Small-size uniplanar coupled-fed PIFA for 2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz WLAN operation in the laptop computer

A coupled-fed PIFA (printed inverted-F antenna) printed on a small-size FR4 substrate promising for 2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz WLAN (wireless local area network) operation in the laptop computer is presented. When mounted at the top edge of the system ground plane or supporting metal frame of the laptop display, the PIFA shows a height of 9 mm and a small width of 7 mm only. With a narrow width, it is promising for more internal antennas to be mounted along the top edge of the supporting metal frame of the laptop display. The PIFA also shows a uniplanar structure, allowing it easy to fabricate, and is fed using a T-shaped coupling strip, which leads to successful excitation of two wide operating bands to cover WLAN operation in the 2.4 GHz band and 5.2/5.8 GHz band. Details of the proposed PIFA are studied, and experimental and simulation results are presented. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 51: 1023–1028, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.24206