Mobile Terminal Antenna Design

Abstract

Wireless communication system has experienced a dramatic development over the recent years, with expanding users and higher data rate. Antennas, as a critical part of any wireless communication system, have also undergone tremendous evolvement. Compared with the base station antennas, antennas in the mobile terminals experienced more evolution, from external antennas to internal antennas, from single band antennas to multiband antennas, from single antenna toMIMOantenna, and from low frequencies to millimeter wave frequencies. The design of mobile terminal antenna is more challenging as well, as it faces the contradiction between the small size and the requirement of multiple bands, wideband, and multiple elements. The article briefly reviews the history of the mobile terminal antennas, pointing out the milestones during the development. The requirements and challenges in designing mobile antennas are illustrated. In view of this, some important antenna types and their corresponding techniques to meet the design requirement are overviewed, including both the conventional and the newly developed techniques. In addition, some related technologies emerged in recent years are introduced, such asMIMO, massiveMIMO, and millimeter wave antennas. The article also covers the topic of the human body interaction with the terminal antennas, as it is important to both the antenna performance and the human's health.