A Printed ESPAR Antenna for Mobile Computing Applications

Electronically Steerable Passive Array Radiator (ESPAR) antennas have been shown to be a significant adjunct in modern wireless communications. However, their size and 3- dimentional geometry has restrained them from being widely used in mobile terminals. In this paper a printed three-element ESPAR antenna system is presented operating in the 2.4 GHz ISM band. The antenna elements used are low-profile Koch monopoles printed on a PCMCIA card. The structure's performance was evaluated through extensive simulations when inserted in the PCMCIA slot of a notebook computer. The proposed structure shows attractive characteristics in terms of reduced size, high bandwidth, beamsteering and null steering capabilities.