1592 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 60, NO.
3, MARCH 2012
[8] J. T. Rowley and R. B. Waterhouse, “Performance of shorted microstrip
patch antennas for mobile communications handsets at 1800 MHz,”
IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 47, no. 5, pp. 815–822, 1999.
[9] J. S. Row and Y. Y. Liou, “Broadband short-circuited triangular
patch antenna,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 54, no. 7, pp.
2137–2141, 2006.
[10] Nasimuddin, X. Qing, and Z. N. Chen, “Compact asymmetric-slit
microstrip antennas for circular polarization,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propag., vol. PP, pp. 1–1, 2010.
[11] Nasimuddin, Z. N. Chen, and X. Qing, “Asymmetric-circular shaped
slotted microstrip antennas for circular polarization and RFID applica-
tions,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 58, no. 12, pp. 3821–3828.
Design of Broadband Dual-Band Dipole for Base
Station Antenna
Wen Xing An, Hang Wong, Ka Leung Lau, Shu Fang Li, and
Quan Xue
Abstract—A novel dual-band unidirectional antenna composed of an ir-
regular shorted patch and planar dipole elements is presented and studied.
This proposed antenna employs an L-shaped feeding strip for exciting dual-
band operations. For the lower frequency band, a V-slot is loaded on the
planar dipole for acting as a capacitive loading for having wide impedance
matching of the antenna. Then, two additional smaller planar dipoles are
placed and connected to the irregular short patch for achieving another
wideband performance at the higher frequency band. The proposed an-
tenna has wide dual-band impedance bandwidths of 34% and 49.5% in the
lower and the upper bands, ranged from 0.78 GHz to 1.1 GHz and from 1.58
GHz to 2.62 GHz, respectively. More importantly, the antenna has stable
gains of 7 dBi and 8 dBi across each band, demonstrating the high stability
of the radiation characteristic for the two radiation modes. The radiation
patterns are symmetric, low back-lobe radiation and low cross-polariza-
tion. Analysis and parametric studies of the proposed antenna are provided.
Index Terms—Base station antenna, dipole, dual-band, L-probe, mag-
neto electric dipole, shorted patch, V-slot, wideband.
I. INTRODUCTION
Recent communication services, such as 2G, 3G, LTE, Wi-Fi, and
WiMax, boost the high demand of wideband unidirectional antennas
Manuscript received March 29, 2011; revised July 31, 2011; accepted Au-
gust 16, 2011. Date of publication December 16, 2011; date of current version
March 02, 2012. This work was supported in part by The National Basic Re-
search Program of China (973 Program, 2011CB302900), Shenzhen Science
and Technology Planning Project for the Establishment of Key Laboratory in
2009 (CXB 200903090021A), National Natural Science Foundation of China
(Grant No. 61002005) and in part by the New Generation Broadband Wireless
Mobile Communication Network, Major Projects (2008ZX03001).
W. X. An is with the Department of Information Communication Engi-
neering, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing, China
and also with City University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen Research Institute,
Shenzhen, China (e-mail: zzawx.good@163.com).
H. Wong and Q. Xue are with the State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves,
City University of Hong Kong, China.
K. L. Lau is with the City University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen Research
institute, Shenzhen, China.
S. F. Li is with the Department of Information and Communication Engi-
neering, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing, China.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this communication are avail-
able online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2011.2180336
0018-926X/$26.00 © 2011 IEEE
to accommodate several wireless communication systems with excel-
lent electrical characteristics such as wide impedance bandwidth, low
cross-polarization, low back radiation, and stable gain over the oper-
ating band for cost effectiveness, space utilization and environmental
friendliness. Moreover, the dual-band antenna is more attractive be-
cause it reduces the numbers of antenna units and minimizes the in-
stallation area for the base station antenna. Several studies have been
focused on the development of dual-band antenna elements [1]–[4].
For examples, a dual-band patch antenna excited by two L-probes has
proposed in [2], wide impedance bandwidths of 17.9% and 20.8% are
obtained for each band. In addition, another dual-band antenna [3] with
shorted pin and shorted wall can acquire the bandwidths of 22.9% and
20.3%. Moreover, some proposed by using patch monopole antennas
[4], [5] to have wideband dual-band antennas. However, the above ex-
amples of dual-band antennas cannot maintain a stable radiation pat-
terns over the entire operating bandwidths.
Recently, a wideband complementary antenna element, designed as
the magneto-electric (ME) dipole, has proposed [6], [7]. This antenna
has a wide impedance bandwidth of 43.8% (for SWR  1:5). Good
radiation characteristics such as low back radiation, symmetric E-and
H-plane radiation patterns and stable antenna gain over the operation
band are observed. Several studies on investigating the ME dipole can
be found in the literatures [8], [9]. Although the antennas presented in
[6]–[9] are excellent in the electrical characteristics, there is no example
to demonstrate the dual-band operation by using the ME dipole design.
A wideband dipole antenna composed of two E-shaped patches and a
staircase-shaped feeding strip is described in [10]. Compared to the an-
tenna in [7], it has at least one additional resonance in the SWR against
frequency curve which are created by modifying the patch shape. If
we adjust these resonances to two different frequency bands by mod-
ifying the shape and height of the patch, a dual-band operation could
be realized.
In this communication, a wideband dual-band antenna composed of
an irregular shorted patch and three planar dipoles is introduced. Com-
pared with the antenna in [7], a broadband dual-band dipole antenna
can be excited by one L-shaped feeding strip. The proposed antenna
covers the frequency bands from 0.78 GHz to 1.1 GHz (34%) and from
1.58 GHz to 2.62 GHz (49.5%). The average gain of 7 dBi and 8 dBi
are achieved for the lower band and the upper band, respectively. The
radiation patterns are stable across the entire pass-band with low cross
polarization.
II. ANTENNA DESCRIPTION
The basic geometry of a dual-band dipole antenna is shown in
Fig. 1. The proposed antenna is designed with the center frequency
at fL = 0:94 GHz (L = 319:15 mm) and at fH = 2:1 GHz
(H = 142:85 mm) respectively. It comprises of a triangular shaped
dipole with V-slot loaded (for the lower frequency) and two pairs of
the trapezoidal dipoles (for the upper frequency). The three dipole
elements are connected and supported by metallic shorting walls.
These shorting walls with an irregular shape are mounted symmetri-
cally with respect to the center of a square ground plane of size 220
mm2 220 mm. The separation between the vertical shorted walls is
17 mm (0:053L ; 0:119H ) where L corresponding to the center
frequency of the lower band at 0.94 GHz, and H corresponding to
the center frequency of the upper band at 2.1 GHz). A trapezoidal
(instead of a rectangular) shape is used for better impedance matching
for a lower patch, since trapezium provides more degree of freedom
for impedance tuning.
An L-shaped feeding strip [11], [12] is used for exciting the antenna,
which is placed between the vertical metallic shorting walls with 1 mm
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 60, NO. 3, MARCH 2012 1593

Fig. 1. Geometry of the proposed dual-band antenna, (a) 3D view and L-shaped feeding strip, (b) top view, (c) side view (All dimensions are shown in millimeters).

gaps at each side. One end of the strip is connected to a trapezoidal

microstrip line which is used for having wider impedance matching. A
SMA connector located underneath the ground plane is connected to
the end of the trapezoidal transmission line. Detailed dimensions are
depicted in the table of Fig. 1.

III. PARAMETRIC STUDY

It is desirable to observe the effects of various parameters including
upper dipole length (L), lower dipole length (L1) and inner dipole
length (L2) on the performance of the proposed antenna. This study
is conducted by simulation using a commercial EM solver, IE3D
[13]. The results can be used to provide design guideline for antenna
engineers.
Fig. 2 illustrates responses of reflection coefficients with different L Fig. 2. Reflection coefficient against frequency with different L.
(fixed all other parameters as shown in the table of Fig. 1). It is clearly
seen that the lower frequency range is very sensitive to L, while the
upper frequency range remains stable when L is varied. When L is the upper frequency range but less effect to the lower frequency range.
larger than 88 mm, the antenna becomes mismatched in the lower fre- Moreover, Fig. 4 shows responses of reflection coefficients with dif-
quency region. ferent L2. As well as L1, L2 is also effective to control the input
Fig. 3 shows responses of reflection coefficients with different L1 impedance of the upper frequency range. When L2 is larger than 26
(fixed all other parameters as shown in the table of Fig. 1). Unlike the mm, the impedance bandwidth of the upper frequency range would be
value of L, L1 is very effective to control the impedance response of reduced.
1594 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 60, NO. 3, MARCH 2012
Fig. 3. Reflection coefficient against frequency with different L1.
Fig. 4. Reflection coefficient against frequency with different L2.
Fig. 5. Gain against frequency with different L.
Fig. 5 depicts responses of gains with different L (fixed all other
parameters as shown in the table of Fig. 1). When L is increased, the
gain in the lower frequency range is decreased but the gain in the upper
frequency range is slightly increased.
Figs. 6 describes responses of gains with different L1 (fixed all other
parameters as shown in the table of Fig. 1). When L1 is increased,
the gain in the upper frequency range is decreased but the gain keeps
constant in the lower frequency range.
Similarly, Fig. 7 represents the responses of gains with different L2.
The gain response of the upper frequency range is very sensitive to this
parameter. When L2 is larger than 26 mm, the gain variation is very
large. However, this parameter is not sensitive to the gain in the lower
frequency range.
IV. MEASUREMENT
To verify the simulated results, a prototype of the proposed antenna
was build and tested. Dimensions of the antenna are listed in the table
inserted in Fig. 1. Experimental results were obtained by the Agilent
Fig. 6. Gain against frequency with different L1.
Fig. 7. Gain against frequency with different L2.
Fig. 8. Reflection coefficient and gain against frequency for a wideband dual-
band dipole antenna.
E5071C network analyzer and the Near Field Antenna Measurement
System, Satimo.
Fig. 8 shows the result of reflection coefficient and gain against fre-
quency of the proposed antenna. As seen from the reflection coefficient
curves, the antenna has dual-band characteristics, its wide impedance
bandwidths are 34% from 0.78 GHz to 1.1 GHz for the lower frequency
band, and 49.5% from 1.58 GHz to 2.62 GHz for the upper frequency
band. The gains were measured for two frequency ranges from 0.8 GHz
to 1.1 GHz and 1.65 GHz to 2.6 GHz. The antenna can obtain the av-
erage gains of 7 dBi and 8 dBi across two operating bandwidths in-
dividually. The measured radiation patterns at several frequencies of
0.9 GHz, 1.7 GHz, and 2.3 GHz are plotted and shown in Fig. 9. The
antenna has good directional radiation patterns, with very low cross-po-
larization level at the two principal planes. Detailed radiation charac-
teristics of the proposed antenna are summarized in Table I.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 60, NO. 3, MARCH 2012 1595

of 7 dBi and 8 dBi over the passband. Because of these excellent

features, the antenna should find wide applications in the modern
wireless communication systems.

REFERENCES
[1] K. L. Wong and W. S. Chen, “Compact microstrip antenna with dual-
frequency operation,” Electron. Lett., vol. 33, pp. 646–647, 1997.
[2] K. M. Luk, C. H. Lai, and K. F. Lee, “Wideband L-probe-feed patch
antenna with dual-band operation for GSM/PCS base stations,” Elec-
tron. Lett., vol. 35, pp. 1123–1124, 1999.
[3] K. L. Lau, K. C. Kong, and K. M. Luk, “Dual-band stacked folded
shorted patch antenna,” Electron. Lett., vol. 43, pp. 789–790, 2007.
[4] W. C. Liu and J. K. Chen, “Dual-band twin stepped-patch monopole
antenna for WLAN application,” Electron. Lett., vol. 45, pp. 929–931,
2009.
[5] W. C. Liu, C. M. Wu, and Y. H. Ho, “Broad dualband fork-shaped
CPW-fed monopole antenna,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag, vol. 34,
pp. 2362–2363, 1998.
[6] K. M. Luk and H. Wong, “Complementary Wideband Antenna,” U.S.
patent no. 7843389, Nov. 30, 2010.
[7] K. M. Luk and H. Wong, “A new wideband unidirectional antenna
element,” Int. J. Microw. Opt. Technol., vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 35–44,
2006.
[8] B. Q. Wu and K. M. Luk, “A broadband dual-polarized magneto-elec-
tric dipole antenna with simple feeds,” IEEE Antennas Wireless
Propag. Lett., vol. 8, pp. 60–63, 2009.
[9] L. Siu, H. Wong, and K. M. Luk, “A dual-polarized magneto-electric
dipole with dielectric loading,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag, vol. 57,
pp. 616–623, 2009.
[10] W. X. An, K. L. Lau, S. F. Li, and Q. Xue, “Wideband E-shaped dipole
antenna with staircase-shaped feeding strip,” Electron. Lett, vol. 46, pp.
1583–1584, Nov. 2010.
[11] C. L. Mak, K. M. Luk, and K. F. Lee, “Wideband L-strip fed microstrip
antenna,” in Proc. IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Int. Symp.,
Orlando, FL, Jul. 1999, pp. 1216–1219.
[12] C. L. Mak, K. M. Luk, and K. F. Lee, “Microstrip line-fed L-strip patch
antenna,” in Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng.-Microwaves, Antennas, and Prop-
agation, Aug. 1999, vol. 146, pp. 282–284.
[13] Zeland Software Inc., version 12.30.

Fig. 9. Measured radiation pattern at 0.9 GHz, 1.7 GHz and 2.3 GHz.

TABLE I
SUMMARY OF THE RADIATION CHARACTERISTIC OF THE PROPOSED ANTENNA

V. CONCLUSION
A wideband dual-band dipole antenna is designed, fabricated and
tested. Experimental results demonstrated that the antenna has wide
impedance bandwidths of 34% and 49.5% in the lower and upper
bands, ranged from 0.78 GHz to 1.1 GHz and from 1.58 GHz to
2.62 GHz respectively. Other than the wide dual-band characteristic,
it also has stable directional radiation patterns with the average gain