Design of compact broadband series-fed two dipole array antenna with top loading

A compact broadband series-fed two dipole array (STDA) antenna with top-loaded elements is proposed for mobile communication applications. To reduce the lateral size of a conventional STDA antenna, rectangular patch-shaped top loading is employed for the two dipole elements and a grooved ground plane is used by adding a patch at both ends of the ground plane. A proposed compact antenna covering a frequency band ranging from 1.7 GHz to 2.7 GHz with a gain > 5 dBi is designed and fabricated on an FR4 substrate. The total width of the fabricated prototype of the proposed antenna is reduced by approximately 14.3% compared to the STDA, and it presents a 48.7% bandwidth in the range of 1.68-2.76 GHz and a stable gain of 5.57-6.0 dBi with minimal degradation. Moreover, a front-to-back ratio is improved by about 0.74 to 4.79 dB.