IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.

13, 2014

1663

Wideband Planar Four-Element Linear

Antenna Array
Marko Sonkki, Member, IEEE, Douglas Pfeil, Veikko Hovinen, Member, IEEE, and
Kapil R. Dandekar, Senior Member, IEEE

AbstractThis letter presents a planar wideband linear antenna

array to cover multiple wireless standards. The array consists
of four microstripline-fed open-ended quarter-wavelength slot
antenna elements. By feeding the antenna properly, a fundamental
radiating antenna mode can be excited over a wide frequency
range. The antenna array is simulated in terms of surface current
distributions and -parameters. Simulated results are compared
to the manufactured prototype antenna array. Measured results
show the 10-dB impedance bandwidth is from 2.55 to 6.1 GHz,
corresponding to 83% relative impedance bandwidth, while mutual coupling is less than 16.6 dB within the aforementioned
impedance bandwidth. The simulated 10-dB bandwidth is from
2.0 to 6.0 GHz. Measured radiation patterns are presented at 2.4,
3.5, and 5.2 GHz with 4.6, 7.0, and 7.9 dBi maximum gain in boresight direction, respectively. The measured radiation patterns and
grating lobe levels correlate well with the theory and are 1015 dB
below the main lobe depending on the studied frequency.
Index TermsArray factor, cognitive radio, fundamental
antenna mode, multiple-inputmultiple-output (MIMO) antenna,
slot antenna, smart antenna, software defined radio.

I. INTRODUCTION

EMARKABLE progress in mobile communications systems has occurred in the last decade. Nowadays, fourthgeneration (4G) systems (LTE Advanced) are already widely
used, and research is now focusing on future wireless systems
(5G). As mobile phone and wireless systems get more advanced,
more radio interfaces are needed at both ends of the wireless
link.
Multiple antennas improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at
the receiver and suppress co-channel interference in a multiuser
scenario, thus improving the signal-to-interference-plus-noise
ratio (SINR) at the receiver(s). Both goals can be achieved by
means of beam-steering techniques. Another technique that reManuscript received February 07, 2014; revised April 15, 2014 and July 15,
2014; accepted August 14, 2014. Date of publication August 21, 2014; date
of current version January 15, 2015. This work was supported by the Finnish
Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, Elektrobit, Renesas Mobile,
Ltd., Nokia Siemens Networks, and Insta DefSec, Ltd. This material is based
upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. CNS1147838. The work of M. Sonkki was supported by the Nokia Foundation and
the InfoTech Oulu Doctoral Program.
M. Sonkki and V. Hovinen are with the Centre for Wireless Communications
(CWC), University of Oulu, 90014 Oulu, Finland (e-mail: marko.sonkki@ee.
oulu.fi).
D. Pfeil and K. R. Dandekar are with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA (e-mail:
[email protected]; [email protected]).
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.2014.2350259

quires multiple antennas at both ends of the wireless link is

called multiple-inputmultiple-output (MIMO).
Software defined radio (SDR) and cognitive radio (CR) are
two concepts in wireless communications that have changed
the way that radio systems are designed and operated. These
changes have significant effects on antenna requirements in a
host of applications from mobile phones to satellite communications. Both concepts imply capabilities for operation over very
wide bandwidths. For handheld radio antennas, bandwidth and
efficiency at low frequencies is the main problem. When considering base-station antennas, the difficulty of designing very
wideband antenna arrays lies in the pattern control [1].
There are several types of antennas to cover wide frequency
range: frequency-tunable [2], [3]; reconfigurable [4], [5]; and
wideband antennas [6], [7]. When it comes to wideband antenna
arrays, Vivaldi or tapered slot antenna arrays are quite generally
used [8], [9]. Also patch antennas [10], loop antennas [11], and
bow-tie antennas [12] are studied in the literature.
This letter proposes a wideband four-element linear antenna
array. A planar microstripline-fed open-ended quarter-wavelength slot antenna element is used in an array, based on the
structure presented in [13]. The differences between structures are different feedlines and the increased thickness of the
metal conductor of the antenna element. By increasing the
antenna thickness, the impedance matching can be improved.
It is shown that by placing antenna elements at

(2.45.2 GHz) distance, the measured radiation patterns keep

the form of a linear array over the aforementioned bandwidth.
Additionally, the operating principle of an individual antenna
element is presented. The idea is to excite the fundamental
antenna radiating mode over a wide frequency range as shown
in terms of surface current distributions.
The antenna array covers the UMTS (2.1 GHz), Bluetooth
(2.4 GHz), WLAN (2.45 and 5.15.8 GHz), DVB-SH (S-band),
LTE (2.03.8 GHz), and WiMAX (2.35.7 GHz) standards with
83% measured relative impedance bandwidth ( 10 dB). For
comparison, slot antennas presented in [13][15] provide 100%,
85%, and 95% (relative impedance bandwidths 6 dB), respectively. As the antenna array operates over wide frequency range,
one practical solution can be found in wireless LAN access point
systems [16], [17].
The letter is organized as follows. Section II presents an individual antenna element, operating principle, and prototype antenna. Simulations and measurement results are presented and
compared in Section III. Finally, Section IV contains conclusions and a discussion of the proposed planar wideband linear
antenna array.

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IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 13, 2014

Fig. 1. Individual antenna element in an array with dimensions (in millimeters).

II. ANTENNA STRUCTURE

Fig. 2. Surface current distributions of the antenna element at (a) 2.4, (b) 3.5,
and (c) 5.2 GHz.

This section describes the proposed antenna array structure

in terms of array elements spacing, individual antenna element
in an array with dimensions and its surface current distributions
at 2.4, 3.5, and 5.2 GHz. In addition, a four-element prototype
antenna with dimensions and coordinate system is presented.
A. Element Spacing
In this section, we discuss a compromise for antenna element
spacing in a linear antenna array while keeping grating lobe
level of a radiation pattern as low as possible. It is essential because when the physical spacing of antenna elements is fixed,
the electrical spacing in terms of wavelength ( ) increases at
higher frequencies, and the radiation pattern of an array is modified.
The formula to calculate the normalized array factor for an
-element linear array can be found in [9] and [19]. As theory
shows [9], the grating lobe level significantly increases with
element spacing bigger than 0.8 . At 0.8 antenna spacing,
the main beam of an array factor can be found in direction
. Additionally, the grating lobe level for the four-element linear arrays remains less than 12 dB and resides in
[9].
and

Fig. 3. Prototype antenna with dimensions (in millimeters) and coordinate

system.

achieved with a complementary behavior of a magnetic slot (capacitive) and an electric conductor (inductive). More information about the input impedance can be found in [14].
Fig. 2 presents the current distributions of the antenna element at 2.4, 3.5, and 5.2 GHz. When comparing the results to
[14], it can be observed how the fundamental mode is excited
at every studied frequency with vertically polarized current distributions. Notice that horizontal currents propagate in opposite directions in the lower and upper parts of the antenna element. Thus, the horizontally polarized current components are
canceled.

B. Individual Antenna Element and Its Current Distributions

C. Wideband Linear Antenna Array Prototype

The antenna element used in a linear array is presented here,

whereas the antenna array itself is described in Section II-C.
The antenna element is based on an idea presented in [13]
where a planar quarter-wave open-ended slot antenna is fed
with microstripline.
Fig. 1 presents the dimensions of an individual antenna element in millimeters. Rogers4003 RF-laminate with 0.813 mm
thickness is used. The antenna conductor thickness is 1 mm and
is made by soldering a plate of brass to the other side of the
substrate. On the other side of the substrate is the conventional
microstripline to feed the antenna.
The operating principle of the antenna structure presented in
Fig. 1 is the same as in [14]; the fundamental mode is excited
over a wide frequency range, when, at the same time, the imaginary part of the input impedance remains around zero. This is

Fig. 3 presents the proposed linear antenna array prototype.

In the array, four elements described in Section II-B are equally
spaced with
distance at 5.2 GHz. Thus, the physical
spacing at 5.2 GHz is 44.8 mm, which equals
at 2.4 GHz.
The array is fabricated on Rogers4003 RF-laminate. The
white foam below the array is a supporting material made of
Rohacell (
). For comparison, the size of the proposed
antenna array is the same as the reconfigurable antenna in [5].
III. RESULTS
This section presents simulated and measured antenna element and array performance. The commercial 3-D electromagnetic simulator CST Microwave Studio with time domain solver
is used in all the simulations.

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Fig. 5. Radiation patterns of individual elements in the linear array in -cut at

(a) 2.4, (b) 3.5, and (c) 5.2 GHz. In (d), radiation pattern of the linear wideband
antenna array is presented at previously mentioned center frequencies. Radiation patterns are presented in terms of total gain (dBi).
Fig. 4. (a) Simulated and (b) measured -parameters of the antenna array.

First, -parameters are presented, and simulations are compared to the measured ones. Second, the measured radiation
properties of individual antenna elements are presented. Then,
the antenna array radiation properties are presented without
beam steering at 2.4-, 3.5-, and 5.2-GHz center frequencies.
A.

-Parameters

Fig. 4 presents the simulated and the measured -parameters

of the prototype antenna. It can be observed in Fig. 4(a) that the
simulated relative 6-dB bandwidth of the array is slightly increased compared to the structure in [13]: 100% against 113%
presented in this letter. This indicates that the mutual coupling
between antenna elements does not disturb the impedance bandwidth of the array. A typical reference value in mobile applications [18] for input impedance is 6 dB. For comparison, the
simulated relative 10-dB impedance bandwidth of the proposed antenna array is 100% (26 GHz), which is typically used
with antenna arrays [8].
In Fig. 4(b), the measured -parameters are presented. One
can observe the 10-dB impedance bandwidth does not fully
correlate with the simulations in the lower end of the spectrum,
from 2 to 2.55 GHz. The measured relative 10-dB impedance
bandwidth is 83% (2.556.1 GHz). The reason for difference between simulations and measurements was found to be in manufacturing tolerances; the soldering of the 1-mm-thick brass plate
to the RF-laminate is very sensitive to heat differences.
However, results correlate well with the theoretical maximum relative impedance bandwidth of a square-shaped planar
conducting plate studied in [18], where the simulations predicted 95% relative bandwidth. For comparison, in [20], the
relative 10-dB impedance bandwidth achieved with four-element linear array is 64%, and in [10] 44.5%, respectively.

Additionally, the presented results are very similar to [12],

where achieved relative 10-dB impedance bandwidth is 91%.
When it comes to the simulated isolation between antenna
elements, there is good correlation with the measurements. The
maximum measured isolation between elements is 16.6 dB,
when the simulations are predicting 17.4 dB. The measured
average isolation over 10-dB impedance bandwidth is 21 dB.
This well correlates with the average isolation between two
bow-tie antenna elements in [12], which is 18 dB.
B. Radiation Patterns
This section presents the measured radiation patterns of an
individual antenna element and the method of how the results
are combined to linear antenna array radiation patterns.
The measured radiation patterns of an individual antenna element are presented in Fig. 5(a)(c) at 2.4, 3.5, and 5.2 GHz,
respectively. The radiation pattern of the array is calculated by
summing the complex far field of individual antenna elements
at the studied center frequency. The following formula is used
to move the reference point of the measured antenna elements
to the middle of the linear array [21] (see the coordinate system
in Fig. 3):
(1)
represents an antenna array gain in far field as
where
a function of and ,
is a gain in far field of individual
antenna elements in an array,
,
is displacement of
antenna element from the origin, and is a unit vector.
By following (1), the radiation patterns of the proposed linear
antenna array are presented in Fig. 5(d) without beam steering.
This means that the amplitudes of all antenna elements are
equal, and the phase differences are zero. To measure antenna
radiation patterns, the embedded element pattern method is

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IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 13, 2014

used, as presented in [20]. The method allows measuring an

antenna array without feed network.
The maximum gain of the antenna array is 4.6, 7.0, and
7.9 dBi at 2.4, 3.5, and 5.2 GHz, respectively. The maximum
gain is found on the direction of boresight (
,
), and the measured radiation pattern well correlates with the measured results of the four-element linear array
presented in [20].
When studying the grating lobes, it can be observed they
well correlate with the theory, as discussed in Section II-A. The
grating lobe levels are, depending on studied frequency, from
10 to 15 dB below the main lobe and can be found in direction
and
. These results also well
correlate with the ones presented in [20].
The measured grating lobes and main lobes are not symmetrically drawn into the polar plot as shown in Fig. 5(d). This is
due to asymmetrical radiation properties of an individual antenna element. On the other hand, the radiation of the active
element is directive to the direction of a parallel passive element. Thus, other elements for Element 1 are acting as a directive element. The effects of this directivity can be easily seen,
especially at 2.4 GHz [Fig. 5(a)], where antenna elements are
electrically closer to each other than other studied frequencies.
IV. CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
The letter proposed a wideband linear antenna array. The
antenna consists of four planar microstripline-fed open-ended
quarter-wavelength slot antenna elements to excite the fundamental radiating antenna mode over a wide frequency range.
The antenna presented a good impedance matching and isolation properties between the antenna elements over 10-dB operating bandwidth. Also, correlation between theoretical, numerical, and measured results was observed to be good.
Wideband antenna arrays for multiple radio interfaces increase the demands for filtering compared to reconfigurable or
narrowband antennas. Whereas an antenna with narrow bandwidth is automatically filtering the signal, wideband antennas
need adjustable filtering that adapts quickly to the operating
frequency in question. On the other hand, wideband antennas
can be considered simpler than reconfigurable antennas as there
are no additional components (e.g., for frequency or radiation
pattern tuning).
As the antenna element spacing gets wider in terms of wavelength when operating frequency increases, the array can be
considered to be utilized in MIMO systems. The antenna element spacing can be increased from
to be greater than
at 2.4 GHz to support MIMO up to 6 GHz. This also decreases mutual coupling and spatial correlation between the antenna elements.

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