Study of ground plane of dual-band patch antenna on SAR

This paper investigates the effects of different ground plane configurations of a typical GSM900/1800 dual-band internal planar inverted-F patch antenna (PIFA) on specific absorption rate (SAR) and corresponding antenna performance. The effect of the length and width of the ground plane and the addition of vertical sidewall on the ground plane are presented. Results have shown that when the length and width of the antenna ground plane is increased, the SAR value could be reduced while radiation efficiency is not significantly affected, the antenna gain is reduced by 3.5 dB at 930 MHz, and the envelope of far-field antenna pattern is mainly affected in the human head direction. The addition of vertical sidewall at four sides of the ground plane with a height of 7 mm could provide a SAR reduction at 1.75 GHz by 63% without significantly affecting the performance of the PIFA antenna. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 49: 949–953, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.22316