In this dissertation, multiband ground antennas for slim handsets are presented. The design techniques are on efficiently exciting the resonant modes of the system ground plane of the handset to greatly enhance the antenna¡¦s operating bandwidth. The first antenna design is a monopole antenna integrated with a slot antenna formed in a clearance in the system ground plane to enhance the bandwidth of the antenna¡¦s lower band for penta-band WWAN operation. The second antenna design uses a shaped circuit board with a proper notch embedded therein to result in stronger surface current excitation in the ground plane, which leads to bandwidth enhancement in the antenna¡¦s lower band and upper band. The second antenna design can cover seven-band WWAN/LTE operation. The antenna geometry in the second antenna design is further applied in the third antenna design. In order to meet the practical application of slim handsets, the third antenna design is integrated with a battery element and a metal midplate to decrease the thickness of the handset. The third antenna design can cover seven-band WWAN/LTE operation. Finally, the simulated SAR and HAC results are analyzed for the three proposed antennas.

Design of the circularly polarized ceramic antenna, suitable for GPS system, on an asymmetric ground plane is presented in this thesis. Firstly, to obtain two isolated ground planes, we insert an L slit on an asymmetric ground plane, making the antenna with a symmetric ground plane. Then, we isolate the excited surface current between the two ground planes by using a quarter-wavelength mini-coaxial cable. The surface current can distribute uniformly on the ground plane when the proposed antenna is in operation, which makes possible a good circularly polarized radiation pattern in the operation band.

In this dissertation, thin internal antennas for mobile communication devices with a total thickness of less than 10 mm are proposed. There are mainly two differences in the antenna¡¦s construction between the proposed thin internal antennas and conventional planar inverted-F antenna. The first proposed antenna for thin internal antenna is a combo type formed by combining the conventional inverted-F antenna with the monopole antenna. The second proposed antenna is obtained by integrating two radiating arms into a radiating patch. By adjusting the tapering angle and the direction of the end portions, thin internal planar antenna with a thickness of less than 4 mm can be successfully achieved. In these two antennas, their Q-value can be lowered, and then the impedance bandwidth can be effectively improved. This kind of thin internal antennas not only has good impedance matching but also shows good radiation performance. Additionally, by adding a vertical metal wall acting as a RF shielding wall, EM fringing fields between the thin internal EMC antenna and nearby metal components can be effectively supressed. This kind of EMC antennas can effectively eliminate the isolation distance between the antenna and nearby conducting elements to increase the available space on the printed circuit board for additional functions. Besides, multi-band operation is another important function in current mobile devices. In this dissertation, we also studied the effects of the plastic casing and the user¡¦s hand and head on the antenna charateristics. For studying the antenna with the presence of the user¡¦s hand and head, the simulation model provided by SPEAG simulation software SEMCAD is used. From the results obtained, it is seen that the frequency detuning is greatly dependent on the presence of the user¡¦s hand and head. Owing to the presence of the user¡¦s hand and head, large decrease in the radiation efficiency is seen. It also indicates that the radiation efficiency decrease and radiation pattern distortion are mainly owing to the radiation power absorption by the user¡¦s hand and head.

Recently, reconfigurable antennas have attracted significant interest due to their high adaptation with changing system requirements and environmental conditions. Reconfigurable antennas have the ability to change their radiation pattern, frequency or polarization independently according to the application requirements. In this thesis, three different reconfigurable antenna structures have been designed / beam-steerable meanderline antenna, dual circularly polarized meanderline antenna and dual-frequency slot-dipole array. Traveling wave meanderline antenna arrays are investigated in detail and a beam-steerable traveling wave meanderline antenna array has been introduced for X-band applications. Beam-steering capability of the antenna array has been achieved by loading the antenna elements with varactor diodes. Theoretical analysis and computer simulations of the proposed antenna have been verified with experimental results. Radiation direction of the 8-element meanderline array can be rotated 10&deg / by changing the varactor diode&rsquo / s bias voltage from 0V up to 20V. Also, a polarization-agile meanderline antenna array has been designed and simulated. Polarization of the circularly polarized meanderline array can be altered between right hand circularly polarized and left hand circularly polarized by using RF MEMS switches. The third type of reconfigurable antenna investigated in this thesis is a dual frequency slot-dipole array operating at X- and Ka-band. Electrical length of the slot dipoles has been tuned by using RF MEMS switches. Antenna prototypes have been manufactured for &lsquo / on&rsquo / and &lsquo / off&rsquo / states of RF MEMS switches and it has been shown that the operating frequency can be changed between 10 GHz and 15.4 GHz.

Novel designs of three-dimensional patch antennas for beamdwidth enhancement and broadband operation have been proposed in this dissertation. For the beamwidth enhancement, the patch antenna with an inverted V-shaped patch has been proposed, and the antenna¡¦s radiation beamwidths have been broadened. Another beamwidth enhancement design using a three-dimensional square ground structure has also been demonstrated, and the 3-dB beamwidth of the CP radiation can reach more than 110¢X. In addition to the designs of beamwidth enhancement, the broadband patch antennas with a V-shaped patch, a W-shaped ground plane and a short probe-pin have been proposed. These novel structures can have significantly reduced probe-pin length and obtain a good impedance matching over a wide frequency range. Finally, a 1 ¡Ñ 2 broadband patch antenna array, suitable for base-station antenna applications for mobile communications systems, has also been studied

There are large groundplane variations for the folder-type mobile phone in the talk and idle conditions, which makes its embedded antennas not easy to maintain good radiation characteristics in the two states. The radiation efficiencies in the idle condition are often less than 15%. To solve this problem, two novel antennas for the folder-type mobile phone are proposed. The first antenna is the coplanar coupled-fed planar inverted-F antenna. The antenna can cover GSM850/900/DCS/PCS operation in the talk condition, and the radiation efficiencies over the desired operating bands in the idle condition is larger than 32%, which is acceptable for practical applications for the folder-type mobile phone. The second antenna is the ultra-wideband coupled-fed loop antenna. The antenna can cover GSM850/900/DCS/PCS/UMTS penta-band operation in the talk condition. In the idle condition, good performances over the five operating bands can still be obtained, and the radiation efficiencies are better than 53%. The effects of the housing and the user's hand and head on the antenna are also studied. From the obtained results, it is seen that the effects of the housing on the radiation efficiencies are small. However, since the user's hand and head are high-loss materials, large decrease in the radiation efficiencies is usually observed.

<p>In this thesis, two different topics are treated related to wireless communication. Part I presents three different reconfigurable MEMS integrated antennas for MIMO applications. Simulation and measurement results are presented along with brief discussions on the topic of antenna selection with reconfigurable antenna elements. Part II presents an estimator for the coupling matrix of an antenna array with two slightly different approaches. CRB is derived and discussed in terms of parameter cost.</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2000. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains xiii, 325 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 138-144).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2002. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 176 p. : ill. (some col.). Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 164-178). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.