An UWB Planar Inverted-F Antenna for wireless

applications
T. Chattha, 2M. K. Ishfaq, 3Y. Huang, and 3S. J. Boyes,
Dept. of Electrical, Electronics and Telecom.Eng., University of Engineering & Technology (Lahore),
Faisalabad Campus, Pakistan, 2Dept. of Telecom. Eng., G. C. University, Faisalabad, Pakistan, 3Dept.
of Electrical Eng. & Electronics, University of Liverpool, UK
University of Liverpool L69 3GJ, U.K.
h.chattha@liv.ac.uk, and yi.huang@liv.ac.uk

1H.

Abstract The planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA) is widely

used in mobile and portable radio systems due to its excellent
features. However, it is not yet employed as an ultra wide band
antenna because it was considered a narrowband antenna. This
paper introduces an ultra wideband planar inverted-F antenna
based on three techniques, which are (a) changes in the widths
of feed and shorting plates, (b) addition of an inverted-L
shaped parasitic element and (c) addition of a rectangular
parasitic element. It is shown that ultra wideband PIFAs with
fractional bandwidth of more than 100 % is achieved covering
from 3.4 GHz to 10.7 GHz. Simulated and measured results are
provided to verify the conclusion.

Index Terms Antennas, PIFA, planar antennas, input

impedance bandwidth

1. INTRODUCTION
A considerable research has been done for the development
of ultra wideband (UWB) antennas for its high data rates,
low power consumption, wide bandwidth and simple
hardware configuration in application such as radio
frequency identification devices, sensor networks, radar and
positioning systems etc.The bandwidth allocated to UWB is
from 3.1 GHz to 10.6 GHz by the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) in 2002 [1]. A good amount of printed
monopole UWB antennas exist in literature [2-7]. However,
the radiation patterns of these antennas are omni-directional.
Some UWB applications require antennas with
comparatively higher directivity than those of printed
monopole antennas. The planar inverted F antenna (PIFA) is
now widely used in mobile and portable radio applications
due to its simple design, lightweight, low-cost, conformal
nature and attractive radiation pattern[8-11]. The PIFA has
higher directivity as compared to the planar monopole
antennas which makes it more suitable for certain UWB
applications.
PIFA was generally considered a narrow-band antenna and a
significant amount of effort has been made to broaden its
bandwidth[12-14].Feik et al showed that diversely shaped feed
plates can be used to increase the impedance bandwidth up
to 25 % fractional bandwidth [15].

Wg
Z

Ground plane

W
Top plate

Dc1

Wf

Feed plate

tc3

Lg

tc2 h-d

Dc

CL

t
Ws

tc1
Feed
Fig. 1 Geometry of PIFA

3. SIMULATED AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

2. ANTENNA CONFIGURATION
The configuration of the PIFA is shown in Fig. 1. The
radiating top plate has dimensions of WL and ground plane

978-1-4673-0037-7/12/$26.00 2012 IEEE

dimensions areWgLg. There is an air substrate of thickness

t = 1.0mm between the rectangular ground plane and feed
plate. The antenna height is h and the space between the top
plate and the substrate is also filled with air (free space).
The shorting plate has dimensions of Ws(h+t) and feed
plate has dimensions of Wfh and shorting plate is placed
under the top corner of the top plate. The horizontal distance
between shorting and feed plates is Lb. An inverted-L
shaped parasitic element is added at a distance Dc from the
feed plate. The thicknesses of the parasitic element are tc1
and tc2. The height of the parasitic element is (h+t)-d where
d is the vertical distance between the top plate and the
element. The horizontal extension of this element is CL.
Second parasitic element rectangular in shape is inserted at
the upper edge of the ground plane at a distance Dc1 from the
shorting plate. The width of this element is tc3 while its
height is the same as that of inverted-L parasitic element i.e.
(h+t)-d. The PIFA antenna is fed by a coaxial cable through
a SMA connector. The simulation software package used is
Ansofts High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS).

The effect of changing the width of feed plate Wf on the

fractional bandwidth for Ws = 1 mm is shown in Fig. 2,
while the frequency ranges from 1 to 3.5 GHz in which the
S11 remains below -10 dB. It is evident that increasing the
width of the feed plate increases the fractional bandwidth up

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to a particular value then further increase in the feed plate

width only serves to decrease the fractional bandwidth.
Therefore an optimum value for the width of feed plate
should be selected for achieving the maximum bandwidth.
Similarly the effect of changing the width of the shorting
plate on the fractional bandwidth is also investigated and the
results are shown in Fig. 3 for Wf= 5 mm. It is observed that
increasing the width of the shorting plate increases the
fractional bandwidth to about 25% and further increases of
the shorting plate width results in the decrease of the
fractional bandwidth for a given feed plate width. Thus there
is also an optimum width for the shorting plate. It is
observed that increasing the widths of shorting and feed
plates result in the increase of the resonant frequency. In
addition, it is also found that the maximum global
bandwidth is achieved when the width of the shorting plate
width is relatively small [16] which could explain why much
wider bandwidths are achieved than in [15].

0.07 = 3 mm, tc1 = tc2 = tc3 = 0.012 = 0.5 mm, (h+t)-d =

0.116 = 5 mm, CL = 0.058 = 2.5 mm. The simulated and
measured results of S11 are shown in Fig. 5.It is seen that the
bandwidth achieved by these techniques for S11< -10 dB is
extremely broad with a fractional bandwidth of more than
100%, from about 3.4 GHz to about 10.7 GHz with central
frequency fc = 7 GHz i.e. = 43 mm, which is very close to
the entire UWB band.The simulated and measured results
are generally in good agreement. Their differences are
mainly due to the following factors (a) the cables: which are
not included in the simulation but presented in the
measurements; b) the connector: which is also not
considered in the simulation; (c) The inaccuracy of exact
parameters in manufacturing the PIFA as it is made
manually in the lab. The lower frequency and first resonance
is controlled by the main structure of PIFA, whereas the
insertion of inverted-L shaped parasitic element creates a
second resonance at 8 GHz and the presence of rectangular
shaped parasitic element produces a third resonance around
10.3 GHz (simulated).

Fig. 2 Feed plate width versus fractional bandwidth for Ws

= 1 mm
Fig. 4 The built ultra wide band PIFA for measurements

Fig. 3 Shorting plate width vs. fractional bandwidth for Wf=

5 mm
An UWB PIFA with two parasitic elements (inverted-L
shaped and rectangular shaped) is developed as shown in
Fig. 4. The parameters for this optimized UWB PIFA
antenna are as follows: Wg= 0.43 = 18.5 mm, Lg= 0.65 =
28 mm, W = 0.43 = 18.5 mm, L = 0.22 = 9.5 mm, h =
0.105 = 4.5 mm, Wf= 0.198 = 8.5 mm, Ws = 0.012 = 0.5
mm, Lb = 0.128 = 5.5 mm, Dc = 0.012 = 0.5 mm, Dc1 =

Fig. 5 Reflection coefficient [S11] in dB versus frequency in

GHz
The simulated 3D radiation pattern (polar plot) of the PIFA
antenna with two parasitic elements at 6 GHz is shown in
Fig. 6 and the measured 2D radiation patterns of this

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antennaat different frequencies in dB scale are shown in

Fig.7 for different planes. The graph of the measuredgain
versus the frequency of this UWB PIFA is shown in Figs. 8.

Fig. 7(b) Radiation pattern in dB as a function of for

azimuth XY plane (=90) for different frequencies
Fig. 6 Simulated 3D radiation pattern of UWB PIFA
with two parasitic elements at 6 GHz

Fig. 8 Measured peak gain in dB versus frequency in GHz

of the UWB PIFA

Fig. 7(a) Rad. patternin dB as a function of for elevation

XZ plane (=0) for different frequencies

4. CONCLUSIONS
An UWB PIFA antenna is designed fabricated and tested
which covers nearly the entire UWB band from 3.4 GHz to
10.7 GHz with a fractional bandwidth of more than 100%.
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