2009 International ITG Workshop on Smart Antennas WSA 2009, February 1618, Berlin, Germany

Performance of Printed Dipoles on Dual Band

High-Impedance Surface
D. Kornek 1 , S. Hampel , I. Kiral , I. Rolfes
Institut fur Hochfrequenztechnik und Funksysteme, Leibniz Universitat Hannover
Appelstr. 9A, 30167 Hannover, Germany
1

kornek@hft.uni-hannover.de

Abstract This paper investigates the characteristics of a

printed dual band cross-dipole mounted on a High-Impedance
Surface (HIS) designed for fLow = 2.4 GHz and fHi = 5.4 GHz.
The HIS operates as an artificial magnetic conductor for both
frequencies by using a rectangular periodic structure at a fixed
distance of 1 mm. Thus, the farfield for both frequencies of
the cross-dipole radiates with an increased gain in the upper
hemisphere compared to free space dipoles, whereas in the back
of the antenna geometry electronical components can be placed.

I. I NTRODUCTION
During the last years the requirements on antenna designs
have grown rapidly. On the one hand, especially in terms of
wireless devices, a size reduction of the whole antenna is
demanded to increase the number of antennas on the same
area to cover various frequencies or to use diversity and
MIMO concepts. On the other hand minimized coupling to the
environment is desired for applications, in which the antenna
is mounted on top of the system. In this case a significant
front to back ratio of the antenna is required to shield the
circuitry against unwanted radiation, which can be achieved
by conventional microstrip antennas, e.g patch structures or
antennas with complex substrates.
A novel possibility to fulfil the requirements is the use of
High-Impedance Surfaces, also known as artificial magnetic
conductors (AMC), in the reactive antenna near-field, which
leads to both miniaturization and performance enhancement
of the antenna in terms of gain and bandwidth, reported in
[1] for a dipole and a patch antenna in combination with a
High-Impedance Surface. Additionally, in [2] the shielding
of the HIS is used to design a low profile antenna in a
handset, whereby in [3] a bow-tie antenna in combination with
an AMC is investigated for 4G communication services. As
diversity schemes are mandatory in modern wireless systems,
in [4] the diversity performance of a printed cross-dipole
over a HIS is investigated. While these publications mainly
discuss monoband applications the authors in [5] focus on
design methodologies for multiband High-Impedance surfaces
by modifying the shapes geometry.
This paper highlights the advantages due to the combination
of a printed dual band cross-dipole with a dual band HIS.
This design leads to an antenna supporting different wireless
services including the advantages in terms of antenna size
reduction, coupling and gain.

The article is organized as follows: Section II introduces the

HIS design based upon the underlying theory and provides
a dual band reflector for fLow = 2.4 GHz and fHi =
5.4 GHz. Section III briefly describes the simulation setup
of the complete antenna including HIS and presents results
regarding antenna characterization. Conclusions are presented
in Section IV.
II. P RINCIPLE OF D UAL BAND HIS
The HIS is a composite material consisting of a capacitive
frequency selective surface (FSS) on a conductor backed
dielectric substrate. In general, the textured surface be considered as a two-dimensional filter, which conducts DC currents
but suppresses the propagation of AC currents within a forbidden frequency band. The periodic surface with a periodicity of
a can be described by the transmission line theory assuming
that the geometry parameters of a unit cell a, g, t ef f
are much smaller than the effective wavelength of the design
frequency, see Fig. 1 a).
g
a
+
+ C t

0r
L

a)

b)

Fig. 1. Side view of two unit cells a), equivalent parallel resonant circuit b)

According to [6] the HIS can be simulated as a parallel

 reso
nant circuit with its resonant frequency fres = 1/ 2 LC
as depicted in Fig. 1 b), wherein the effective capacitance
C and the effective inductance L depend on the gap width
g, the substrate height t, the periodicity a and the effective
dielectric constant ef f . The resonant frequency is determined
by calculating the inductance and the capacitance based on
the equations presented in [6] and [7]. At this frequency
the extremely high surface impedance of the structure leads
to a reflection coefficient of = 1 and a reflection phase

2009 International ITG Workshop on Smart Antennas WSA 2009, February 1618, Berlin, Germany

of = 0 . Furthermore the reflection phase is used to

define the operational bandwidth, while the corner frequencies
correspond to values of = 90 , see [6].
To obtain a planar dual band HIS for fLow = 2.4 GHz and
fHi = 5.4 GHz the independency of the geometric parameters
in the orthogonal direction of the incident TE field reported
in [7] is exploited, leading to a rectangular shape of the unit
cell, see Fig. 2.

x
ay

gy

gx
lHi
xSub

y
ax

gy

gx
2

ay

lLow
ySub
z

ax

tAnt
t

0r
Fig. 2.

Side view of rectangular shaped unit cells

The corresponding geometry parameters are evaluated for

a substrate height of t = 6 mm and a permittivity r = 3.55
(Rogers4003) resulting in ax = 2.2 mm, gx = 0.3 mm, ay =
9.5 mm and gy = 0.1 mm. This unit cell is simulated with
a commercial 3D fieldsover and the simulation results of the
reflection phase are depicted in Fig. 2 for an incident TE wave
parallel to the x- and y-axis, respectively.

180
TE

150

TE

120

90

/ deg

60
30
0
-30

Fig. 4.

Dipole on HIS

The resulting HIS consists of six patches in x- and ydirection and has maximal dimensions of xsub = 32.1 mm
and ysub = 68.6 mm. Furthermore, the following geometric
parameters ax = 3.3 mm, gx = 0.3 mm, ay = 9.7 mm,
gy = 0.1 mm, lHi = 7.35 mm and llow = 19 mm are used in
the simulations. The corresponding input reflection coefficient
S11 for both dipoles is shown in Fig. 5 and the resonance
behavior of the complete setup approximately meets the design
frequencies with S11 11 dB at fLow = 2.4 GHz, see the
red curve, and S11 11 dB at fHi = 5.4 GHz. The black
curve yields a better S11 for higher frequencies with -22 dB at
f = 5.9 GHz, what might be explained by the capacitive load
of the dipoles. Additionally, the black curve shows a second
resonance at f = 4.25 GHz with S11 19 dB.

-60
-90
-120

-150

Dipole 5.4GHz

-180

Dipole 2.4GHz
2,0

2,5

3,0

3,5

4,0

4,5

5,0

5,5

6,0

Frequency / GHz

III. A NTENNA S ETUP AND S IMULATION R ESULTS

In the following an antenna and the HIS are combined,
in which the printed cross-dipole is mounted on a substrate
with a height of tAnt = 1 mm and a permittivity r = 3.55
for practical reasons, see Fig. 4. As this affects the effective
medium of the HIS and modifies the r used for the single
HIS design, the geometry parameters have to be evaluated for
the complete setup.

-10

11

At both frequency points fLow = 2.4 GHz and fHi =

5.4 GHz the reflection phase of the structure equals = 0 ,
which enables a periodic surface consisting of these patches
to be an ideal near field reflector for an antenna.

Reflection phase of the rectangular shaped unit cell

/ dB

-5

Fig. 3.

-15

-20

-25
1,0

1,5

2,0

2,5

3,0

3,5

4,0

4,5

5,0

5,5

6,0

6,5

Frequency / GHz

Fig. 5.

Dipole on HIS

To prove the functionality of the HIS, in Fig. 6 and Fig. 7

the simulated realized gain for the design frequencies of the
HIS and f = 4.25 GHz are depicted in the xz- and yz-plane.

2009 International ITG Workshop on Smart Antennas WSA 2009, February 1618, Berlin, Germany

G2.4 GHZ
G4.25 GHz

/ deg

330

30
5

G5.4 GHz

300

60

-5
270

90
-5

240

IV. C ONCLUSION
120

0
5
210

150
180

Fig. 6.

Comparing the radiation patterns of higher order modes of a

rectangular patch with the curve in Fig. 7 results in a possible T M30 mode. Therefore, the wavelength in the effective
medium for f = 4.25 GHz is estimated to approximately
= 38 mm. The side length including all patches parallel
to the y-axis is 58.2 mm, which equals nearly 32 and for this
reason confirms the patch theory. One possibility to suppress
this parasitic mode can be to introduce vias from HIS to
ground and will be investigated further.

Simulated realized gain in dBi in elevation, xz-plane

The paper presents a compact dual band antenna for WLAN

applications consisting of a dual band HIS and a cross-dipole.
The simulation results indicate, that the antenna offers a gain
of 3.8 dBi at fLow = 2.4 GHz and 6.3 dBi at fHi = 5.4 GHz
in z-direction, which is achieved by adjusting the reflection
phase of the HIS to this frequency points. Due to the size of
the HIS a parasitic patch mode is excited at f = 4.25 GHz,
which needs further investigation.

For the smaller dipole parallel to the x-axis, the gain reaches
approximately 6.3 dBi at fHi = 5.4 GHz in z-direction, while
the amount in the negative hemisphere is negligible, compare
Fig. 6. For this frequency the shape of the gain pattern in xzplane shows nearly the ideal constructive superposition caused
by the reflecting HIS, while it is slightly disturbed in the yzplane caused by the orthogonal dipole. At the lower resonance
frequency fLow = 2.4 GHz the gain in xz- and yz-plane has
its maximum at = 0 with 3.8 dBi. Also, this curves indicate
that the HIS operates well, as in negative z-direction the gain
decreases heavily.
Finally, the gain pattern at f = 4.25 GHz will be discussed
shortly, since the shape of the gain pattern in the yz-plane
with nearly three equal maxima at = 90 , 0 , 90 leads to
the assumption, that a patch mode radiates at this frequency.
R EFERENCES
G2.4 GHz
G4.25 GHz

/ deg

330

30
5

G5.4 GHz

300

60

-5
270

90
-5

240

120

0
5
210

150
180

Fig. 7.

Simulated realized gain in dBi in elevation, yz-plane

[1] H. Mosallaei and K. Sarabandi, Antenna miniaturization and bandwidth

enhancement using a reactive impedance substrate, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 52, pp. 24032414, Sept. 2004.
[2] R. F. J. Broas, D. F. Sievenpiper, and E. Yablonovitch, A high-impedance
ground plane applied to a cellphone handset geometry, IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propagat., vol. 49, pp. 12621265, July 2001.
[3] E. Carrubba, S. Genovesi, A. Monorchio, and G. Manara, Amc-based
low profile antennas for 4g communication services, in Proc. IEEE
Antennas and Propagation International Symposium APS07), Honolulu,
USA, June 2007, pp. 33643367.
[4] O. Schmitz, S. K. Hampel, I. Rolfes, and H. Eul, Impact of sievenpiper
high impedance surfaces on the performance of planar cross-dipole
polarization diversity antennas, in Proc. IEEE of the 10th European
Conference on Wireless Technology (ECWT07), Munich, Germany, Oct.
2007, pp. 118121.
[5] D. Kern et al., The design synthesis of multiband artificial magnetic
conductors using high impedance frequency selective surfaces, IEEE
Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 53, pp. 817, Jan. 2005.
[6] D. Sievenpieper et al., High-impedance electromagnetic surfaces with a
forbidden frequency band, IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 47,
pp. 20592074, Nov. 1999.
[7] C. R. Simovski, P. de Maagt, and I. V. Melchakova, High-impedance
surfaces having stable resonance with respect to polarization and incidence angle, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 53, pp. 908913,
Mar. 2005.