Design of anelectrically small meander antenna for LTE mobile terminals in the 800 MHz band

Fourth generation mobile networks (also called Long Term Evolution - LTE) will make use of multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) technology to achieve very high data rates in both the uplink and downlink. MIMO is based on the use of multiple antenna systems within the mobile terminal as well as the base station. The small size of the mobile terminal poses series integration and antenna miniaturization challenges. In this work, we propose an electrically small antenna (ESA) that is based on the meander antenna structure that operates in the 800 MHz band of LTE and 3G cellular standards. The antenna has a measured center frequency of 897 MHz, bandwidth of 185 MHz and total size of 23.5 × 43 mm². Both simulation and experiment results are presented. A study on the effect of the various antenna parameters that will aid the designer fine tune his structure is also discussed.