3D Antenna in Package Design: Maximizing Radiation Pattern Isotropicity and CP Coverage

Abstract

Internet of things (IoT) applications require orientation insensitive wireless devices to maintain stable and reliable communication as well as the localization capability using the global positioning system (GPS). For those reasons, antennas providing near-isotropic radiation pattern with wide circular polarization (CP) coverage are high in demand for IoT applications. In this work, we derive conditions for 3D antenna-on-package (AoP), through a combination of three orthogonal dipoles model and particle swarm optimization (PSO) technique to achieve near isotropic radiation pattern and wide CP coverage simultaneously. Design guidelines have been provided, and a practical AoP has been designed on a 3D cube package by following this guideline. A prototype has been fabricated and the measured results demonstrate an isotropy of ~ 93% and CP coverage of ~18%, which matches well with the predicted results from the theoretical analysis as well as the full wave electromagnetic simulations.

A Fully-Printed 3D Antenna With 92% Quasi-Isotropic and 85% CP Coverage

“…Although some of them have very wide CP coverage, the radiation patterns are not isotropic. Very few works have been reported that have attempted to achieve quasi-isotropic radiation patterns and wide CP coverage at the same time [27][28][29][30][31][32]. However, [28][29][30] have a directional radiation pattern for each polarization sense, i.e., RHCP radiation in one semi-sphere and LHCP in the other semi-sphere.…”