EBG PIFA Design for WLAN Applications1

Qi Luo (1), Henrique M. Salgado(2), José R. Pereira*(3)

(1) INESC Porto, Porto, Portugal, qluo@inescporto.pt
(2) INESC Porto/ Faculdade de Engenharia, Uiversidade do Porto, Portugal,
h.salgado@ieee.org
(3) IT/Universidade de Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal, jrp@det.ua.pt

Abstract
This paper proposes a new low profile dual band WLAN Planar inverted-F antenna
(PIFA) by using Electromagnetic Band-Gap (EBG) material as ground plane. The total
thickness of this antenna is only 4 mm, which is half of the height when a normal perfect
electric conductor (PEC) ground plane is used. The backward radiation ratio is also
reduced as the existence of EBG. Moreover, the bandwidth for the 5 GHz band is
increased by 10 times compared to the reference antenna. This EBG PIFA is built on the
ground plane with size of 40x62 mm, which is suitable for most of the mobile devices.

Introduction

Planar inverted-F antennas (PIFA’s) have attracted much research interests since they
have many advantages namely small size, reduced SAR (specific absorption rate)
induction and moderate bandwidth [1]. Generally the resonant frequency of PIFA can be
approximated by the formula
c
f10 = (Eq.1)
(4w + 1)

where c is the velocity of light and w, l are the width and length of the radiation element
respectively [2]. However, usually the height for conventional PIFA structure is 7.5 mm
[1] and it cannot be mounted above ground plane at a short distance due to the effect of
reverse image current, which limits it application to devices that have limited space.

Electromagnetic Band-Gap (EBG) material has been proved to be a structure with high
surface impedance and surface wave suppressing characteristics [3]. By using high
impedance surface as ground plane, the distance between wire radiation element and
ground plane can be reduced by a large extent. In [4], the height of a horizontal dipole
against ground plane has been successfully reduced to only 0.02λ. However, currently
there is not much research focusing on EBG-PIFA antenna design. In [5], one PIFA is
built on EBG ground plane but there is no indication that the height of PIFA can be
reduced. Although in [1] the height of PIFA is reduced to only 4.9 mm and the backward
radiation is suppressed, the return loss (S11) shows that it has quite a narrow bandwidth.
In both [1] and [5], mushroom-like EBG with metal via connecting to the ground plane is
used, which increases the complexity of the fabrication process.

1
This research was supported by “Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia” (FCT) under the program “POS
Conhecimento” via project EBGCOM (POSC/EES-CPS/60170/2004) and also supported by “Programa
Operacional Ciência Tecnologia e Inovação”- POCTI/FEDER with grant REEQ/1272/EEI/2005.

978-1-4244-2042-1/08/$25.00 ©2008 IEEE

In this study, one dual band planar EBG structure without metal via is proposed. Both the
simulation and measurement results show that by using this EBG as the ground plane, the
height of PIFA can be reduced by 50% and the bandwidth for higher frequency band (5.5
GHz) is almost 10 times as wide as the reference antenna. Moreover, the reduction of
backward radiation pattern is also achieved, which is very important of portable mobile
devices concerning the effect of SAR.

U-Slot PIFA with PEC Ground Plane

The U-slot PIFA proposed in [6] was designed in HFSS. Some relevant parameters of
this antenna have been modified in order to satisfy our research objectives. The structure
of this PIFA is presented in Fig.1 (a). In [6], the distance (h) between antenna and PEC
ground plane is 9 mm. We simulated the case that when the height h was reduced to only
4 mm; under this condition, due to effect of the reverse image current the PIFA fails to
work properly (Fig. 1 (b)).

(a) (b)
Fig.1 (a) The structure of U-slot PIFA proposed in [6]: top view (up) and side view (bottom);
(b) Simulated return loss of U-Slot PIFA at height of h=9 mm (solid line) and h=4 mm (dash line)

PIFA with EBG Ground Plane

Jerusalem Cross (JCSS) is a geometry that is usually used in Frequency Selective Surface
(FSS) design and has a very stable reflection regarding to arbitrary incident waves [7]. In
our study, we use slot JCSS geometry in EBG surface design. By doing this, it is found
that it can work at much lower frequencies while exhibiting dual band artificial magnetic
surface (AMC) characteristics (Fig.2).

Fig.2 EBG unit cell geometry (left) and its reflection phase (right) simulated in HFSS
This EBG uses high dielectric constant material Roger 3010 (εr=10.2, thickness =
1.27mm) as substrate and has compact size of only 11 mm for each unit cell, which is
only λ2.4GHz /11. EBG with different unit cell arrays (e.g. 3x6, 3x5 and 5x5) operating as
the ground plane of PIFA has been simulated in HFSS. It is found out that the EBG
ground plane of 3x5 unit cells (62x40 mm) with PIFA in the central position can provide
promising results considering the size of the ground plane. The distance between PIFA
and the EBG surface is 2.7mm. Therefore, the total thickness of the overall structure is
only 4 mm. After optimization, this structure has been fabricated (Fig.3) and measured.
The detailed measurement results are presented in the next section.

Fig.3 Fabricated EBG PIFA top view (left) and side view (right)

Measurement Results

Fig. 4 shows the measured return loss of the proposed EBG-PIFA antenna. The measured
return loss clearly shows two working frequency bands at 2.41 to 2.46 GHz and 5.2 to
5.66 GHz. One more band that starts from 5.8 to 6 GHz is also observed. Compared to
the simulation results, except for a frequency shift it is found that there is some
bandwidth reduction in both bands, which is mainly caused by the fabrication accuracy of
PIFA antenna. A more accurate prototype will be fabricated in future studies.
Furthermore, compared to the simulation results for the PIFA without EBG at a height of
9 mm above PEC ground plane, a significant increase in bandwidth of 5 GHz band is
achieved, which is very useful for WLAN applications.

Return Loss (S11)

0
-5
-10
-15
-20
-25
-30
-35
-40
2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6

Measured EBG PIFA Simulated EBG PIFA Simulated PIFA

Fig. 4 Measured return loss of proposed EBG-PIFA antenna

Fig. 5 presents the measured far field radiation pattern of this EBG-PIFA antenna in both
E-and H-plane. This antenna has maximum gain of 4 dB with less than -10 dB back lobe
radiation in both bands.
 - - - : E-plane
___: H-plane

Fig. 5 Radiation patterns of 2.42GHz (left) and 5.56 GHz (right)

Conclusions

A low profile dual band EBG-PIFA antenna for WLAN application has been proposed in
this study. With the help of EBG ground plane, the distance between PIFA and ground
plane is reduced to only 4 mm. Compared to the reference antenna, the bandwidth for the
5 GHz band is improved by more than 10 times. Moreover, the reduction of backward
radiation is also achieved. The measurement results show that the proposed EBG-PIFA
antenna is suitable for WLAN applications. Furthermore, the size of EBG used in this
study is 40x62 mm, which makes this antenna suitable for portable mobile devices.

References

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