Bio-inspired design of directional leaf-shaped printed monopole antennas for 4G 700 MHz band

In this paper, a biologically inspired design methodology to develop directional leaf-shaped printed monopole antennas (PMA) for applications in the fourth-generation (4G) of mobile telecommunications technology is presented. Bio-inspired in the leaf shapes of a sugar cane plant, compact directional PMA are designed (with partial ground planes and flat rectangular reflectors) to cover the Brazilian 4G 700 MHz regulated band (698–806 MHz), with broadside radiation patterns and maximum directive gain up to 7.7 dBi. Simulated and measured results are presented for the proposed leaf-shaped antenna prototypes, and obtained results are compared with a square PMA. The use of bio-inspired leaf-shaped radiators and flat reflectors provides a fine tuning of ultra-wideband commonly presented by a conventional PMA, and the lowest resonant mode can be adjusted to cover the 700 MHz band. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 58:1529–1533, 2016