Side-Edge LTE Antenna with a Narrow Ground

Clearance for the Smartphone

Li-Yu Chen and Kin-Lu Wong
Department of Electrical Engineering, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung 80424, Taiwan

Abstract—A T-shape open-slot antenna with a narrow promising LTE antenna is required to fit in a narrow ground
ground clearance of 1.5 mm and a length of 76 mm along the side clearance to make it possible for the side-edge application.
edge of the LTE smartphone is presented. This study applies the Based on this requirement, the present study is motivated.
narrow region between the display panel and the casing of the In this paper, we present a side-edge antenna comprised of
smartphone to accommodate the LTE antenna. With the narrow
ground clearance, the antenna can provide two operating bands a T-shape open-slot radiator for the LTE smartphone. The
of 746~960 MHz and 1710~2200 MHz to cover the LTE antenna occupies a 1.5-mm narrow ground clearance, which is
operation (for example, the LTE band 5, 8, and 13 for the low less than the previously reported open-slot antenna [9]. The
band and the LTE band 10, 23, and 25 for the high band). Details proposed antenna can provide two operating bands of 746~960
of the proposed side-edge LTE antenna are described. The user’s MHz and 1710~2200 MHz to cover the LTE operation, for
hand effect on the antenna performance in the two-hand data example, the LTE band 5, 8, and 13 for the low band and LTE
mode is also studied.
band 10, 23, and 25 for the high band [10]. A two-feed design
Index Terms—Mobile antennas, smartphone antennas, open- is also applied in the proposed antenna to allow the antenna’s
slot antennas, user’s hand effects lower and higher bands to be conveniently controlled and
impedance matched [11]. The low-band feed excites the
I. INTRODUCTION antenna’s longer slot arm, whereas the high-band feed excites
The internal antenna with less ground clearance and the antenna’s shorter slot arm. With the aid of the matching
smaller antenna size is always a design goal and challenge for circuit embedded in the low-band and high-band feeds, the
practical smartphone applications. For example, the multiband desired LTE bands can be covered. The operating principle of
loop antennas with narrow ground clearance as small as 5 mm the proposed antenna is described, and the experimental results
or less [1]-[3] have been reported to meet such applications. are also presented. The user’s hand effect of the two-hand data
However, the trend for the current smartphone requires a large mode on the antenna performance is also studied.
screen and an ultra-narrow frame (for example, as small as 2
mm or less in width), which makes the available ground
clearance for the internal antenna less than before. Besides, the
related studies for the LTE antenna with a narrow ground
clearance in the smartphone are very limited.
In addition, due to the MIMO (multi-input multi-output)
operation for the LTE (long term evolution) communication,
more antennas are needed to be embedded in the smartphone
so as to provide a high-speed data transmission and high
channel capacity [4], [5]. Generally, for the case with two LTE
antennas, they are disposed closely at the same short edge [6],
[7] or in opposite short edges (top and bottom edges) [8] of the
smartphone. Furthermore, it is known that, with the user’s
hand existence, the antenna performance can be affected. For
example, in the two-hand data mode, in which the short edges
of the smartphone are held by two hands, all the LTE antennas
disposed either at the same short edge or in opposite short
edges will be covered by two hands. In this situation, the
MIMO performance will be greatly decreased. Therefore, the
third LTE or even the fourth MIMO antenna should be better
to be added at the side edge (that is, long edge) of the
smartphone to enhance the performance of the possible 3 × 3 or
4 × 4 MIMO operation in the next-generation smartphone).
However, since the available region between the display Fig. 1. Geometry of the side-edge T-shape open-slot antenna with a 1.5-mm
panel and the casing of the smartphone is very limited, the narrow ground clearance for the LTE smartphone.

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 II. PROPOSED ANTENNA 1800 MHz, strong electric fields are seen in the shorter slot
arm and the slot opening, whereas the electric fields in another
A. Antenna Structure and Operating Principle slot arm are very weak. The observations in Fig. 4 confirm that
Fig. 1 shows the geometry of the side-edge T-shape open- the antenna’s lower and higher bands are respectively
slot antenna with a 1.5-mm narrow ground clearance for the contributed by the longer and shorter slot arms.
LTE smartphone. The proposed antenna was fabricated and its
photos are shown in Fig. 2. The antenna has a uniform slot
width of 1 mm and a slot opening of 1 mm. The length of the
longer slot arm and the shorter slot arm is 51 mm and 24 mm,
respectively. With the addition of the 1-mm slot opening, the
total length of the antenna is 76 mm. The antenna is disposed
along the side edge of the main circuit board of size 150 × 75
mm2. The device ground plane is printed on the back surface of
the main circuit board. The antenna has an on-board portion
disposed on the main circuit board and a vertical metallic plate
printed on the inner surface of the side-edge frame of the
smartphone. Note that in the study, we use a 0.8-mm thick, 6-
mm wide, and 150-mm long FR4 substrate as the side-edge
frame of the smartphone.
Fig. 3 shows the simulated return loss for the proposed
antenna, the case with the low-band feed only (Ant1 with port
1), and the case with the high-band feed only (Ant2 with port
2). The simulated results are obtained using the HFSS version
15 [12]. It is seen that the return loss of Ant1 is almost the
same with that in the low band of the proposed antenna. The
return loss of Ant2 is also similar to that in the high band of the
proposed antenna. The results indicate that the low-band and
high-band structure can be designed respectively, and two
feeds can also be controlled independently.
Fig. 3. Simulated return loss for the proposed antenna, the case with the low-
band feed only (Ant1 with port 1), and the case with the high-band feed only
(Ant2 with port 2).

Fig. 2. Photos of the fabricated antenna.
The simulated electric field distributions at 760 and 1800
MHz in the T-shape open slot for the proposed antenna are
shown in Fig. 4. At 760 MHz, strong electric fields are seen in
the longer slot arm and the slot opening, whereas the electric
fields in shorter slot arm are very weak. On the other hand at
Fig. 4. Simulated electric field distributions at 760 and 1800 MHz in the T-
shape open slot for the proposed antenna
B. Matching Circuit Effects
Fig. 5 shows the simulated return loss for the proposed
antenna, Ant1 without the high-pass matching circuit (Ant1a),

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and Ant2 without the low-pass matching circuit (Ant2a). For The effects of the high-pass and low-pass matching circuits
Ant1a, its fundamental mode occurs at about 800 MHz. For in widening the low-band and high-band bandwidths are
Ant2a, it occurs at about 1850 MHz (see the Ant1a and Ant2a shown in the Smith chart in Fig. 6 and Fig. 7. It is seen that the
curves). It is seen that the bandwidths of the two resonant input impedance curve becomes a looped curve within the 3:1
modes are not wide enough to cover the desired LTE band in VSWR circle, due to the adding of the high-pass and low-pass
this study. To widen the bandwidth, the low-band feed is added matching circuits. This indicates that the antenna’s lower and
with a high-pass matching circuit [9] and the high-band feed is higher bands are able to have dual-resonance modes for wider
added with a low-pass matching circuit to generate additional bandwidths.
resonant modes to cover wider LTE operation bands.
100 90 80
11 0 70
0 60
12
0 50
13

40
14
0

30
15
160

20
-170 180 170

10
-100
-160

- 20
0

-30
-15
0

-4
14

0
-
0 3 -5
-1 0
0 -60
-12 -70
-110 -80
-90 -100

Fig. 7. Simulated input impedance on the Smith chart for Ant2a without Cb
(curve 1), Ant2a (curve 2), and Ant2 (curve 3)

Fig. 5. Simulated return loss for the proposed antenna, Ant1 without the
high-pass matching circuit (Ant1a), and Ant2 without the low-pass matching
circuit (Ant2a).

100 90 80
110 70
0 60
12
0 50
13
0

40
14
0

30
15
60

20
70 180 170 1

10
-100

Fig. 8. Measured and simulated S parameters for the fabricated antenna.

0 -1

-20
-16
0

-30
-15
0

III. EXPERIMENT RESULTS

-4
4
-1

30 -5
-1 0

Fig. 8 shows the measured and simulated S parameters for

0 -60
-12 0 -70
-11 -80
-90 -100
the fabricated antenna. The results show agreement between
the measured data and simulated results. Results indicate that
the antenna can cover the desired lower and higher bands. The
measured and simulated antenna efficiencies for the fabricated
antenna are shown in Fig. 9. The measured data also generally
agree with the simulated results. The measured antenna
efficiency is respectively about 53~79% and 62~80% in the
Fig. 6. Simulated input impedance on the Smith chart for Ant1a without Ca lower and higher bands, which is acceptable for practical
(curve 1), Ant1a (curve 2), and Ant1 (curve 3).
applications [11].

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 The measured and simulated radiation patterns for the
fabricated antenna are plotted in Fig. 10. Agreement between
the measured data and the simulated results is observed. At
760 MHz, the Eφ radiation pattern in the x-y plane is with an
inverted figure-8 shape and is stronger than the Eθ radiation
pattern in the x direction. At 1800 MHz, stronger radiation is
seen in the +y direction as seen from the radiation patterns in
the x-y and y-z planes. The obtained radiation characteristics
are acceptable for practical applications.
0.96 0.96 1.71 1.71 1.71
The measured S11 and S22 for the fabricated antenna in free
space and with the user’s hand in the two-hand data mode are
shown in Fig. 11. The user’s two hands are in contact with a
foam layer (light blue region around the edges of the circuit
board) to simulate the smartphone casing, without touching the
main circuit board and ground plane. Results showed that there
are very slight variations between the measured data and the
simulated results. This is advantageous and attractive for the
side-edge antenna in this study.
1.71

0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3

Fig. 9. Measured and simulated antenna efficiencies for the fabricated

antenna.

Fig. 11. Measured S11 and S22 for the fabricated antenna in free space and with
the user’s hand in the two-hand data mode.

IV. CONCLUSION
A side-edge T-shape open-slot antenna with a narrow
ground clearance for the LTE smartphone application has been
proposed. The antenna can provide two operating bands of
746~960 MHz and 1710~2200 MHz to cover the LTE
operation, with a narrow ground clearance of 1.5 mm. The
operating principle of the antenna has been addressed. Good
radiation characteristics for the frequencies in the two
operating bands have also been observed. The user’s hand
effects such as the two-hand data mode on the antenna
performance are observed to be small. With the obtained
results in this study, the antenna is promising for applications
in the modern smartphone where the region between the
display panel and the casing is narrow.

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Authorized licensed use limited to: Intel Corporation via the Virtual Library. Downloaded on May 06,2020 at 16:06:46 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
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