Design of Printed Dipole Antenna for Enhanced Coverage Efficiency

A four port dipole antenna array at sub-6 GHz band (3400-3600 MHz) for mobile phone application with enhanced coverage efficiency is presented in this paper. Here a method for characterizing multiple dipole antenna in a cellular handset has been introduced. Coverage efficiency is studied for the antenna topology for its performance analysis. The array consists of four antennas placed along the four edges of the substrate. The dipole antennas placed at the oppositely faced edges are similar in dimension i.e. antenna 1 & 3 and antenna 2 & 4 are of same dimension and thus the antenna in opposite locations radiate in same manner. A common ground plane is used at the center of the substrate to isolate the antennas and also reduces mutual coupling between the antennas. The ground plane also helps in increasing the gain of the antenna. The dipole antennas 1 and 3 exhibit a fractional bandwidth of 8.47% and gain of 3.8 dBi providing vertical polarization and the dipole antennas 2 and 4 exhibit a fractional bandwidth of 6.2% and gain of 6.1 dBi providing horizontal polarization. Thereby the proposed array covers most part of the azimuthal plane. This antenna system may find its application in 5G MIMO systems particularly in smartphone applications at sub-6 GHz band.