ZTE Communications ›› 2011, Vol. 9 ›› Issue (2): 20-26.

• Special Topic • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Design of a Magneto-Electric Dipole Element for Mobile Communication Base Station Antennas

Hang Wong1 and Kwai Man Luk2   

  1. 1. State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves (Hong Kong);
    2. Department of Electronic Engineering, City University of Hong Kong
  • Online:2011-06-25 Published:2011-06-25
  • About author:Hang Wong (hang.wong@cityu.edu.hk) received his B.Eng., M.Phil., and Ph.D. degrees in electronic engineering from the City University of Hong Kong. He joined the Wireless Communications Research Center (RCW) at City University of Hong Kong in 2002 as an antenna engineer. He is currently a senior engineer at the State Key Laboratory (SKL) of Millimeter Waves, in Hong Kong. His research interests include design of broadband antennas, RFID antennas, small antennas, GPS antennas, millimeter wave antennas, and antenna arrays. He is the author of chapters in books on antenna research. He was the co-inventor of linear/ circularly-polarized, dual-polarized, and small printed antennas and has been awarded patents on these in the U.S. and PRC. Dr. Wong was awarded the Outstanding Research Thesis Award from City University of Hong Kong in 2002. He received the Microwave Student Prize at the Asia Pacific Microwave Conference 2006 held in Yokohama and received the Best Paper Award at the International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation 2008 in Taipei.

    Kwai-Man Luk (eekmluk@cityu.edu.hk) received his B.Sc.(Eng.) and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Hong Kong. He joined the Department of Electronic Engineering at City University Hong Kong in 1985 as a lecturer. Two years later, he moved to the Department of Electronic Engineering at the Chinese University of Hong Kong where he spent four years. Professor Luk returned to the City University Hong Kong in 1992, and he is currently chair professor of Electronic Engineering and director of the State Key Laboratory in Millimeter waves (Hong Kong). His research interests include design of patch, planar and dielectric resonator antennas, and microwave measurements. He is the author of three books, nine book chapters, more than 260 journal papers, and 200 conference papers. He has been awarded two U.S. patents and more than 10 PRC patents on the design of a wideband patch antenna with L-shaped probe feed. He was the technical program chairperson of the 1997 Progress in Electromagnetics Research Symposium (PIERS 1997), the general vice-chairperson of the 1997 and 2008 Asia-Pacific Microwave Conference, and the general chairman of the 2006 IEEE Region Ten Conference. Professor Luk received the Japan Microwave Prize at the 1994 Asia Pacific Microwave Conference held in Chiba in December 1994 and the Best Paper Award at the 2008 International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation held in Taipei in October 2008. He was awarded the 2000 Croucher Foundation Senior Research Fellow in Hong Kong. He is a deputy editor-in-chief of JEMWA. Professor Luk is a Fellow of the Chinese Institute of Electronics, PRC, a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, UK, a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, USA, and a Fellow of the Electromagnetics Academy, USA.

Abstract: The magneto-electric dipole antenna is a kind of complementary antenna composed of a planar electric dipole and a shorted patch antenna. It has excellent electrical characteristics including wide impedance bandwidth, low cross-polarization, low back lobe radiation, nearly identical E-plane and H-plane patterns, stable radiation pattern, and steady antenna gain over the operating frequency range. In this paper, the basic characteristics of a linearly polarized magneto-electric dipole antenna are reviewed, and a dual-polarized antenna element based on the magneto-electric dipole is presented. The design of a conical beam wideband antenna with horizontal polarization is also described. These antennas have practical applications in modern 2G, 3G, LTE, WiFi, and WiMax wireless communication systems.

Key words: base station antenna, magneto electric dipole, wideband antenna, dual polarization