Performance improvement of mobile DVB-H terminals using a reconfigurable impedance tuning network

DVB-H (digital video broadcasting for handheld) is one of the technology standards for the transmission of digital TV to handheld receivers such as mobile phones or PDAs. Antenna design for DVB-H terminals is challenging due to the size limitation and as a result, the antenna presents large mismatches. To address this issue, we propose the use of a reconfigurable tuning network to reduce the mismatch (or the antenna size for a given mismatch) between the antenna and the RF front-end in a DVB-H terminal. This technique offers some advantages over other proposed alternatives and improves the antenna realized gain, as well as the overall efficiency of the DVB-H receiver.