used for frequency bandwidth increase or multifrequency operation, several times the current thickness are additionally needed, which is totally incompatible with the IC dimensions.
  • the solution proposed in the present invention provides a new IC compatible technique to tune planar antennas by means of a shorting wall and to create reconfigurable antennas.
  • shorting walls have been used as a technique to reduce the overall size of a patch antenna.
  • the longitudinal dimension can be halved using a shorting wall in one of the ends of the structure, at the cost of halving the bandwidth.
  • a shorting wall which has a defined length. Indeed, by shorting one of the end walls of the patch antenna to the ground plane as indicated before it is possible to reduce the size of the antenna, but it is also possible to adapt the antenna impedance seen at the feeding point to a desired value.
  • This shorting wall can be made, for example, by means of a planar metallic wall.
  • the planar invert-F antenna is one of the most well-known and documented small patch antennas. Actually, the PIFA can be viewed as a shorted-patch (S-P) antenna.
  • the F-antenna can be thought of as a tilted whip, where impedance matching is done by tapping the antenna at the appropriate impedance point. Because this antenna is reasonably compact, has an omnidirectional radiation pattern, good efficiency, and is very simple, it is used extensively in applications, including the mobile communications business. For such antennas the currents in the ground leg are high, and then a good sized ground plane is necessary to provide good efficiency.
  • the present invention permits a shorted-patch antenna to be tuned at the volition of its user, by varying the length of the shorting wall.
  • the invention refers to method of tuning an IC compatible planar antenna according to claim 1 and to an IC compatible planar antenna according to claim 7. Preferred embodiments of the method and the antenna are defined in the dependent claims.
  • a first aspect of the invention relates to a method of tuning an IC compatible planar antenna, said antenna comprising a lower ground plane, an upper active layer and feeding means, the method comprising:
  • the method further comprises:
  • the longitudinal dimension can be halved at the cost of halving the bandwidth; and by further varying or adapting the length of the shorting means, the characteristic impedance of the feeding point can be matched or adapted.
  • Said shorting means may comprise a planar metallic wall.
  • the shorting means may comprise discrete connections between the active plane to the ground plane, and the distance between said discrete connections is in the order of a tenth of the wavelength or below.
  • Said discrete connections may consist in small wires, posts or vias.
  • the means for varying the length of the shorting means comprises an array of transistors each of which is connected at one end with each the post or via and at the other end with the ground plane.
  • Such transistors act as a switch and are controlled or governed by a control signal which defines when and which of the posts or vias should be shorted.
  • Such transistors may be implemented in CMOS technologies, for example, as well as the control circuitry for such switching transistors.
  • the means for varying the length of the shorting means may comprise an array of transistors, each of which is connected between two successive layers in a substantially aligned vertical point, creating a vertical short.
  • a second aspect of the invention relates to an IC compatible planar antenna, which comprises a lower ground plane, an upper active layer and feeding means, the antenna comprising:
  • the antenna further comprises:
  • Said shorting means may comprise a planar metallic wall.
  • the shorting means may comprises discrete connections between the active plane to the ground plane, and the distance between said discrete connections being in the order of a tenth of the wavelength or below.
  • Said discrete connections may consist in small wires, posts or vias.
  • the means for varying the length of the shorting means comprises an array of transistors each of which is connected at one end with each post or via, and at the other end with the ground plane.
  • the means for varying the length of the shorting means may comprise an array of transistors, each of which is connected between two successive layers in a substantially aligned vertical point, creating a vertical short.
  • Such transistors act as a switch and are controlled by a control signal which defines when and which of the posts should be shorted.
  • Such transistors may be implemented in CMOS technologies, for example, as well as the control circuitry for such switching transistors.
  • the resulting architecture is suitable for monolithic integration.
  • the overall planar dimensions of the multi-layer antenna are in the order of a tenth of the wavelength ⁇ /10; and the thickness of the multi-layer planar antenna is approximately a hundredth of the wavelength ⁇ /100 or below.
  • the solution proposed here provides an antenna geometry which is fully compatible with the multilayer IC technology, meaning that the antenna is designed using the multi-layer IC frame itself in such a way that small, efficient integrated antennas may be designed. For doing so transversal and thickness dimensions are simultaneously reduced due to the particular matching effect between the highly unequal input port impedance and the antenna radiation impedance produced by the compacted multi-layer structure where the thickness of the layers is in the order of tenths of millimetres (1/10's mm) very differently from the tens of millimetres (10's mm) used on the conventional multilayer antenna geometries.
  • the tuning method of the present invention is preferably applicable to antennas as defined in EP application No. 05078048.5 , and so are the antennas themselves.
  • Figures 1A and 1B show a conventional rectangular patch antenna, and that same antenna with a length-variable shorting wall, respectively.
  • Figure 2 shows three-dimensional view of a folded patch-antenna, wherein a shorting wall has been applied.
  • Figure 3 shows three-dimensional view of a coplanar multi-layer transformer patch-antenna, wherein a shorting wall has been applied.
  • Figure 4 shows a possible embodiment of the means for varying the length of the shorting means.
  • Figure 1A shows a conventional ⁇ /2 rectangular patch antenna 10, having the following dimensions: length L, width W, and thickness h, and with a feeding point 20. In this case it is fed my means of a coaxial cable. Nevertheless, other feeding means are also possible such as a microstrip feed or the different coplanar line geometries.
  • Figure 1B shows how the method of tuning in the present invention is achieved: with the same patch antenna 10 of figure 1A , one of its ends is shorted by a shorting wall 30, which has a variable length ⁇ L. This way, by variably shorting the wall in one of the ends of the antenna, the characteristic impedance seen at the feeding point can be matched or adapted.
  • each transistor 40 connects vertically two successive layers of the antenna 10 in a substantially aligned vertical point (the representation of the connections has been enlarged for the sake of a better comprehension of the left part of figure 4 ). If the number of layers is N, using N-1 transistors 40 all the layers can be connected or shorted at essentially the same vertical point, that is, creating a vertical short 41 (schematically shown on the right hand of figure 4 ). This technique can be reproduces many times to create the desired number of vertical shorts 41, 51, It is important that the distance between shorts is at least ten times smaller than the resonant wavelength of the antenna. Said transistors can be controlled in order the switching functionality, for example, by means of extra logic circuitry easily integrated on the silicon substrate.

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EP06077256A 2006-12-15 2006-12-15 Abstimmungsverfahren für eine Antenne mit einem variabelen Kurzschlussmittel und Flachantenne mit einem variabelen Kurzschlussmittel Withdrawn EP1933418A1 (de)

Priority Applications (1)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
EP06077256A EP1933418A1 (de) 2006-12-15 2006-12-15 Abstimmungsverfahren für eine Antenne mit einem variabelen Kurzschlussmittel und Flachantenne mit einem variabelen Kurzschlussmittel

Applications Claiming Priority (1)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
EP06077256A EP1933418A1 (de) 2006-12-15 2006-12-15 Abstimmungsverfahren für eine Antenne mit einem variabelen Kurzschlussmittel und Flachantenne mit einem variabelen Kurzschlussmittel

Publications (1)

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EP1933418A1 true EP1933418A1 (de) 2008-06-18

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EP06077256A Withdrawn EP1933418A1 (de) 2006-12-15 2006-12-15 Abstimmungsverfahren für eine Antenne mit einem variabelen Kurzschlussmittel und Flachantenne mit einem variabelen Kurzschlussmittel

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EP (1) EP1933418A1 (de)

Cited By (1)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
CN104662735B (zh) * 2012-07-23 2017-04-12 Lg伊诺特有限公司 天线设备

Citations (3)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US4379296A (en) * 1980-10-20 1983-04-05 The United States Of America As Represented By The Secretary Of The Army Selectable-mode microstrip antenna and selectable-mode microstrip antenna arrays
US6946999B1 (en) * 2004-06-14 2005-09-20 The United States Of America As Represented By The Secretary Of The Navy Tuning tabs for a microstrip antenna
EP1689023A1 (de) * 2005-02-04 2006-08-09 Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Japan, Inc. Antennenvorrichtung und damit ausgestattetes mobiles Endgerät

Patent Citations (3)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US4379296A (en) * 1980-10-20 1983-04-05 The United States Of America As Represented By The Secretary Of The Army Selectable-mode microstrip antenna and selectable-mode microstrip antenna arrays
US6946999B1 (en) * 2004-06-14 2005-09-20 The United States Of America As Represented By The Secretary Of The Navy Tuning tabs for a microstrip antenna
EP1689023A1 (de) * 2005-02-04 2006-08-09 Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Japan, Inc. Antennenvorrichtung und damit ausgestattetes mobiles Endgerät

Non-Patent Citations (2)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Title
LEE K F ET AL: "Theory and experiment on microstrip patch antennas with shorting walls", IEE PROCEEDINGS H. MICROWAVES, ANTENNAS & PROPAGATION, INSTITUTION OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS. STEVENAGE, GB, vol. 147, no. 6, 8 December 2000 (2000-12-08), pages 521 - 525, XP006014310, ISSN: 0950-107X *
SATPATHY S K ET AL: "Compact microstrip antennas for personal mobile communication", TENCON '98. 1998 IEEE REGION 10 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON GLOBAL CONNECTIVITY IN ENERGY, COMPUTER, COMMUNICATION AND CONTROL NEW DELHI, INDIA 17-19 DEC. 1998, PISCATAWAY, NJ, USA,IEEE, US, vol. 2, 17 December 1998 (1998-12-17), pages 245 - 248, XP010355571, ISBN: 0-7803-4886-9 *

Cited By (2)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
CN104662735B (zh) * 2012-07-23 2017-04-12 Lg伊诺特有限公司 天线设备
US9819078B2 (en) 2012-07-23 2017-11-14 Lg Innotek Co., Ltd. Antenna apparatus

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