Multi-Band Compact Antenna for Smartphones Supporting LTE Carrier Aggregation

In this paper, we are proposing a dual feed compact antenna for a mobile phones that is capable of supporting the latest features of LTE, Carrier Aggregation (CA), which has been introduced to satisfy the ever increasing demand for data-rate. The antenna makes use of a dual resonator design to cover the low bands used in Long Term Evolution (LTE) from 699 to 960 MHz. The design of the RF Front End(FE) is simplified by the dual feed design which can have distributed components of the FE to relax its design and packaging requirements. The main antenna switch design can be relaxed and the high isolation between the two antennas removes the need for a diplexer.

The antenna supporting the high bands (from 1710 to 2700 MHz) is fed through a matching network to increase the bandwidth while having a small volume. Inductive loading is used for the minimization of both elements. Even though the antenna occupies only an area of 30×10mm², many combinations of low and high band are available for CA. Despite the small volume it has a good efficiency which is close to -3 dB. The design principle has been evaluated through simulations and measurement with good agreement between them.

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