Radiation Pattern of a 2.4/ 5.2GHz Laptop Internal Antenna: Near Field Spherical Range Measurements and Full Wave Analysis

The omnidirectionality of a laptop internal antenna can be severely affected by the laptop electrically large structure. Therefore, an accurate evaluation of the radiation pattern requires a proper modelling of the laptop housing effects. Due to the large laptop dimensions, this antenna-PC integrated approach leads to a minimum far field distance of at least 12 meters at the WLAN frequency bands. Such a large distance is not easily accommodated in indoor far-field measurement ranges. A near field measurement technique seems appropriate to solve the problem. This study reports 2.4/5.2 GHz laptop internal antenna housing effects on the far field radiation pattern. The full wave simulations are compared with measurement results obtained in UCLA near field spherical range. A very good agreement obtained for all the investigated scenarios confirms that the near field technique is adequate to deal with this type of measurement problems.