Cellular PIFA antenna
Last week a big package of antennas reached me. Step by step I will make the description of the antennas public. The picture shows an antenna for GSM and UMTS flying over ground plane. Such an antenna will radiate directional. This is perfect if you plan a people or pet tracker close to human or animal body. It is also helpful if you plan to screw the tracking device on metal surface (e.g. metal container or metal bin). The plastic enclosure or the antenna has an estimated size of 32 mm x 40 mm x 8 mm including the plastic clips. The PIFA antenna has two metal contacts. One of the pin is the feeding line and the other one will be wired to ground plane. This shorting to ground is standard for inverted F antennas or planar inverted F antennas. The two contacts pins of the antenna will be connected by spring-loaded contacts on the PCB. The pin on the left is positive for feeding line while the pin on the right is negative for ground plane which will be connected to the ground plane of the main board. Free space is REQUIRED within a diameter of 3 ~ 5 mm, where is centered at the point of the spring-loaded contacts or the pogo pin on the main board. Additional metal ground plane is not required BECAUSE this kind of antenna takes the whole main PCB as part of the antenna structure. This antenna is originally design for 3G cellular bands for portable GPS tracker. The metal structure on the plastic enclosure is made by laser direct structuring (LDS). A customisation of the antenna structure is possible. If you plan a small tracking device for people, pets or containers, then your request to harald.naumann (at) gsm-modem.de is welcome. Thanks in advance for your project description.