Design and Analysis of Multiband Planar Antenna for Future 5G Wireless Devices

Abstract

As the wireless communication systems are advancing continuously in terms of technology, size, features, data rate etc., the need to support multiple communication technology poses space constraints. The gadgets and devices that we are seeing these days are compact in size which not only supports voice communication but also serve as a multimedia system supporting applications like Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), multi-person video calling, high-speed internet, online high-end games, virtual reality-based apps etc. For the advanced apps/softwares there is the need of high data rate which further demands more bandwidth from the communication technology in use. Antenna is an important component of any wireless device and can affect the system performance if not properly designed. With the development of next generation of mobile communication technology i.e. Fifth Generation (5G), new frequency bands have been added to be used for mobile communication. For the first time, the bands in mmWave range between 30 GHz to 90 GHz have been earmarked for 5G use cases. This results in need to design antennas which can support the lower as well as mmWave bands for 5G communication. This motivation led to the work presented in the thesis. The thesis is focused to achieve four objectives: first one is to analyze and design a single element planar antenna. The antenna type chosen is Planar Inverted-F Antenna (PIFA) and the radiating element is analyzed using Theory of Characteristic Mode (TCM) analysis to design the antenna systematically. The TCM analysis showed what current modes are the significant modes which can be excited efficiently to achieve the desired frequency band coverage. The overall structure of PIFA is also analyzed using TCM to find out the location of the radiating element on the ground plane. Second objective is to design a MIMO antenna system using the radiating element designed in first objective. So, two element and four element MIMO antennas are designed, simulated and analyzed for MIMO performance.