Modeling and design of antennas for RF wireless systems

Antennas are an important subcomponent for radio frequency (RF) wireless systems-oftentimes, performance improvements in the several dB range can be achieved by optimizing antenna design and position, which are very difficult to achieve with modifications to a radio. Antennas for RF wireless systems include portable RF remote antennas, for example for cellular phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), handheld computers, and local-area network (LAN), wide-area network (WAN), and personal-area network (PAN) adapters for laptop computers, and base station antennas for these applications. Antennas for systems such as these have stringent cost, performance, and form factor specifications. This paper discusses the modeling and design of antennas for these applications, specifically a method of moments modeling tool which has been developed, special concerns in antenna design for portable RF remotes, and design of base station antennas.