A global synthesis tool and procedure for filter-antenna co-design

This paper presents a novel method for co-designing filters and antennas. Commonly, the filter and the antenna are separately designed, which usually induces reduced performances in terms of energy efficiency (due to losses) and dimensions. We propose first to model the antenna as the last low to medium Q-factor filter resonator. Then, the synthesis is performed considering this particular resonant load. Finally, an automatic synthesis, based upon a Matlab™-HFSS™ coupling analysis is developed leading to a direct extraction of the filter-antenna layout for EM analysis and implementation. The proposed synthesis technique and the associated software interface offer new degrees of freedom in the design procedure, enhancing the performances of the whole sub-system.