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A Multimode Wideband ± 45° Dual-Polarized Antenna With Embedded Loops

Article  in  IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters · January 2016

DOI: 10.1109/LAWP.2016.2594240

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IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 16, 2017
A Multimode Wideband ± 45◦ Dual-Polarized
Antenna With Embedded Loops
Dong-Ze Zheng and Qing-Xin Chu, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—A wideband dual-polarized antenna is proposed for
base station applications. Compared to the conventional crossed
loop dipole antennas, additional loops are embedded into original
loops to generate a new resonant mode. Therefore, a multimode
antenna with an enhanced impedance bandwidth is completed. A
prototype of the proposed antenna is designed, fabricated, and
tested. The measured impedance bandwidth of two ports is 51%
with Return Loss > 15 dB from 1.68 to 2.83 GHz, and the isolation
between two ports is greater than 27 dB. The measured results also
show that a stable radiation pattern with 65.4o ± 2.4◦ half-power
beamwidth in the horizontal plane for slant 45◦ polarization and a
stable gain of 8.8 ± 0.7 dBi are achieved from 1.7 to 2.7 GHz.
Index Terms—Cross loop dipole, dual-polarized, multimode,
wideband.
I. INTRODUCTION
N THE past few years, dual-polarized antennas have gained
I much attention in modern communication systems for the
purpose of reducing side effects of multipath fading and increas-
ing channel capacity, especially in base stations with ± 45◦ dual
polarization. In order to meet the demand of 4G communication
systems and take account of 2G, 3G simultaneously, a wideband
antenna that can operate from 1.71 to 2.69 GHz is needed. What
is more, it also needs to meet the 3-dB beamwidth requirement
of 65o ± 5◦ in the horizontal plane. Significant research in the
design of dual-polarized antennas has been observed in [1]–
[11] to meet the market demands. However, it is still difficult to
achieve wide impedance bandwidth, high isolation, stable gain,
stable radiation pattern, and low cross polarization simultane-
ously. A dual-polarized planar printed dipole antenna with high
isolation and low cross polarization was proposed in [1], but
it has a narrow bandwidth of 22.7% (575–722 MHz), which is
unsatisfactory for 2G/3G/4G bands. A wideband dual-polarized
patch antenna was proposed in [2], which has a high isolation
and low cross polarization by introducing shorting pins and
slots cutting on the patch. However, it cannot meet the demands
of VSWR < 1.5 from 1.7 to 2.7 GHz. Several dual-polarized
antennas based on magnetoelectric dipole were presented in
[3]–[5]. Although they have a wide impedance bandwidth, sta-
ble radiation, and lower cross polarization, most of their radia-
tors have large sizes (0.51λ0 × 0.51λ0 , 0.62λ0 × 0.62λ0 , and
0.54λ0 × 0.54λ0 , respectively) and none of them have pla-
Manuscript received February 27, 2016; revised June 24, 2016; accepted July
22, 2016. Date of publication July 27, 2016; date of current version March 27,
2017. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of
China under Grant 61171029.
The authors are with the School of Electric and Information Engineering,
South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China (e-mail:
zhengdongze@mail.scut.edu.cn; qxchu@scut.edu.cn).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this letter are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2016.2594240
1536-1225 © 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
633
TABLE I
COMPARISON OF SEVERAL ANTENNAS
Ref. Bandwidth Side length of the rectangular aperture (mm2 ) HPBW
(degree)
[7] 45% (VSWR < 1.5) 109.8 × 109.8(0.805λ0 × 0.805λ0 ) 65◦ ± 4◦
[8] 45% (VSWR < 1.5) 53.5 × 53.5(0.392λ0 × 0.392λ0 ) 68◦ ± 2◦
[9] 45% (RL > 15 dB) 56 × 56(0.42λ0 × 0.42λ0 ) 65◦ ± 8◦
[10] 57.5%(VSWR < 1.5) 49.7 × 49.7(0.54λ0 × 0.54λ0 ) 81.2◦ ± 4.4◦
[11] 52%(VSWR < 1.5) 66.5 × 66.5(0.51λ0 × 0.51λ0 ) Not given
[13] 57.8% (RL > 10 dB) 185 × 185(0.69λ0 × 0.69λ0 ) Not given
This work 51%(RL > 15 dB) 52.5 × 52.5(0.385λ0 × 0.385λ0 ) 65.4◦ ± 2.4◦
nar structures. A multidipole antenna was proposed in [6],
and it achieves a wide impedance bandwidth of 60% with
VSWR < 1.5 and a stable 3-dB beamwidth of 63.4o ± 2◦ . Un-
fortunately, it is single-polarized and has a bulky structure that
makes it difficult to fabricate and assemble. Therefore, the an-
tenna is not suitable for practical base station applications. The
dual-polarized type based on multidipole antenna, which was
proposed in [7], also suffers the same disadvantages. A broad-
band antenna with Y-shaped feeding structure was proposed in
[8]. It achieves a 45% impedance bandwidth for SWR < 1.5,
a stable radiation pattern, and a stable gain over its operating
frequency band. Some other types of dual-polarized antennas
for base stations were also proposed in [9]–[11] for 2G/3G/4G
bands. However, most of them have a relatively large size or are
not suitable for mass production to meet practical demands. Two
quad-mode antennas were proposed in [12] and [13]. Neverthe-
less, they were proposed for irregular sparse antenna arrays.
In this letter, a multimode wideband dual-polarized an-
tenna for base station applications is proposed. The radiator
(52.5 × 52.5 mm2 , 0.385λ01 × 0.385λ01 , where λ01 is the free-
space wavelength at 2.2 GHz) of the antenna consists of two
pairs of crossed-loop dipoles, and each pair of loop dipoles in-
cludes outer and inner loops. Due to the parasitic outer loop
dipoles, high-order modes of the proposed antenna can be ad-
justed to a lower frequency and get close to the first mode to form
a wide impedance bandwidth [14]. Besides, an additional small
loop is embedded into the outer loop to generate a new resonant
mode to further widen the impedance bandwidth. The proposed
antenna achieves a wide impedance bandwidth, a stable radia-
tion pattern, and a stable gain simultaneously in the band from
1.68 to 2.83 GHz, which is suitable to cover 2G/3G/4G bands.
Also, it has a simple and small-sized planar structure and is easy
to be fabricated. Table I lists the comparison between the refer-
ences and the proposed antenna. All antennas listed in Table I
can meet the required performance specifications for 2G/3G/4G
bands. It can be seen that the proposed antenna has a more
compact radiator size, while its relative impedance bandwidth
is larger than the antennas in [7]–[9] and a little smaller than
634
Fig. 1. Geometry of the proposed antenna. (a) Three-dimensional view.
(b) Perspective view of radiator. (c) Feeding structures. (unit: mm. Ls = 56,
H d = 0.8, Lg = 150, S = 1.4, L1 = 25.5, W 1 = 2.75, L2 = 13.7,
W 2 = 2.6, L3 = 9, W 3 = 1.5, R1 = 1.58, R2 = 0.46, R3 = 0.3,
H 1 = 35, H 2 = 5, f w0 = 2, f len1 = 9.2, f w1 = 1.6, f len2 = 9.4,
f w2 = 2.5).
the antennas in [10], [11], and [13]. It also can be found that the
proposed antenna has a more stable 3-dB beamwidth compared
to the antennas in [7]–[10].
II. STRUCTURE
As shown in Fig. 1, the proposed antenna consists of two pairs
of crossed square-shaped loop dipoles (SLDs), two T-shaped
feeding structures, and a box-shaped reflector. The SLD includes
two parts, namely an outer square-shaped loop dipole (OSLD)
and an embedded inner square-shaped loop dipole (ISLD). All
of the SLDs are printed on the bottom of FR4 substrate with
a dielectric constant of εr = 4.4, a loss tangent of 0.02, and a
thickness of Hd = 0.8 mm. Meanwhile, two T-shaped feeding
structures are printed on the top of the substrate. One of the feed-
ing structures is modified to avoid intersection. For this feeding
structure, partial feeding line is printed on the bottom of the
substrate, and the upper part is connected with the bottom part
through two shorting pins. Each pair of SLDs is fed by a coaxial
cable. The outer conductor of the coaxial cable is connected
with a metallic square patch, which is used for convenient sol-
dering and making the connection between the OSLD and ISLD,
whereas the inner conductor is extended through the substrate
and connected to a metallic trace. In order to obtain a unidi-
rectional radiation pattern, a rectangular box-shaped reflector is
used and located under the radiator element with a distance of
H1 = 35 mm (about 0.25λ01 ). For a better description of the an-
tenna, we define the xoz-plane as the horizontal plane (H-plane)
and the yoz-plane as the vertical plane (V-plane).
IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 16, 2017
Fig. 2. Effects of L2 on (a) input reactance and (b) input resistance of the
proposed antenna.
III. PRINCIPLE
In the initial design of the proposed antenna, we set the di-
mension of outer loop, L1, to 34 mm (approximately 0.25λ01 ),
and the dimension of inner loop, L2, to 28 mm (around 0.25λ02 ,
where λ02 is the free-space wavelength at 2.7 GHz). Accord-
ing to [14], when a pair of loop dipoles is driven, the other
pair works as loop resonators because of strong coupling. As
the dimension of the loop resonators increases, the high-order
modes of the driven loop dipole can be shifted to a lower fre-
quency and combined with the first mode to obtain a wide
impedance bandwidth. However, the impedance bandwidth is
not wide enough to cover 2G/3G/4G bands if only two pairs
of square loop dipoles exist. To further increase its impedance
bandwidth, the ISLD was embedded into the OSLD. In order to
have a clear understanding about how the impedance bandwidth
can be extended, only the length of the ISLD, L2, is changed
while the dimensions of the OSLD were kept constant. Fig. 2
shows the influences of L2 on the input impedance of the pro-
posed antenna. It can be observed that when L2 = 0 (without
the embedded small loop), there are two series resonant modes
at about 1.8 and 2.3 GHz, respectively, from 1- to 3-GHz band
range. As the ISLD is added (L2 > 0), another series resonant
mode is formed (at about 2.8 GHz when L2 = 13.2 mm), and
the new resonant mode can shift to a lower frequency as L2 is
increased and gets close to the two resonant modes aforemen-
tioned (at about 1.8 and 2.3 GHz, respectively, and keep constant
ZHENG AND CHU: MULTIMODE WIDEBAND ± 45◦ DUAL-POLARIZED ANTENNA WITH EMBEDDED LOOPS
Fig. 3. Effects of L2 on (a) |S 1 1 | and realized gain and (b) radiation efficiency
of the proposed antenna.
as L2 is increased). As a result, a flatter input reactance curve is
formed and the input resistance curve becomes smoother around
50 Ω in the upper frequency band (from 2.5 to 3.0 GHz) while
remaining almost uninfluenced in lower and middle band.
In conclusion, due to the existence of parasitic OSLDs and
ISLDs, the proposed antenna has achieved a wide impedance
bandwidth. The first resonant frequency is mainly determined by
the dimensions of the OSLD, and the length of its current path
is approximately equal to 2 × L1 + 2 × L1 ≈ 0.61λ1 , where
λ1 is the free-space wavelength at the first resonant frequency
(about 1.8 GHz). The second resonant frequency is greatly in-
fluenced by L1 and S due to strong coupling, whereas the third
resonant frequency is mainly determined by the dimensions of
the ISLD, L2, and W 3. Besides, by using T-shaped coupling
feeding structures, the impedance matching will be further im-
proved.
In order to have a better understanding of how these param-
eters work and provide a guideline to design, some parameters
are studied. For simplicity, only port 1 is excited because of the
symmetry of the antenna. When one parameter is studied, the
others are kept constant.
The first and most important parameter studied is the length
of ISLD, L2. Fig. 3(a) shows the simulated results of |S11 | and
realized gain versus L2. It can be observed that if the ISLD is
absent (L2 = 0), there are only two resonant frequencies and
the impedance bandwidth is hardly to satisfy 2G/3G/4G bands.
The third resonance is formed as the ISLD is added. When
635
Fig. 4. Current distribution at 2.9 GHz as port 1 is driven.
Fig. 5. Effects of W 3 on |S 1 1 | and realized gain of the proposed antenna.
L2 increases, the third resonant frequency shifts to a lower fre-
quency and the other two resonant frequencies keep almost con-
stant, while the gain bandwidth becomes narrower and remains
unchanged in the lower and middle band. Fig. 3(b) depicts the
effect of L2 on the antenna efficiency. It can be observed that
the radiation efficiency decreases sharply at high frequencies
and the bandwidth with efficiency >90% is decreased as L2
increases. In order to explore the reason why the radiation ef-
ficiency decreases rapidly, a current distribution at 2.9 GHz as
port 1 is driven is plotted in Fig. 4. It can be found that the cur-
rent intensity distributed on the inner loop is comparable to that
on the outer loop, but they are out of phase. It can be explained
that the OSLD and ISLD work together at high frequencies.
However, because of strong coupling between them, the net ra-
diation in the far field will decrease sharply. In order to have a
wide impedance bandwidth and high radiation efficiency within
2G/3G/4G bands, L2 = 13.7 mm is chosen. The second param-
eter studied is W 3, which is the distance between OSLD and
ISLD. As shown in Fig. 5, the third resonant frequency shifts
to a lower frequency and gain bandwidth is influenced at high
frequency when W 3 is increased. It also can be observed that
the parameters L2 and W 3 have similar effects on |S11 | and re-
alized gain. The primary reason is that the series resonant mode
formed by ISLD can be controlled through L2 and W 3, so we
can also adjust the third resonant frequency and gain bandwidth
by controlling W 3. For brevity, the influence of W 3 on radiation
efficiency is not given since it has a similar function with L2.
636
Fig. 6. Simulated and measured S-parameter of the proposed antenna.
Fig. 7. Simulated and measured realized gain and 3-dB beamwidth (H-plane)
of the proposed antenna.
IV. RESULTS
To verify the design, a prototype of the proposed antenna
with finally optimized parameters was fabricated and measured.
Some key parameters of the antenna are listed in Fig. 1. Mea-
sured results of S-parameters, gain, and radiation patterns were
obtained by an Agilent N5230A network analyzer and a far-
field measurement system. Fig. 6 shows the simulated and mea-
sured S-parameters of the antenna. The measured impedance
bandwidth of two ports is 51% with return loss > 15 dB from
1.68 to 2.83 GHz. The measured and simulated results are very
agreeable except for a little frequency shifting at middle and
high frequencies because of fabrication error. The simulated and
measured isolation also show a good agreement and are more
than 27 dB. Fig. 7 shows the simulated and measured gain and
3-dB beamwidth (H-plane) as a function of frequency. Because
of loss in the coaxial cable and SMA connector, and fabrication
or measurement error, the measured gain is 8.8 ± 0.7 dBi from
1.7 to 2.7 GHz, which is slightly lower than the simulated one,
8.9 ± 0.5 dBi. The measured 3-dB beamwidth is 65.4o ± 2.4◦
at H-plane, while the simulated one is 64.5o ± 4.2◦ (because of
the geometry symmetry of the antenna, only radiation pattern at
H-plane when port 1 is driven is given). The simulated and mea-
sured radiation patterns in H-plane at different frequencies of
1.7, 2.2, and 2.7 GHz are plotted in Fig. 8, which shows that the
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IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 16, 2017
Fig. 8. Simulated and measured radiation patterns of port 1 at horizontal
plane. (a) 1.7 GHz. (b) 2.2 GHz. (c) 2.7 GHz.
antenna has a stable radiation pattern, low backward radiation,
and low cross polarization across the entire bandwidth.
V. CONCLUSION
A multimode wideband ± 45◦ dual-polarized antenna for base
station applications has been designed, fabricated, and tested.
Due to the embedded ISLD, a new resonant mode is generated
and combined with the lower modes to form a wide impedance
bandwidth. It can be a good candidate for base stations and can
find many applications in modern wireless communications,
such as GSM 1800, CDMA 1900, WCDMA, and LTE.
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