LTE Communications and Networks

9Reconfigurable Antennas for LTE Femtocells

Masood Ur Rehman and Waqas Farooq

School of Computer Science and Technology, University of Bedfordshire, Luton, UK

Modern wireless devices are expected to offer a number of features and support various services that operate at distinct frequencies. They have to meet strict size limitations as well offer attractive form factor and aesthetics. Since different wireless services utilize technologies operating at different frequencies, multiple antennas need to be incorporated making the fulfilment of size limitations a challenging task. A single reconfigurable antenna supporting operation at two different frequencies using a switching mechanism is one of the available options. This chapter describes the requirements of reconfigurable antennas for LTE femtocells discussing design issues and analysis techniques.

9.1 Fundamentals of Reconfigurable Antennas

Recongurability is the ability to change fundamental operating characteristics of an antenna’s radiator through electrical, mechanical or other means [1]. Reconfiguration in antennas is often achieved often by using switches, variable components or moving parts. Reconfiguration in antennas can be obtained for various antenna parameters [2–4] such as resonant frequency, polarization, impedance bandwidth and radiation pattern. Few antennas have also been designed that can reconfigure multiple antenna parameters simultaneously [5].

Employing reconfigurability has a number of benefits. Frequency ...