A Broadband Antenna for AMPS+GSM Applications

G. Perikos1 & J. M. Rigelsford2

Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S1 3JD, UK
2 1 gperikos@upnet.gr j.m.rigelsford@sheffield.ac.uk

Abstract This paper presents an antenna element suitable

as a broadband AMPS/GSM900 antenna for cellular BTS applications. The suggested antenna model consists of a two layer aperture coupled patches which are capacitively fed with a metallic microstrip feed. Such a feed structure is suitable for antennas requiring beam steering. I. INTRODUCTION The necessity to support an increasing number of users in mobile cellular networks and to achieve higher data rates for new applications has led to the wider use and evolution of efficient broadband antennas capable of operating in two or more adjacent frequency bands [1,2]. Due to network capacity limitation mobile cellular networks have acquired licenses in different frequency bands. Considering it can be difficult finding suitable sites for base transceiver stations (BTS) and the high cost of establishing a new base station, it is often easier to re-fit existing site locations by replacing the antennas with broadband antennas that can operate over more than one adjacent frequency band. For example, using a broadband antenna that will cover the AMPS (806 880 MHz) and GSM900 (880 960 MHz) bands. This can lead to significantly reduced costs for the network operator since fewer antennas are installed at the mast head [3]. Furthermore, the costs for cables and installation of the BTS are reduced as one input port can be used for both bands and thereby eliminating the requirement for multiple feeder cables. [4]
PORT 2 (-45) GROUND PLANE PORT 1 (+45)

II. ANTENNA OVERVIEW This paper presents an antenna element suitable as a broadband AMPS/GSM900 antenna for cellular BTS applications as illustrated in Fig. 1. The suggested antenna model consists of a two layer aperture coupled patches which are capacitively fed with a metallic microstrip feed. This feeding structure uses a low loss foam to support the microstrip thereby improving the antenna efficiency. Such a feeding structure has the added benefit of being suitable for the addition of electro-magnetic phase shifters for antennas requiring beam steering. The design incorporates a dual feed to utilise polarisation diversity with E-fields at 45. The antenna element requires an input impedance of 50 for each polarisation, and with a VSWR of 1.3:1 being commonly required [1]. Isolation between the two ports should ideally be in the region of -30dB [5], and the antenna element should have a -3dB azimuth beamwidth of 65. It is envisaged that sequential pairs of elements would be combined with suitable amplitude tapers and phase shifts to produce the final BTS antenna.

COAXIAL TRANSITION FOAM

MICROSTRIP FEED

MICROSTRIP

Fig. 2 Antenna feed.

CAPACITIVELY FED LOWER PATCH

III. DESIGN & SIMULATION When designing any sophisticated antenna geometry it is important to establish a high level of confidence in any simulations. To achieve this goal, each significant part of the

APERTURE COUPLED PATCH

Fig. 1 Model of broadband AMPS/GSM antenna.

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antenna should be simulated and tested individually. All simulations presented in this paper were calculated using the time-domain solver in CST Microwave Studio. A. Antenna Feed The antenna feed is shown in Fig. 2 and comprises a small coaxial section and a microstrip, both having an input impedance of 50. The small coaxial section serves two purposes. Firstly, it is a reliable method for feeding the microstrip in the actual antenna and secondly it can be used to ensure that the fields generated by the modelled port are sensible and accurate. Fig. 3a and Fig. 3b show the electric and magnetic field components inside the small coaxial section.

0 -10 -20 -30 dB -40 -50 -60 -70 -80 750

0 -0.1 -0.2 -0.3 -0.4 -0.5 -0.6 -0.7 -0.8 1000 S11 S21

800

850

900

950

Frequency (MHz)

Fig. 4 Return loss (S11) and transmission magnitude (S21) of microstrip feed with coaxial connections.

MICROSTRIP

LOWER PATCH

CAPACITIVE COUPLING

a) a)

APERTURE IN LOWER PATCH FOR CAPACITIVE FEED

MICROSTRIP

b) b) Fig. 3 a) Electric and b) magnetic field components in coaxial feed.

MICROSTRIP

Fig. 4 shows the return loss for the microstrip with two small coaxial sections, which can be seen to be better than -30dB, equating to a VSWR better than 1.05:1. The transmission magnitude can be seen to be less than -0.1dB.

c) Fig. 5 a) Microstrip through ground plane and capacitive feed, b) electrical isolation of lower patch, c) mesh density around the capacitive feed.

APERTURE IN LOWER PATCH FOR CAPACITIVE FEED

MESH LINES

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B. Capacitively Coupled Patch The lower patch of the antenna is connected to the microstrip feed via capacitive coupling. Fig. 5a shows the microstrip feed coming through the ground plane and its connection to the upper side of the lower patch. A small area of copper has been removed from the under side of the patch around the feed to ensure electrical isolation. This is shown in Fig. 5b. The mesh density around the capacitive coupling is illustrated in Fig. 5c. IV. MEASUREMENTS & RESULTS A prototype of the capacitively fed broadband antenna was manufactured for testing and the results compared to those predicted by simulations. S-parameters of the antenna were measured using an Agilent 8720D Vector Network Analyser. Fig. 6 shows the measured and simulated return loss for each port, whereby S11 is the return loss for port 1, and S22 is the return loss for port 2. The isolation between the two ports is shown as S21 in Fig. 7. Typical requirements for VSWR and isolation for two port cellular antennas are given in [1,5].
0 -5 -10 -15 dB -20 -25 -30 -35 750 S1,1 Measured S2,2 Measured S1,1 Simulated S2,2 Simulated

0 -5 -10 -15 -20 dB -25 -30 -35 -40 -45 -50 750 S2,1 Measured S2,1 Simulated

800

850 900 Frequency (MHz)

950

1000

Fig. 7 A comparison between measured and predicted results for the isolation between the two antenna ports.

Measured radiation patterns are presented in Fig. 8. It can be seen that the design produces an azimuth beamwidth of approximately 65.
10 806 MHz 5 883 MHz 960 MHz 0 Directivity (dB)

-5

-10

-15

-20

-25

800

850 900 Frequency (MHz)

950

1000

-180

-150

-120

-90

-60

-30

30

60

90

120

150

180

Angle (degrees)

Fig. 6 A comparison between measured and predicted return loss for the antenna.

Fig. 8 Measured antenna radiation patterns.

The results presented in Fig. 6 and 7 show a clear discrepancy between the simulated and measured Sparameters. A large number of simulations were conducted, whereby each time different meshing properties were used. These ranged from 2.5 to 7 million mesh cells but repeatedly produced very similar S-parameter results. Therefore, simulations were run where additional meshing points were added to the feeding structure, and spot frequencies were tested using the frequency domain solver. Again, these simulation results remained consistent and did not agree with the measurements. A second prototype was tested and the results were found to be in excellent agreement with the first. Furthermore, a simulation model was constructed where the feed lines were removed in order to monitor the effects of the feed impedance on the results. Unsurprisingly, this had a minimal effect on the simulated values for the S-parameters as the feed structure is well matched and has very little transmission loss (as shown in Fig. 4).

V. DISCUSSION & CONCLUSIONS This paper has presented an antenna element suitable as a broadband AMPS/GSM900 antenna for cellular BTS applications. The suggested antenna design consists of a two layer, aperture coupled patches which are capacitively fed with a metallic microstrip feed. The design incorporates a dual feed to utilise polarisation diversity with E-fields at 45. Results obtained from the prototype antenna have been shown to be suitable for such an application. The discrepancies between the predicted and measured results are the focus of ongoing investigation.

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REFERENCES
[1] B. Lindmark, A dual polarized dual-band microstrip antenna for wireless communications, IEEE Aerospace Conference Proceedings, Volume 3, 1998. Suh Seong-Youp, A. E. Waltho, V. K. Nair, W. L. Stutzman, W. A. Davis, Evolution of broadband antennas from monopole disc to dualpolarized antenna, IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium, 2006. S. Hunziker, W. Baechtold, Cellular Remote Antenna Feeding : Optical Fible or Coaxial Cable, IEE, Electronic Letters, Vol.28, No. 1, 1998. A. A. Serra, P. Nepa, G. Manara, G. Tribellini, S. Cioci, A wide-band dual-polarized stacked patch antenna, IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, Volume 6, 2007. Yong-Xin Guo, Kwai-Man Luk, and Kai-Fong Lee Broadband Dual Polarization Patch Element for Cellular-Phone Base Stations IEEE Trans. Antennas & Propag. Vol. 50, No. 2, Feb 2002.

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

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