Internal patch antenna with a thin air-layer substrate for GSM/DCS operation in a PDA phone

A thin dual-band internal patch antenna for Global System for Mobile Communication, 890-960 MHz/Digital Communication System, 1710-1880 MHz (GSM/DCS) operation in a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) phone is presented. The antenna can generate two wide resonant modes for GSM (890-960 MHz) and DCS (1710-1880 MHz) operation, yet it requires an air-layer substrate of thickness 4 mm only, which is among the thinnest internal mobile phone antennas that have been reported. The antenna's top patch comprises a resonant narrow strip supporting a longer resonant path for GSM operation and a resonant subpatch supporting a shorter resonant path for DCS operation. By including a suitable widened end portion for the narrow strip and a suitable tapered end portion for the subpatch, increased bandwidths for the proposed thin internal mobile phone antenna are obtained. Detailed design considerations of the proposed antenna are described. In addition, the user's hand effects on the performances of the proposed antenna are studied. Index Terms-GSM/DCS mobile phone antennas, internal antennas, internal mobile phone antennas, mobile antennas.