Planar diversity‐loop antenna for wireless pcmcia card

A diversity‐loop antenna mounted vertically on a wireless PCMCIA card for WLAN operation in the 5.2‐ and 5.8‐GHz bands is presented. The diversity‐loop antenna comprises two bent metal‐strip rectangular loop elements (each having a perimeter of about one wavelength of the center operating frequency) symmetrically mounted with respect to a rectangular ground plane protruding from the system ground plane of the PCMCIA card. In addition obtaining to a wide bandwidth covering the 5.2‐ and 5.8‐GHz bands, the diversity antenna shows good isolation of less than −27 dB for the two operating ports. In addition, the measured radiation patterns of the two bent‐loop elements in general cover complementary space regions, thus making this a promising antenna for providing spatial diversity in WLAN operation. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 39: 488–490, 2003