Study of a uniplanar printed internal WWAN laptop computer antenna including user's hand effects

A uniplanar monopole antenna to be printed on a thin (0.4 mm) and small‐size FR4 substrate and capable of GSM850/900/1800/1900/UMTS penta‐band WWAN operation for thin‐profile laptop computer application is presented. The antenna is formed by a direct‐fed shorter radiating strip for upper‐band operation at about 1900 MHz and a coupled‐fed longer radiating strip which is also short‐circuited to the antenna ground for lower‐band operation at about 900 MHz. Note that the two radiating strips are fed using different excitation mechanisms. With the coupling excitation and short‐circuiting, which functions as an internal printed matching circuitry, the longer radiating strip can provide a wide dual‐resonant lower band at around 900 MHz for GSM850/900 operation. A wide upper band can also be generated at about 1900 MHz for the antenna to cover GSM1800/1900/UMTS operation. The antenna is studied in the article, and the user's hand effects on the performances of the antenna are analyzed. The obtained results are useful for the antenna employed in the laptop computer with a touch panel. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 51: 2341–2346, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.24614