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Low-Cost Dual-Loop-Antenna System for Dual-WLAN-Band Access Points

Saou-Wen Su, Member, IEEE, and Cheng-Tse Lee, Member, IEEE
AbstractA low-cost, printed three-antenna system suitable to be embedded inside a wireless access point (AP) for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) applications in the 2.4 and 5 GHz WLAN bands is presented. The antenna system comprises three circular dual-loop antennas occupying a moderate area and printed on the same layer of a circular antenna substrate. Each dual-loop antenna further includes a large outer loop and a small inner loop, both operating at one-wavelength resonant mode and sharing common antenna feeding and grounding. The antennas are set in a sequential, rotating arrangement on the substrate with an equal inclination angle of 120 to form a symmetrical multiantenna structure. The antenna substrate is further stacked above the system circuit board of an AP by a small distance. In this case the design can fully integrate the circuit board of the AP as an efcient reector for loops into an internal multiantenna solution. The results showed that well port isolation were obtained together with high-gain and dual-polarized radiation characteristics over the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. Details of a design prototype are described and discussed in this paper. Index TermsAntennas, internal access-point (AP) antennas, multiantenna system, printed loop antennas, WLAN antennas.

I. INTRODUCTION NTENNAS with dual-polarized radiation characteristics have been very attractive to base-station antenna designs for mobile communications [1] and WLAN [2][4] applications. The dual-polarized antennas retain considerable advantage of combating the complex propagation of the transmit/receive waves in the WLAN environment. In addition, the polarization sensitivity of the antenna is mitigated by utilizing the dual-polarized antennas. These features certainly benet wireless access points (APs) or routers in practical applications. Moreover, for WLAN communications, the majority of the present-day APs are 11n or pre-n compatible on the open market. Particularly, since the IEEE Standard Association ratied the IEEE 802.11n standard in September 2009 [5], the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology adopting multiple transmit/receive antennas to get higher throughput has become enormously popular. For the mainstream AP products, the 3 3 (representing ) dual-band multiple antennas are usually demanded, especially for the requirements
Manuscript received July 14, 2010; revised October 15, 2010; accepted October 20, 2010. Date of publication March 07, 2011; date of current version May 04, 2011. The authors are with the Network Access Strategic Business Unit, Lite-On Technology Corp., Taipei County 23585, Taiwan (e-mail: stephen.su@liteon. com). Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TAP.2011.2123070

of internal AP antennas from an esthetic point of view that external antennas are not very pleasing to the user. Thus, the antenna design becomes substantially important when multiple antennas are integrated into APs with similar device size remained. In general, the antenna design consideration can fall into two categories for 3 3 dual-band APs. The rst one is for the concurrent, dual-band dual-radio APs, which are usually requested by high-end, enterprise AP applications. In this case six single-band (three 2.4 GHz and three 5 GHz) antennas are employed [6], [7], and the 2.4 and 5 GHz radio signals are simultaneously transmitted or received. The other one is for dual-band single-radio APs, which are of lower cost and include three dual-band (2.4 and 5 GHz) antennas in either 11 b/g (2.4 GHz) or 11 a (5 GHz) single-radio mode [8], [9]. These designs, however, mainly utilize the monopole- and PIFA-type antennas in 3-D, metal-plate structure and require a large antenna ground plate to accommodate the antennas and induced image currents thereof. That large ground plate is expensive and denitely increases the overall material cost. Also, these mentioned internal AP antennas only generate linearly polarized radiation and cannot provide dual-polarized operation. In this paper, we demonstrate a promising, low-cost design concept that is capable of integrating printed multiple antennas and the APs system circuit board into a WLAN AP and at the same time, targeting on dual-polarized radiation in the two major elevation planes for each antenna. The proposed design comprises three identical dual-loop antennas, all printed on an inexpensive FR4 substrate and placed in a sequential, rotating arrangement on the antenna substrate with an equal inclination angle to form a symmetrical multiantenna structure. The antenna substrate is further stacked above the system circuit board of an AP. The ground plane of the circuit board can be utilized as an efcient reector for the antennas to achieve high gain and directional radiation. In this case the design integrates the APs circuit board into an internal AP-antenna solution. The dual-loop antenna further includes a large 2.4-GHz (24002484 MHz) outer loop and a small 5-GHz (51505825 MHz) inner loop, both operating at its own one-wavelength resonant mode. The one-wavelength loop produces bidirectional radiation in free space and is known as a self-balanced antenna, which excites less surface currents on the system or antenna ground plane [10]. Accordingly, the ground plane of the circuit board can even better suppress backward direction (see Fig. 1), which in turn leads radiation in the to more directional radiation. Further, by properly rotating the circular dual-loop antenna, it was found that the dual-polarized radiation can be achieved in the two major elevation planes of and cuts (see Fig. 10). A design example was the

0018-926X/$26.00 2011 IEEE

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Fig. 2. Photo of a fabricated design prototype;

Fig. 1. (a) Top view of the proposed dual-loop-antenna system backed by a circular system PCB of a wireless access point for 2.4/5 GHz WLAN operation. (b) Sectional view of the proposed design. (c) Detailed dimensions of the printed, dual-polarized dual-loop antenna (antenna 1).

constructed and tested. Details of the design consideration are described and discussed along with the analyses of surface current distributions and radiation characteristics. II. ANTENNA CONFIGURATION AND DESIGN CONSIDERATION Fig. 1(a) shows the conguration of the three dual-loop antennas formed on a low-cost, single-layered, circular FR4 substrate of thickness 1.6 mm and diameter 100 mm and backed by a circular system circuit board of a wireless AP for dual-polarized and dual-WLAN-band operation. A sectional view of the antenna substrate stacked above the ground plane of the system circuit board (or usually refer to system PCB) by an air separation of 8.4 mm is shown in Fig. 1(b). This system circuit board or PCB does not have to be circular in shape; however, the circular PCB was selected because the three antennas can be set symmetrically on the system circuit board to simplify the studies and the ndings thereof. Also, the ground plane of the PCB can

be utilized as an efcient reector for the antennas, aiming more radiation in the direction to achieve directional radiation and higher antenna gain. In this case the design concept integrates the system circuit board into an internal AP-antenna solution. Furthermore, compared with the internal, stand-alone AP antennas constructed from stamping metal plates [6][9], the proposed design does not require any antenna ground plane to accommodate image currents induced by the monopole/PIFA-type designs. Each of the three identical dual-loop antennas (denoted as antenna 1, 2, and 3) occupies a moderate area and is equally spaced right next to the perimeter of the circular antenna substrate. The diameter of the substrate is required to be less than that of the system PCB such that all the antennas t within the boundary of the system PCB. All the antennas are located 12.5 mm away from the substrate center with equal inclination angles (formed by the two adjacent antennas and the substrate center) of 120 . The distance between the two antennas is only 11 mm, which is about one-eighth of the distance 80 mm to achieve port isolation below 15 dB between two parallel 2.4 GHz dipole antennas (minimal space of 0.65-wavelength between two parallel dipoles [11]). The antenna signal feeding (point A, B, C) and cable grounding (point D, E, F) face the same direction (same rotation) with respect to the substrate center. Notice that the ground point is closer to the center hole of the substrate compared with the feed point. This way, the routing of the mini-coaxial cable can go smoothly toward the center (see Fig. 2). The three antennas are obviously in a sequential, rotating arrangement and of a symmetrical structure. This conguration not only provides ease of studying and analysis but also allows each antenna to gain equal, 3-D space coverage. Detailed dimensions of a single antenna are presented in Fig. 1(c). The proposed antenna further comprises two circular loops: a large 2.4-GHz outer loop and a small 5-GHz inner loop, which also share common feed and ground points on the outer loop. Both loops operate at one-wavelength resonant mode; the central operating frequency of each loop is determined and controlled by the diameter of the loop. The outer loop dominates the overall antenna size and also encompasses the inner loop. The width of the loop affects the antenna bandwidth, and in this study both loops are of uniform width of 3 mm. Between the outer and the inner loops is there a smallest distance of 2 mm, in which the two loops are connected therein through a thin pair of parallel strips of width 1 mm. The length of the strips has the effects on the input matching of the 5 GHz loop and

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the operating frequencies thereof (because the strips are also part of the resonant path for 5 GHz operation). The distance in between the connecting strips is set the same as the feed gap over points A and D. This parameter largely inuences the impedance bandwidth of the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. The near optimal dimensions of the dual-loop antenna were attained by means of a rigorous analysis with the aid of the electromagnetic simulator, Ansoft HFSS [12]. Notice that for simplicity, the 2.4-GHz outer loop was rst designed and then the 5-GHz inner loop was added on. Also, the 0.5-wavelength mode of the inner loop does not affect the 2.4 GHz band whereas the 1.5- and 2.0-wavelength modes of the outer loop impact the 5-GHz band very little (see Fig. 6). Furthermore, the dual-loop is further rotated by an degree rotation with respect to the center of the antenna substrate for dual-polarized radiation in the plane cut along the diameter and the plane perpendicular to the plane in the case of antenna 1. A photo of a constructed prototype is given in Fig. 2 for demonstration and better understanding. As can be seen, the three antennas are right next to the perimeter of the circular antenna substrate and fed by utilizing three 50- mini-coaxial cables of length 9 mm. For practical, industrial applications, each coaxial cable is further connected to the 2.4- and 5-GHz WLAN module on the APs PCB through a pair of I-PEX connectors. The routing of the cables passes through a small hole of diameter 8 mm in the center of the antenna substrate. In this case each coaxial cable neither overlaps the others nor the antennas, and is of the same length with the same phase for each antenna. The inner conductor of the cable is connected to the feed point; the outer braided shielding is soldered to the ground point opposite to the feed point over the small feed gap of 2 mm. III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION A. Reection Coefcients, Isolation, and Envelope Correlation A prototype of the proposed antenna as shown in Fig. 2 was rst constructed and measured based upon on the design and dimensions thereof described in Fig. 1. Fig. 3(a) and (b) shows the measured reection coefcients and isolation between the dual-loop antennas, whose simulated counterparts are given in Fig. 4(a) and (b). The reection coefcients are plotted by the curves of for the three antennas. The isolation between any two of the three antennas is only presented by the curves of for brevity due to the symmetrical structure of the proposed design. On average, the experimental data agree with the simulation results, which were based on the nite element method (FEM). However, discrepancies were found due largely to PCB manufacture tolerance and effects of the mini-coaxial cables in the experiments. The impedance matching of the three antennas over the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands is all below 10 dB (even well below 14 dB in the 5 GHz band), which satises the demanded bandwidth specication for WLAN operation. Notice that the impedance bandwidth also covers the Japanese 5 GHz (49005090 MHz) band [13]. In general, the parameters are about the same as each other, and the variation between and (or between and ) is small because of the symmetry of the three antennas.

Fig. 3. Measured -parameters for the dual-loop antennas; . (a) for antenna 1, 2, 3). (b) Isolation Reection coefcients ( between two antennas.

Fig. 4. Simulated -parameters for the dual-loop antennas; . for antenna 1, 2, 3). (b) Isolation (a) Reection coefcients ( between two antennas.

Second, for the isolation between any two antennas, it is found to be below 15 and 20 dB over the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. Fig. 5(a) and (b) presents the calculated envelope correlation among the three antennas operating in the 2.4 and 5 GHz

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Fig. 6. Simulated reection coefcients for antenna 1 (dual loop), the 2.4-GHz outer loop only, and the 5-GHz inner loop only.

Fig. 5. Calculated envelope correlation. (a) For the 2.4-GHz band. (b) For the 5-GHz band.

Fig. 7. Simulated reection coefcients for antenna 1 as a function of the distance g of the air separation.

bands, respectively. The envelope correlation here was determined by the use of parameters in (1), which was derived in [14], for sufciently accurate results in many practical cases [15] [see (1) at the bottom of the page]. The magnitude and phase of the parameters were collected from the simulation data in Fig. 4(a) and 4(b). The complex conjugate denoted by an asterisk of the parameters was given by multiplying the phase part by 1. A brief description of the calculation was discussed in [9]. From the results, the envelope correlation values remain under 0.02 in the 2.4 GHz band and under 0.0003 in the 5 GHz band. These values are much smaller than 0.3 demanded widely by industry specication and 0.7 at the base station as suggested in [16]. The in-band correlation is also seen to be less than the out-of-band correlation. In addition to this method applied here, the evaluation of the envelope correlation can be carried out as described in [16] or simply measured in a reverberation chamber [17]. B. Parametric Studies on the Dual-Loop Antenna, the Separation Gap, and the Size of the System Ground Plane To understand the wavelength state of the outer and the inner loops, the antenna was separated into two loops. The corresponding results on the reection coefcients are shown in Fig. 6 for comparison; other dimensions were ketp the same as those set in Fig. 3. In the case of the 2.4-GHz outer loop

only, the 1.0- and 1.5-wavelength resonant modes at about 2.47 and 4.65 GHz can be spotted. As for the 5-GHz inner loop only, only 1.0-wavelength loop mode at about 5.14 GHz is seen in the frequency range of 2 to 6 GHz; the 0.5-wavelength loop mode was found to be a little below 2 GHz but actually not responsive due to very large resistance (larger than 10 000 ohms, like loading an open-circuit termination) in that resonant mode (recognized by zero reactance). The results suggest that the operating modes of the outer and the inner loops do not much interfere with each other within the bands of interest. Further, although the upper band is able to cover the frenquency range of 6 to 7 GHz (not shown for brevity), this operating band is mixed with the higher-order resonant mode of the outer loop, which may change the directional radiation characteristics and then worsen the antenna gain. Therefore, this part of the impedance bandwidth is not considered using. Finally, despite the 2.4 GHz band was mainly controlled by the outer loop while the 5 GHz band by the inner loop as designed in Section II and agreed here by the reection-coefcient analysis, the radiation characteristics and surface-current behavior are still required to be examined in the following section in order to verify the studies. Simulation studies of the effects of the air separation distance on the dual-loop antenna impedance bandwidth were also conducted. Fig. 7 presents the reection coefcients for antenna 1 as

(1)

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Fig. 9. Simulated (a) reection coefcients and (b) peak antenna gain as a function of the diameter of the system ground plane of the system PCB.

Fig. 8. Simulated input impedance on the Smith chart for antenna 1 as a function of the distance g of the air separation. (a) For frequency range 2 to 3 GHz. (b) For frequency range 5 to 6 GHz.

a function of the distance g of the small air gap. The step of distance 2 mm was taken in analysis. The input-impedance curves on the Smith chart in the frequency range of 23 and 56 GHz are separately shown in Fig. 8(a) and (b). It is rst seen that for 2.4 GHz operation, the impedance bandwidth quickly deteriorates while that at around 4.65 GHz at the 1.5-wavelength resonant mode of the outer loop becomes better. This is because the central operating frequency of the 1.0-wavelength loop mode for the outer (2.4 GHz) loop lies at the axis (plotting resistance only) and moves (to the left) toward the short-circuit termination as the antenna gets closer to the system ground plane [see Fig. 8(a)]. As for 5 GHz operation, the achievable bandwidth dened by reection coefcients below 10 dB worsens and gets narrower. In this case the curve shifts to more inductive impedance and at the same time, its diameter becomes larger (that is, narrower bandwidth) as can be seen in Fig. 8(b). As a general rule of thumb, decreasing the air separation leads to less matched operating bands of the antenna. The effects of the size of the system PCB on the antenna impedance bandwidth and the peak gain were also analyzed. Fig. 9(a) and (b) shows the simulated reection coefcients and the peak antenna gain as a function of the diameter, denoted

by , of the system ground plane. It can rst be seen that regardless of the size of the system ground plane, the impedance bandwidth is almost the same in various diameters of the PCB. For the antenna gain, the peak gain in the 2.4-GHz band was found to increase when a larger system ground plane was used. However, for the 5-GHz band, the peak gain could further decrease in the case of (about 3.25-wavelength at 5490 MHz). The results indicate that the size of system ground plane impacts more on the gain of the proposed antenna than the antenna operating bands. In addition, the diameter 120 mm used in the proposed design can provide largest peak gain in the 5-GHz band, which is benecial because the free-space path loss at the same distance from the antenna is higher for 5-GHz operation than that for 2.4- GHz operation. Notice that it is not practical for the case with the diameter less than 100 mm because the system PCB (the reector) will be smaller than the antenna system. Also, the diameter of the PCB exceeding 180 mm would be too large to use inside the AP. IV. CURRENT DISTRIBUTION ANALYSIS CHARACTERISTICS
AND

RADIATION

The surface-current distributions for antenna 1 excited at 2442 and 5490 MHz, the central frequencies of the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands, are given in Fig. 10. The surface currents are plotted in the form of vectors (by arrow shape) in order to identify the current nulls, and the thicker the arrow is, the stronger (more magnitude) the current is. As expected, the density of currents at 2442 MHz is mostly distributed on the outer loop, and by contrast, the inner loop exited at 5490 MHz is thickly populated by the surface currents. This behavior again, shows that the two resonant modes of the lower and the upper bands are attributed by separate resonant paths in the

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Fig. 10. Simulated surface current distributions for antenna 1 excited at 2442 and 5490 MHz.

Fig. 12. Simulated 2-D radiation patterns at 2442 and 5490 MHz for antenna . 1 studied in Fig. 3 with

Fig. 11. Simulated 2-D radiation patterns at 2442 and 5490 MHz for antenna 1 studied in Fig. 3.

outer and the inner loops. Furthermore, the maximum currents are seen pointing in the direction of on both loops, and accordingly the E-eld components in the and planes are almost the same. The maximum-current vector can be considered lying on the hypotenuse of a virtual, isosceles right triangle and can be decomposed into two vectors of the same magnitude lying in the two legs of the triangle. Therefore, in each elevation plane (that is, the or cut), there exist two orthogonal elds (in the two virtual triangle legs) of similar eld strength such that dual-polarized radiation characteristics are attained in the plane cut along the diameter of the antenna substrate and the plane perpendicular to the plane in the case of antenna 1 under condition of 45 degree rotation. The radiation characteristics of the proposed design were also studied, and for brevity the radiation patterns are given at the central operating frequency in each band. Also, due to the symmetrical arrangement of the three antennas, only the results of a single dual-loop antenna are presented. Antenna 1 was chosen to suit the convenience of dening the antenna coordinates. Figs. 11, 12, and 13 plots the far-eld, 2-D radiation patterns at 2442 and 5490 MHz, the central frequencies of the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands, in and elds for the proposed and the reference antennas. Except for the degree rotation

Fig. 13. Simulated 2-D radiation patterns at 2442 and 5490 MHz for antenna . 1 studied in Fig. 3 with

on the dual-loop antenna, other dimensions are the same as studied in Fig. 3. For practical, indoor AP applications, the APs are usually mounted on the ceiling or wall such that the radiation in the two elevation planes (the and cuts) is most concerned (not horizontal plane of cut). It can rst be seen that maximum eld strength is generally in the direction away from the antenna system with the front-to-back ratio larger than 15 and 20 dB at 2442 and 5490 MHz in the and planes. As for the for the reference antennas of and , similar radiation, in which the peak gain occurs in the normal direction to the substrate away from the antennas, can be seen in Figs. 12 and 13. But the reference antennas show more polarization purity in the axial direction and have larger cross-polarization level (XPL). In contrast, the proposed antenna yields dual-polarized radiation in the and planes with the 3-dB XPL range about 97 and 101 for 2.4-GHz operation and about 137

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Fig. 16. Measured peak antenna gain and radiation efciency against frequency for antenna 1 studied in Figs. 14 and 15.

Fig. 14. Measured 3-D radiation patterns at 2400, 2442, and 2484 MHz for antenna 1 studied in Fig. 3.

Fig. 15. Measured 3-D radiation patterns at 5150, 5490, and 5825 MHz for antenna 1 studied in Fig. 3.

and 73 for 5-GHz operation. The 3-dB XPL in this study is dened for and eld variations within 3 dB. In this case each antenna has dual-polarized radiation characteristics in the plane along the diameter of the antenna substrate and also in the plane perpendicular to the former. When the three antennas are functioning as a MIMO-antenna group, it is expected that the design can radiate dual-polarized waves in at least three directions evenly spaced by 120 . Figs. 14 and 15 plots the measured far-eld, 3-D radiation patterns at 2400, 2442, and 2484 MHz and at 5150, 5490, and 5825 MHz. Compared with the other frequencies tested within the bands of interest, good consistency in the radiation patterns was also observed. The measurement was taken by the

ETS-Lindgren OTA test system using the great-circle method in a CTIA authorized test laboratory [18]. Clearly, both 2.4- and 5-GHz radiation has maximum eld strength in the direction above the plane and away from the system circuit board. Also, high-gain and directional patterns like broadside radiation in the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands are observed too. This phenomenon is expected simply because the one-wavelength loop antenna has bidirectional radiation in free space, backward radiation in the direction is much suppressed and reected in this study by the system ground, which in turn leads to more directional radiation patterns. The measured peak antenna gain and radiation efciency for the proposed design are presented in Fig. 16. The peak gain in the 2.4-GHz band is in the range of 6.4 to 7.6 dBi with radiation efciency exceeding 67%. For the 5 GHz band, the peak gain is at a constant level of about 8.7 dBi with radiation efciency of about 80%. The gain measurement here took account of the mismatch of the loop antenna, and thus, the realized gain [19] was actually measured. The radiation efciency was obtained by calculating the total radiated power (TRP) of the antenna under test (AUT) over the 3-D spherical radiation rst and then dividing that total amount by the input power of 0 dBm (default value) given to the AUT in the test laboratory. The antenna diversity gain was also investigated. To avoid the laborious drive tests, the measurements were performed via QuieTek [20] in the Bluetest reverberation chamber [21], which emulates a rich scattering and also fading environment following a Rayleigh distribution. The of the three dual-loop antennas were measured simultaneously by connecting each antenna (presented as a branch in the test) to a four-port vector network analyzer (VNA). The subscript 1 and j of means port 1 connecting to the three transmitting monopoles for three polarization (perpendicular to each other) and port j connecting to each corresponding antenna in the test (see [22, Fig. 12.10]). The cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the measured power-transmission samples for the three branches is about the same and very close to the theoretical Rayleigh distribution observed at 2400, 2442, 2484, 5150, 5490, and 5825 MHz. At a cumulative probability level of 1% (thats, the sufcient quality 99% of the time), the difference between the CDF of selection combining and the best CDF among the three antennas represents the apparent diversity gain (see [17, Fig. 2]). In this case the diversity gain was found to be about 13.5 and 13.6 dB over the 2.4- and 5-GHz band, respectively.

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V. CONCLUSION A printed, 3 3 dual-loop-antenna system able to provide good radiation properties in the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands for low-cost, internal AP-antenna applications has been proposed and tested. Each antenna has two one-wavelength, self-balanced circular loops, providing separate and controllable frequency bands. The three dual-loop antennas were formed on a low-cost FR4 substrate with diameter 100 mm within the boundary of the APs system circuit board, above which the antennas were stacked by a small air gap. The proposed design in this case integrates the system circuit board as an efcient reector inside the AP and makes use of it to achieve high gain and directional radiation. The antennas showed 10-dB return-loss bandwidth with port isolation below 15 and 20 dB over the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. The 3-dB XPL in and planes is about 97 and 101 for 2.4 GHz loops versus 137 and 73 for 5 GHz loops. Directional radiation patterns with the front-to-back ratio exceeding 15 and 20 dB and with peak gain larger than 7 and 8 dBi, respectively, for 2.4- and 5-GHz operation were obtained. Several advantages of the proposed design over the previous paper in [9] have also been noticed, including the lower material/assembly cost, more board space available, better radiation characteristics with separate, controllable resonances, and so on. The proposed design makes it possible for the 11n AP to be equipped with a low-cost, integrable multiantenna system and at the time, is also a viable alternative to conventional, high-gain patch and microstrip antennas. The miniaturization of the antenna system by using the meander line for the circular loop to further reduce the overall 2-D dimensions will be studied in the future. REFERENCES
[1] K. L. Wong, Planar Antennas for Wireless Communications. New York: Wiley, 2003, ch. 4, pp. 173193. [2] Y. X. Guo and K. M. Luk, Dual-polarized dielectric resonator antennas, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 51, pp. 11201124, May 2003. [3] T. S. P. See and Z. N. Chen, Design of dual-polarization stacked arrays for ISM band applications, Microw. Opt. Technol. Lett., vol. 38, pp. 142147, Jul. 2003. [4] F. S. Chang, H. T. Chen, K. C. Chao, and K. L. Wong, Dual-polarized probe-fed patch antenna with highly decoupled ports for WLAN base station, in IEEE Antennas Propag. Soc. Int. Symp. Dig., Monterey, CA, 2004, pp. 101109. [5] IEEE Raties 802.11n, Wireless LAN Specication to Provide Signicantly Improved Data Throughput and Range The IEEE Standard Association [Online]. Available: http://standards.ieee.org/announcements/ieee802.11n_2009amendment_ratied.html [6] S. W. Su, Very-low-prole monopole antennas for concurrent 2.4- and 5-GHz WLAN access-point applications, Microw. Opt. Technol. Lett., vol. 51, Nov. 2009. [7] S. W. Su, Concurrent dual-band six-loop-antenna system with wide 3-dB beamwidth radiation for MIMO access points, Microw. Opt. Technol. Lett., vol. 52, pp. 12531258, Jun. 2010. [8] J. H. Chou and S. W. Su, Internal wideband monopole antenna for MIMO access-point applications in the WLAN/WiMAX bands, Microw. Opt. Technol. Lett., vol. 50, pp. 11461148, May 2008. [9] S. W. Su, High-gain dual-loop antennas for MIMO access points in the 2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz Bands, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 58, Jul. 2010, to be published. [10] H. Morishita, Y. Kim, and K. Fujimoto, Design concept of antennas for small mobile terminals and the future perspective, IEEE Antennas Propag. Mag., vol. 44, pp. 3034, 2002.

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Saou-Wen Su (S05M08) was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, in November 11, 1977. He received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, in 2001, 2003, and 2006, respectively. Since April 2006, he has been with the Technology Research and Development Center (TRDC), Lite-On Technology Corporation, Taipei, Taiwan, and is currently with the Network Access Strategic Business Unit (NASBU) at the same company. He built up the rst RF Antenna Design team at Lite-On Technology Corporation and contributed numerous cutting-edge designs to the companys ODM projects, including wireless AP router, Bluetooth headset/car kit, home entertainment device, RF module, etc. Many customized antenna designs were successfully mass produced. Currently, he has published more than 70 refereed SCI journal papers and several international conference articles. He has 19 U.S. and 20 Taiwan patents granted, and many patents are pending. His expertise is in the industrial antenna designs for wireless AP router, Bluetooth, WLAN and MIMO applications, and previous researches prior to Lite-On Technology Corporation included mobile-phone and UWB antenna designs.

Cheng-Tse Lee (S08M10) was born in Yilan, Taiwan, in 1983. He received the B.S. degree in electronic engineering from National Changhua University of Education, Changhua, Taiwan, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, in 2005, 2007, and 2010, respectively. His main research interests are in antenna designs for wireless communications, especially for the planar antennas for mobile phone, laptop computer, access-point, WLAN, and MIMO applications, and also in microwave and RF circuit design. He is currently with the Network Access Strategic Business Unit, Lite-On Technology Corporation, Taipei, Taiwan.