Concepts for future multistandard and ultra wideband mobile terminal antennas using multilayer LTCC technology

Some key aspects of two different concepts of configurable antennas for future mobile terminal have been addressed in this paper. It has been shown that a coupling element in combination with a configurable tuning circuit can be used to excite the chassis of the mobile terminal to act as the entire antenna in many different frequency bands. However, when both the coupling element and the tuneable circuit elements are combined in a compact LTCC antenna component the achievable antenna efficiency is quite weak. A different concept that allows for broadband matching and better efficiency has been designed for UWB. The antenna is capable of retuning the antenna to different platforms of a mobile terminal just by slightly changing the footprint of the antenna component on the PCB. Future work will focus e.g. on evaluating how electronic switching (either pin diodes or MEMS switches) can be used to make the antenna concepts reconfigurable.