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MIFA Antenna Design
MIFA Antenna Design
1 KEYWORDS
2 INTRODUCTION
The PCB antenna used on the CC2511 and considerations for complying with
USB dongle reference design is described regulatory limits when using this design.
in this application note. Even if the
antenna presented is for a USB dongle The suggested antenna design requires
design it can be used in all 2.4 GHz no more than 15.2 x 5.7 mm of space and
designs, especially where small space is ensures a VSWR ratio of less than 2
required for the antenna. across the 2.4 GHz ISM band when
connected to a 50 ohm source.
This application note describes the
antenna dimensions, the RF performance
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Table of Contents
1 KEYWORDS ................................................................................................................... 1
2 INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................. 1
3 ABBREVIATIONS........................................................................................................... 2
4 ANTENNA DESIGN ........................................................................................................ 3
4.1 DESIGN GOALS .......................................................................................................... 3
4.2 SIMULATION ............................................................................................................... 3
4.3 LAYOUT AND IMPLEMENTATION ................................................................................... 4
5 TEST RESULTS ............................................................................................................. 5
5.1 REFLECTION .............................................................................................................. 5
5.2 RADIATION PATTERN .................................................................................................. 7
5.3 OUTPUT POWER ...................................................................................................... 15
5.4 SPURIOUS EMISSION AND HARMONICS ...................................................................... 17
6 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................. 20
7 GENERAL INFORMATION .......................................................................................... 21
7.1 DOCUMENT HISTORY................................................................................................ 21
3 ABBREVIATIONS
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4 ANTENNA DESIGN
The PCB antenna on the CC2511 USB dongle reference design is a meandered Inverted F
Antenna (IFA). The IFA was designed to match an impedance of 50 ohm at 2.45 GHz. Thus
no additional matching components are necessary.
4.2 Simulation
IE3D from Zeland, which is an electromagnetic simulation tool, was used to design the
antenna. The accuracy of the simulation is controlled by the mesh. An increase of the mesh
increases the simulation time. Thus, for initial simulations mesh = 1 should be used. When a
fairly good result is achieved a higher mesh should be used to obtain more accurate results.
Comparison of simulation and measurement results shows that the measured reflection is
between the result obtained with mesh = 5 and mesh = 1; see Figure 2 for details.
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4.3 Layout and Implementation
Small changes of the antenna dimensions may have large impact on the performance.
Therefore it is strongly recommended to make an exact copy of the reference design to
achieve optimum performance. The easiest way to implement the antenna is to import the
gerber or DXF file showing the antenna layout. These files are named IFA_USB.spl and
IFA_USB.dxf respectively and are included in the CC2511 USB dongle reference design
available from http://www.ti.com\lpw. The imported file can be used as a template when
drawing the antenna. By using this procedure it should be possible to make an exact copy. If
the PCB CAD tool being used does not support import of DXF or gerber files, Figure 3 and
Table 1 should be used to ensure correct implementation. It is recommended to generate a
gerber file for comparison with IFA_USB.spl when making a manual implementation. Most
gerber viewers have the possibility to import several gerber files at the same time. Thus by
placing the gerber file, showing the manually implemented antenna, on top of IFA_USB.spl it
is easy to verify that the antenna is correctly implemented. It is also recommended to use the
same thickness and type of PCB material as used in the reference design. Information about
the PCB can be found in a separate readme file included in the reference design. To
compensate for a thicker/thinner PCB the antenna could be made slightly shorter/longer.
L1 3.94 mm
L2 2.70 mm
L3 5.00 mm
L4 2.64 mm
L5 2.00 mm
L6 4.90 mm
W1 0.90 mm
W2 0.50 mm
D1 0.50 mm
D2 0.30 mm
D3 0.30 mm
D4 0.50 mm
D5 1.40mm
D6 1.70 mm
Table 1: Antenna Dimensions
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5 TEST RESULTS
Reflection, radiation pattern and variation of output power across a wide frequency band were
measured to verify the performance of the PCB antenna. Measurements of the dongle in free
space and when connected to a laptop were performed to verify that the antenna is suitable
both for USB dongle designs and in a standalone application. Free space is in this document
interpreted as a measurement performed without connecting the dongle to a computer. In
such a measurement the dongle is only powered by a battery.
5.1 Reflection
All the reflection measurements were performed with a network analyzer connected to a
semi-rigid coax cable, which was soldered to the feed point of the antenna. Because of the
small size antenna and the small ground plane this kind of measurements is heavily affected
by the presence and placement of the coax cable. This influence can result in a small
uncertainty in resonance frequency and measured reflection. Typically different placement of
the semi-rigid coax cable could change the resonance frequency with 5 -10 MHz and the
reflection with 3 - 4 dB.
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A small part on the CC2511 USB dongle PCB is equipped with test pins. These are intended
for use during development. This part of the PCB will typically be omitted in a final application.
The red and green graph on Figure 4 shows that removing this part of the PCB has a small
impact on the performance. Figure 4 also shows that plastic encapsulation of the dongle will
shift the resonance frequency to a lower frequency. This can be compensated by making the
antenna slightly shorter.
The size of the ground plane affects the performance of the PCB antenna. Connecting the
USB dongle to a computer increases the size of the ground plane and thus the performance
is affected. Figure 5 shows how the performance is affected when the USB dongle is
connected to a laptop. In free space the antenna has a bandwidth of approximately 250 MHz.
When the USB dongle is connected to the laptop the bandwidth is reduced to around 100
MHz, which still is enough to cover the whole 2.4 GHz ISM band.
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5.2 Radiation Pattern
The radiation pattern for the antenna implemented on the CC2511 USB dongle reference
design has been measured in an anechoic chamber. Figure 7 through Figure 12 shows
radiation patterns for three planes, XY, XZ and YZ, measured with vertical and horizontal
polarization. All these measurement were performed without connecting the dongle to a
computer. Figure 13 and Figure 14 shows the radiation pattern when the dongle is connected
to a laptop. All measurements were performed with 0 dBm output power. Figure 6 shows how
the different radiation patters are related to the positioning of the antenna.
XY plane YZ plane
XZ plane
Figure 6: How to Relate the Antenna to the Radiation Patterns
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Figure 15 shows the bandwidth of the antenna when the dongle is not connected to a
computer. The result shows that the antenna has a variation in output power of less than 3 dB
across a frequency band of more than 350 MHz. This demonstrates that the antenna has a
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broadband characteristic. Maximum output power is measured to be at 2.54 GHz. Thus if the
same antenna is implemented on a PCB with similar size and if the application is only
intended for stand alone usage the antenna could be made slightly longer to obtain best
performance at 2.42 GHz.
The reflection results in Figure 5 indicate that the output power will be slightly reduced when
the dongle is connected to a laptop. Comparison of the results in Figure 15 and Figure 16
shows that the output power is reduced by approximately 2 dB when the dongle is connected
to a laptop. This agrees with the results in Figure 5.
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ETSI and FCC limits for output power and TX spurious emission are shown in Table 3. FCC
allows for up to 20 dB higher emission if duty cycling is used. Thus, it is possible to use the
antenna described in this document and be compliant with both ETSI and FCC regulation.
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EN 300 328 EN 300 440 FCC 15.247 FCC 15.249
2.4 – 2.483 GHz 20 dBm 10 dBm* 125 dBµV/m 94 dBµV/m
116 dBµV/m**
2. harm -30 dBm -30 dBm 54 dBµV/m 54 dBµV/m
*Depends on the power class.
** Depends on the number of channels being used.
Table 3: ETSI and FCC Limits
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The only signal detected above the noise floor when measuring RX spurious emission was
the VCO leakage at 4.89 GHz. Figure 19 shows that the measured VCO leakage is below
ETSI limits.
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6 CONCLUSION
This application note shows that it is possible to implement a 2.4 GHz antenna on a small
area and still achieve good performance. Table 6 lists the most important properties of the
Inverted F Antenna, described in this document. The free line of sight (LOS) range was
measured with 250 kbps and 1 % PER.
The results provided in section 5 shows that it is possible to comply with both ETSI and FCC
regulations when implementing the suggested antenna together with CC2511 on a USB
dongle.
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7 GENERAL INFORMATION
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