AMC-based low profile antennas for 4G communication services

Recently, the development of wireless communication has led to a great demand of compact and wideband antennas. Current research is oriented towards a novel kind of antennas, whose design is based on the interaction between a radiating element and an high impedance surface (HIS), acting as an artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) as well as an electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) surface. In this paper we present a couple of low profile antenna suitable for 4G communication services. The low-profile attribute is obtained by employing an AMC surface as a substrate for the radiating element. In particular, the antenna behavior in close proximity of two distinct AMC ground planes has been investigated, in order to tune the operating frequencies within two different frequency bands. The measurements reveal that the use of an AMC screen with miniaturized periodicity enhances the operational bandwidth allowing the coverage of WiMax band. Details of the proposed antennas are described and experimental results of the prototypes are presented and discussed.