Antenna performance improvement by utilizing a small parasitic slot in stacked PCBs for IoT devices

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes a simple and efficient technique to improve the antenna radiation performance in stacked printed circuit boards (PCBs) for Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications. In the proposed design, a planner loop-type ground radiation antenna with compact size is implemented at the upper PCB for 2.4 GHz applications, while the lower PCB overlaps with the upper PCB, inducing out-of-phase current distributions over the lower PCB, thereby resulting in a narrow bandwidth and low efficiency. Therefore, a small parasitic resonator is utilized on the lower PCB to diminish the undesired out-of-phase current. Higher efficiency and wider bandwidth are thus achieved by tuning the impedance characteristic of the parasitic slot, indicating the proposed technique is effective in improving antenna performance for devices with stacked PCBs.

KEYWORDS:

• Antenna radiation
• Internet-of-Things (IoT)
• parasitic resonator

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Longyue Qu http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5152-091X

Haiyan Piao http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7753-4826

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (No. 2019R1F1A1063993).

Notes on contributors

Longyue Qu

Longyue Qu received his B.Sc. degree in communication engineering from the Yanbian University, China, in 2013, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the Hanyang University, Seoul, Rep. of Korea, in 2015 and 2018, respectively, in microwave engineering. He is currently a research fellow at Hanyang University. He is an author of over 40 international journal articles and conference papers, and an inventor of over 20 patents. His current research interests include antenna theory and design, especially for 4G/5G communications, massive MIMO, metamaterials, mmWave, and RF circuits. He serves as a reviewer for several international journals, such as IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, IEEE Access.

Yunxue Xu

Yunxue Xu received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electromagnetics from Xidian University, Xi’an, China, in 2005 and 2009, respectively. Currently, he is an Associate Professor with the National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Antennas and Microwaves, Xidian University. He has authored or coauthored over 50 refereed journal papers. He is the author of Prediction and Reduction of Antenna Radar Cross Section (Xi’an: Xidian Univ. Press, 2010). His research interests include antenna theory and technology, prediction and control of antenna RCS, and RCS calculation of complex targets.

Haiyan Piao

Haiyan Piao received her B.Sc. degree in communication engineering from the Yanbian University, China, in 2013, and the M.Sc. degree in microwave engineering from the Hanyang University, Seoul, Rep. of Korea, in 2017. Her research interests are antenna design, MIMO, 5G communications, IoT, etc.

Hyeongdong Kim

Hyeongdong Kim received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Seoul National University, Rep. of Korea, in 1984 and 1986, respectively, and his Ph.D. degree from the University of Texas, Austin, USA in 1992. From May 1992 to February 1993, he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow with the University of Texas. Since 1993, he has been a Professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Hanyang University, Rep. of Korea. His recent research interests include antenna theory and design, especially for mobile devices, e.g., wideband, high efficiency, multiband, MIMO, and high sensitivity.