Thursday
29Nov1990

Dual Frequency Inverted FL Antenna in XF7

2.4ghzccm-t.jpg Accurate results are easily obtained after generating the antenna using the XFdtd® 7.0 sketching tools.


The paper 'An Inverted FL Antenna for Dual-Frequency Operation' by Nakano, Sato, Mimaki, and Yamauchi appears in the August 2005 IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation. The Inverted FL antenna is a planar antenna designed to operate at 2.45 and 5.2 GHz. This antenna is extremely easy to analyze using XF7. The geometry of the planar antenna is shown in Figure 1.

 

The Dual Frequency FL Antenna geometry
Figure 1

 

The paper includes complete dimensions for the antenna. It is easily drawn using the sketching tools in XF7. The snapping tools and construction grid settings make the creation of the antenna very quick. The antenna is sized using the constraint tools. The sketch in progress and the finished antenna are shown in Figures 2 and 3.

Dual Frequency Inverted FL Antenna in XF7 Sketcher
Figure 2:
Finished antenna in XF7
Figure 3

 

The antenna geometry used automatic fixed points to ensure the most accurate representation in the mesh. The grid automatically creates smaller cells near the smaller features of the antenna producing a higher-fidelity representation where needed.

Mesh of the antenna showing adaptive meshing using fixed points.
Figure 4
Gridding properties of the antenna in XF7.
Figure 5

 

The calculation is performed with a transient excitation to determine the resonant frequencies of the antenna. The resulting VSWR vs Frequency plot is shown below in Figure 6. Figure 7 shows the experimental results from the paper. Clearly XFdtd produces a very accurate result.

VSWR Results
Figure 6
The experimental results from the paper.
Figure 7

 

Figure 8 shows the antenna current distribution at 2.45 GHz. Note that the current on the long 'L' part of the antenna at the upper left of the antenna is relatively strong at this lower frequency.

Steady-state conduction current magnitudes at 2.4GHz
Figure 8

Figure 9 shows the corresponding current density at 5.2 GHz. At this higher resonance the current is stronger on the shorter 'F' portion of the antenna and on the modified parasitic 'L' at the upper right. The dual frequency nature of this antenna is clear from considering these two current displays.

5.2ghzccm-t.jpg
Figure 9