PP Periodica Polytechnica Design of Small Printed Multiband

Electrical Engineering
and Computer Science Loop Antennas for Short Range
Wireless (SRW) Applications
60(1), pp. 51-59, 2016
DOI: 10.3311/PPee.9046
Creative Commons Attribution b Attila Zólomy1*, Tamás Bódi1, Eric Unruh2, Zoltán Vida1

research article Received 02 October 2015; accepted 30 December 2015

Abstract 1 Introduction
Worldwide application of wireless IoT and telemetry solu- Cost reduction is a major driving force in short range wire-
tions are more cost effective (require lower manufacturing and less (SRW) application design. Rapid spreading of door open-
logistic cost) and more immune against interferences, if they ers, panic buttons for elderly/disabled peoples, intelligent home
are inherently able to operate in multiple frequency bands. systems, automatic meter reading (AMR), mesh networks and
Switched current high impedance PA configurations driving other internet of things (IoT) solutions (smart watches, bulbs,
high impedance printed antennas with very few discrete com- sensors, phones etc.) can be observed in the recent years due
ponents have very low cost and yields good efficiency in the to this. Beside the low manufacturing cost (e.g. crystal less,
0…+10dBm power range. However, one major bottleneck is cheap radio ICs with printed antennas and few discrete com-
the difficulty of the high impedance multiband antenna design. ponents), low worldwide logistics and maintenance cost (e.g.
In this paper, investigation, design and measured results of long battery life) are essential as well. Radios able to operate
multiband, high impedance, small, printed UHF loop antennas at several bands (allowed by the different regional standards)
are presented. The built antenna are inherently tuned with only can be manufactured and spread-out worldwide in higher vol-
two discrete capacitors to properly terminate the applied high umes with lower expenses.
impedance, highly efficient switched current power amplifier Increasing number of radio devices also makes the inter-
(PA) in the targeted two UHF bands. The presented design ference problems more critical. A typical example is the EU
method is applicable for more than two band operations and 868M ISM band where the 4G LTE mobile technology causes
for higher frequency bands as well. serious interference problems. A radio link with multiband
capability can vary the operational band if strong link degra-
Keywords dation occurs due to the interferences.
IoT devices, Multiband antenna design, inherently tuned small Design of multiband printed antennas are challenging. Popu-
loop, low bill of material, high impedance efficient PA lar multiband antenna types are the unbalanced, low impedance
(50 Ohm) monopoles and its derivatives like PIFA or IFA [1].
However, in the 0…+10dBm power regime higher impedance
antennas (driven by high impedance PAs) can work more effi-
ciently in the typical 2...3.6V supply voltage range [2]. Other
configurations with good efficiency applies either switching
mode (Class E, Class C etc.) PAs [3], or a 50 Ohm system with
a DCDC converter. However, both has disadvantages. One of
them is the increased bill of material and cost. Switching mode
PAs generate rather strong harmonics and thus, need compli-
cated matching with strong filtering. A DCDC converter solu-
tion is inherently expensive and besides, needs a complicated
and expensive supply filtering to avoid up converted spurs (i.e.
1
Silicon Laboratories Hungary Kft., the so-called “Christmas three” spectrum). Other problem with
H-1037 Budapest, Záhony u. 7, Hungary the switching mode PAs is the high voltage peak on the output
2
+Silicon Laboratories Sunnyvale office FET’s drain, which arise reliability issues.
940 Stewart Drive, Sunnyvale, CA 94085, USA One popular low cost, high impedance antenna type is the
*
Corresponding author, e-mail: zolomy@silabs.com small loop [4]. It is inherently inductive, so it can be tuned at

Printed Multiband Loop Antenna Design 2016 60 1 51

its input by a simple parallel capacitance, which can be a sim-
ple discrete capacitor and/or the radio driver’s output parasitic
capacitance. Use of capacitors as matching elements are desir-
able as they are cheaper than inductors and have significantly
higher Q, resulting in lower loss. Application of high Q match-
ing elements is especially important in case of loop antennas as
practical small size loops have very high Q (~several hundred)
and thus, high parallel equivalent resistance (~20…40KOhm).
Matching of such a very high impedance is challenging due to Fig. 2 Simplified equivalent circuit of a typical capacitive
the losses and element spreading sensitivity. One method to tapped loop structure of Fig. 1

handling this is the so-called “tapped loop” technique, which

can transform the loop impedance down to several hundred The loop antenna can be either a differential or single ended
Ohms. This impedance level is a usable termination for PAs one. Single ended antennas are usually half of the differential
working in the 0…+10dBm power range and from 2…3.6V counterpart (monopole<->dipole, half loop<->normal loop
supply voltage. Other advantage of the tapping is that together etc.), but require a large ground plane (perpendicular to the
with the impedance the inductance shown at the antenna input antenna axe/plane, if possible), which behaves as an electrical
is decreased as well. By this way, a larger main loop can be mirror. From design point of view of multiband antennas, the
used with the same input parallel tuning cap (i.e. with the same topology (differential or single ended) is not important; the
PA parasitic cap), which improves the radiation significantly. presented method is proper both for single ended and differen-
The tapping can be either inductive or capacitive. Induc- tial loop antennas.
tive tapped loops comprise two loops with inductive coupling
between them. Due to this, the design is difficult and in prac- 2 Multiband Loop Antenna Design
tice, cannot be done without EM simulators. As opposed to this, The basic dual band, capacitive tapped loop antenna
there are analytical formulas for the capacitive tapping [5, 6] contains a second small loop as shown in Fig. 3. The small
and the design process is much simpler. Capacitive tapped loop has parallel resonance with the PA capacitance (Cpar)
loops apply a series cap in the main loop, which together with while the main loop has a series resonance with the series
the input parallel cap transforms down the antenna impedance. capacitance (Cser). The equivalent circuit comprise these two
The structure and the equivalent circuit of a capacitive tapped resonators as shown in Fig. 4.
loop is shown in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, respectively The input par-
allel capacitor (denoted by Cpar) is usually the PA capacitance
of the RF IC. If its value is not high enough a discrete cap can
be used together with the PA cap. The input impedance (RIN)
is usually much lower than the loop impedance (RP) as the
(Cpar/ Cser)2 ratio is usually very high. However, due to this
a slight variation in the series cap (Cser) strongly detunes the
antenna and a large change in the value of Cpar is required for Fig. 3 Capacitive tapped dual band loop decomposition into a small normal
the compensation. RF ICs with built in automatic antenna tun- loop and a large loop with series discrete capacitor
ing functionality [7] can handle this to some extent.

Fig. 4 Equivalent circuit of the capacitive tapped dual band loop.

Assuming identical parallel and series resonant frequen-

cies, the parallel resonating small loop behaves as a shunt
tuning inductor below and as a shunt tuning capacitor above
Fig. 1 Typical capacitive tapped loop structure with DC the resonant frequency. Fig. 5 and Fig. 6 show the impedance
feed inductors (Lch1 and Lch2) variation on a Smith Chart. In Figure 5 the blue curve shows
the series resonating main loop impedance locus without the

52 Period. Polytech. Elec. Eng. Comp. Sci. A. Zólomy, T. Bódi, E. Unruh, Z. Vida
parallel resonating small loop. The two other curves (pink
and orange) shows the case when a proper parallel reactance
(pink = inductance below resonance, or orange = capacitance
above resonance) is introduced. With the addition of the paral-
lel reactances, the curves approach the horizontal axis of the
Smith chart in a parallel resonance fashion. If the reactances
are simultaneously provided by a real parallel resonant circuit,
two parallel resonances show up on both sides of the series
resonance as shown in Fig. 6 and Fig. 7 (magnitude curve).

Fig. 7 Impedance magnitude curve of the case of Fig. 6. Parallel

resonances appear below and above the series resonance

3 Analytical Calculation of the Dual Band Loop

The two parallel resonances and the series resonance of the
dual band loop configuration can be analytically calculated
using the equivalent circuit of Fig. 4. Equation (1) shows the
input admittance:

1 1 1
YIN = + J ωCPAR + +
J ω LPAR RPAR J ω L + 1
SER + RSER
J ωCSER
(1)
Fig. 5 Impedance locus of the series resonating big loop
alone (blue curve), and with parallel reactances (pink curve The aim is to calculate the new resonant frequencies, besides
with inductance, orange curve with capacitance). both resonators have high Q. So to simplify the calculation the
losses are neglected.

1 − ω 2CPAR LPAR J ωCSER

YIN = + (2)
J ω LPAR 1 − ω 2 LSERCSER

After some algebraic steps one can derive the pure reactive
input admittance.
2
 ω2  ω2
1 − 2  −  ω2 
2
ω2
 ω0  1
 1 − 2 
− 2
CSER LPAR ω0  ωOFFS
YIN = − j =−j
 ω  2
 ω2 
ω LPAR  1 − 2  ω LPAR  1 − 2 
 ω0   ω0 
(3)
Where ω0 is the original resonant frequency and ωOFFS is a rela-
tive offset:
1 1 1
ω0 = = , ωOFFS = , (4)
LPARCPAR LSERCSER LPARCSER

Fig. 6 Impedance locus of the antenna equivalent circuit of The denominator of Eq. (3) shows that the series resonance
Fig. 4, with identical series and parallel resonant frequencies.
i.e. where the YIN has a pole, is at the original ω0 resonant
The interaction between the two resonators yields two parallel
frequency. While the parallel resonances (i.e. where the nomi-
resonances below and above the series resonance
nator is zero) are detuned. To calculate them the nominator of
Eq. (3) should be decomposed into multiplication factors as

Printed Multiband Loop Antenna Design 2016 60 1 53

shown in Eq. (5). At the parallel resonances the nominator is Lpar*Cpar product i.e the parallel resonant frequency is
zero i.e. the multiplication factors have to be zero. fixed). With increasing the ratio, both the frequency offset
2 (i.e., spacing between the two parallel resonant frequencies)
 ω2  ω2  ω2 ω   ω2 ω 
 1 − 2 
− =  1 − +  1 − 2 +  and the resonant impedances increase.
 ω0  ωOFFS  ω0 ωOFFS   ω0 ωOFFS 
2 2

(5)
From this condition two second order equations yield for the
parallel resonant frequencies (Eq. (6) and (7)). Solving these
equations four frequency solutions are derived (Eq. (8) and (9)).
ω2 ω
− −1 = 0 (6)
ω0 ωOFFS
2

ω2 ω
+ −1 = 0 (7)
ω0 ωOFFS
2

1 1 4
± + 2
ωOFFS ωOFFS
2
ω0
ω1,2 = (8)
2
ω02 Fig. 8 Impedance magnitude curve change if the Lpar/Cpar ratio is varied
(the resonant frequencies and the Lser/Cser ratio are fixed)

1 1 4
− ± + 2 Figure 9 shows the effect of the Lser/Cser ratio change
ωOFFS ωOFFS
2
ω0
ω3,4 = (9) (again the Lser*Cser product i.e. the series resonant frequency
2
ω02 is constant). Here with increasing ratio the frequency offset
decreases and the impedances increase. The design target
As LPAR<<LSER and CSER<<CPAR then ω0<<ωOFFS , several sim- is to adjust the resonances to the specific desired operating
plifications are possible in Eq. (8) and (9). frequencies, and to simultaneously adjust the impedances of
the resonances to the targeted value. The locations of the two
1 2
± parallel resonances can be tuned by the series resonant fre-
ωOFFS ω0 ω02
ω1,2 ≅ = ± ω0 (10) quency (which again equals to the parallel one) and by the
2 2ωOFFS
ω02 offset. Many good solutions (i.e. many good Lser/Cser and
Lpar/Cpar ratio pairs) exist if the designer is free to choose the
impedance. If the impedances are also specified, then only one
1 2
− ± solution exists as in this case both the L/C ratios and the L-C
ωOFFS ω0 −ω02
ω3,4 ≅ = ± ω0 (11) products (i.e. the resonant frequencies) are fixed.
2 2ωOFFS
ω02 Some secondary effects also have slight influences. These
are the losses and the coupling between the loops. The losses
Again as ω0<<ωOFFS., the offset part is much smaller than the ω0 are mainly determined by the capacitor Qs, so can be consid-
and thus, only two solutions falls to the positive frequency range ered as constants independently from the loop size tuning. The
(Eq. (12) and (13)). They are the real parallel resonant frequencies same is assumed for the coupling.
shifted by the offset part around the original ω0 resonance. The required impedance value depends on the target power
ω02 level and on the allowed voltage swing on the PA. The Si4010
ω p1 = ω0 + (12) type RF IC requires ~600 Ohm differential termination imped-
2ωOFFS
ance at 3V supply voltage to deliver ~+9…+10 dBm to the
antenna at the targeted frequencies [8]. In Figure 10 a dual band
ω02
ω p 2 = ω0 − (13) (315 & 390 MHz) loop example design is shown with fixed PA
2ωOFFS
cap (Cpar=28.4 pF), and with a Cser value of 4.2 pF. The Q of
the applied 0402 SMD capacitors are typically around hundred,
4 Tuning of the Dual band Loop so the values of the parallel equivalent losses of the caps (denoted
The resonances behave differently for the tuning of the par- by Rpar_Q and Rser_Q) are approx. 2 K and 11 K, respectively.
allel or series resonant circuit. Figure 8 shows the case when The antenna is designed with the Sonnet planar EM simulator [9].
the Lpar/Cpar ratio is varied (while maintaining a constant The antenna impedance is the proper ~550…600 Ohm at both

54 Period. Polytech. Elec. Eng. Comp. Sci. A. Zólomy, T. Bódi, E. Unruh, Z. Vida
target frequencies as shown in Fig. 11. Unfortunately, the resulted 5 Dual Band Loop Design with Variable PA
size of the main loop is very small, only 14 mm by 14 mm, which Capacitance
yields a very poor antenna gain at the targeted operation frequen- A possible way to overcome the problem is to introduce
cies: that is ~-32 dBi at 315 MHz and ~-25 dBi at 390 MHz. It an additional design of freedom i.e. the variation of the PA
can be concluded that the proper solution which yields the proper capacitance (Cpar). This method will be investigated here.
resonant frequencies with the proper impedances may not have a The Si4010 radio chip has a built in automatic antenna tuning
large enough loop size for good radiation efficiency. circuitry, which tunes the PA output capacitance (i.e. Cpar) to
maintain the resonance at the output. This feature is used here.
The general equivalent circuit of the multiband loop antenna
is shown in Fig. 12.

Fig. 12 Equivalent circuit of the dual band loop of Fig. 10

Formulas for the inductance (L) and radiation resistance

Fig. 9 Impedance magnitude curve change if the Lser/Cser ratio is varied (which is proportional to the gain) of electrically small rectan-
(the resonant frequencies and the Lpar/Cpar ratio are fixed)
gular loops are given by Eq. (14) and (15) [4]. The dimension
parameters are used in the formulas are shown in Fig. 13.
2 µ0 a1a2   a1a2  
L= ln  b  − 0.774  (14)
π    

 A2   A2 f 4 
RRAD = 320π 4  4  = 320π 4  4  (15)
λ   v 
where:
A is the area of the loop: A=a1*a2 and b is an effective
Fig. 10 Dimensions of the designed 315 & 390 MHz dual band loop cross section derived from the printed trace cross section
dimensions: b=0.35*t+0.24*w.

Fig. 11 Impedance magnitude curves of the designed 315 & 390 MHz dual Fig. 13 Loop dimension parameters for gain and inductance calculations
band loop. The targeted impedance at resonance is ~ 600 Ohm

Printed Multiband Loop Antenna Design 2016 60 1 55

 The 14 mm by 14 mm main loop size with 0.5 mm trace the equivalent circuit) should be zero i.e. it should be a short
width of the previous antenna design (Fig. 10) yields approx. with zero physical length. Due to these issues this dual band
~52 nH loop inductance and ~-25 dBi antenna gain at 390 loop design cannot be realized in practice. So the approach of
MHz (here the effect of the losses are also taken into account). varying solely Cpar is not proper to create a practically real-
For better gain significant increase of the main loop size is izable high gain dual band solution.
required, with increased main loop inductance as well. With
the larger main loop the design deviates from the optimum
dual band solution of Fig. 10, which has the right impedances
at the targeted bands with fixed PA capacitance (Cpar).
The main problem with the larger main loop (i.e. with larger
Lser/Cser ratio) is that the offset decreases and the impedance
peaks increase as shown in Fig. 9. As can be seen in Fig. 8
to reduce the impedance back to ~550…600 Ohm, a smaller
Lpar/Cpar ratio i.e a reduced small loop size is needed (paral-
lel with the small loop reduction the increase of Cpar needed
to keep the resonant frequency fixed). Unfortunately, this
decreases the offset further, so after these tuning steps the fre-
quency offset is far less than required. In this situation the only Fig. 14 Simulated impedance curves of the increased main
possibility to tune the resonances to the targeted operation fre- loop case with different Cpar values.
quencies is to adjust PA capacitance (Cpar) as well. That is,
Cpar should be decreased/increased properly when the radio
operates at the highest/lowest targeted frequency. With this 6 Dual Band Loop Design with Introducing a Second
method the impedance is optimum only at one band at a given Series Capacitance in the Small Loop
time, but that is not a big disadvantage as usually the short A possible way to overcome the above mentioned realization
range radios does not transmit at multiple bands simultane- problems is to introduce an additional series capacitance
ously. Usually, they change the bands in a time division fash- (Cser2) in the small loop. Figure 15 shows the equivalent
ion and the PA should change its capacitance accordingly. For circuit of an antenna like this. The third column of Table 1
these operation an automatic antenna tuning feature like the shows the equivalent circuit element values of a loop designed
one applied in the Si4010 RF IC is required. in this way. Here the main loop inductance (~2*83 nH) is the
The simulated impedance magnitude curve of an antenna same as in the previous case, but the small loop inductance can
using this approach is shown in Fig. 14. To achieve the be much higher (Lpar=22 nH) as the series connected Cser2
~550…600 Ohm resonant impedances at 315 MHz and 390 partly compensates its reactance. The higher Lpar value results
MHz, the Cpar must be tuned to ~80 pF and ~61 pF, respec- a practically realizable small loop size.
tively. That is ~19 pF tuning range. The element values of the
equivalent circuit for this antenna are shown in the second Table 1
column of Table 1. The main loop inductance is chosen to be Rres 1.3 K 2K
high: it is 2*84 nH compared to the ~52 nH of the previous 14
Cpar 60.8...79.4 pF 13.8 pF
mm by 14 mm case. The 3.5 times higher main loop induct-
ance allows a size of ~35 by 35 mm. With this higher size Lin Short 1 nH

approx. ~-14 dBi antenna gain (incl. losses) can be achieved, Lpar 3 nH 11.9 nH
which is a significant, ~11 dBi improvement. Cser2 short 22 pF
However, there are problems with the realization. The
Lmain-Loop 84 nH 83 nH
first problem is that the required Cpar tuning range is ~19
Cser 1.2 pF 1.2 pF
pF, which is higher than the available PA capacitance tuning
range of the applied Si4010 (~2.7 pF…12.5 pF=9.8 pF) RF
IC. Moreover, the tuning range of the applied RFIC should The simulated impedance magnitude vs. frequency curves
be significantly higher than the required by the antenna to at different sizes of the small loop are shown in Fig. 16. Here
compensate other effects, like technological spreading or hand the Cser2 cap is always tuned to yield a ~symmetrical two
effect. The second problem is the very small inductance value peak shaped impedance curve. The highlighted curve is the
of the small loop (2*Lpar). It is only 6 nH, which is practically case with the parameter setting of the third column of Table 1.
cannot be realized. The third big problem is that the common It has resonances at the targeted frequencies with ~600 Ohm
route inductance of the small and main loop (denoted by Lin in peak impedances. So with this approach the impedance peaks

56 Period. Polytech. Elec. Eng. Comp. Sci. A. Zólomy, T. Bódi, E. Unruh, Z. Vida
can be tuned to be nearly at the right bands with the right the small loop an additional degree of freedom appears in the
impedances and hence, no or minimal Cpar tuning is required. design. With this additional tuning possibility one can adjust
An important note here is, that nearly half of the total both the offset and peak impedance values according to the
required ~14 pF Cpar value is the Si4010 PA capacitance and needs with the enlarged main loop size.
the other half is realized by an SMD capacitor. As the Si4010 Applying the conclusions of the above investigations a
PA has lower Q than the SMD with the ~7 pF PA capacitance dual band 315/390 MHz loop antenna is designed and built
setting the loss (Rres) value is determined more by the PA. (Fig. 17). The size of the main loop is 29 x 38 mm, the small
The 2 K value of Rres here represents this. It is also shown loop dimensions are 5.5 x 10 mm. The simulated impedance
in Table  1, that a small common inductance (Lin= 1nH) is magnitude curve are given in Fig. 18 with a fixed PA capaci-
allowed between the main and the small loop, so the antenna tance of Cpar=14 pF. The main loop series capacitance (Cser)
layout can be realized. in the simulation is 1.25 pF while the small loop series capaci-
The conclusion is that by introducing a proper series Cser2 tance (Cser2) is 21 pF.
cap in the small loop the dual band antenna structure can be There is possibility to design antennas for three or even
tuned well with a much larger main loop size with a physi- more band operation with this method. For each band an addi-
cally realizable small loop size and with a realizable antenna tional loop with its own series caps has to be applied in the
structure. The effect of the variation of the small loop size antenna. However, the design complexity increases rapidly.
and Cser2 capacitance tuning is also shown in Fig. 16. The E.g. a three band antenna was successfully designed and meas-
results of two other settings are shown: one with a smaller and ured as well, but not detailed in this paper.
another with a larger small loop size. Here the main loop size
is constant and the series Cser2 value is adjusted to have sym-
metrical peak shape.

Fig. 15 Equivalent circuit of a dual band loop with a series

cap introduced in the small loop (Cser2) as well.

Fig. 17 Designed and built 315/390 MHz dual band loop antenna with 29x38
mm large main loop and with a Cpar of 14 pF.

7 Impedance Measurement
During the bench measurements a Cser cap of 1.3 pF and
Cser2 cap of 22 pF are used (1.25 pF and 21 pF do not exists).
Fig. 16 Simulated impedance magnitude vs. frequency curves at different
Due to the slightly different Cser and Cser2 tuning is required
small loop sizes and Cser2 capacitance values. The Cser2 value is tuned to
have a symmetrical two peak shape in all cases. in the bench. Also there are secondary effects (pcb cutting edge
close to the antenna, battery on the gnd plane, nearby plastic
etc.) which are cannot be taken into account in the 2.5D pla-
With larger small loop the offset and the impedance nar Sonnet simulations. Due to these, further decrease of Cpar
decreases. The opposite happen if the small loop size decreased. value required. It should be emphasized again that a small
This clearly shows that by introducing the Cser2 series cap in change in the Cser capacitor and/or in the main loop parasitics

Printed Multiband Loop Antenna Design 2016 60 1 57

require a large variation in the Cpar to compensate. Moreover, Unfortunately, the 2.5D Sonnet simulator cannot simulate
due to the high Q structure the loop is sensitive to detuning. the radiation in the pcb plane well and thus, the θ=-90° and
θ=90° results are not valid. The characteristic is symmetrical
to the pcb plane i.e. has the same shape beneath the pcb.

Fig. 20 Coordinate system used in the radiation simulations

Fig. 18 315/390 MHz dual band loop antenna simulated impedance

As one can see the gain does not depend too much on the φ at
magnitude curve (Cpar=14 pF, Cser=1.25 pF, Cser2=21 pF).
390 MHz so the pattern in the XY cut (parallel with the pcb) is
fairly omnidirectional. The simulated gain maximum is ~-13.5
So the difference between the simulated and real tuned Cpar dBi and ~-23 dBi at 390 MHz and 315 MHz respectively.
can be significant. The measured differential antenna imped- The measured gain maximums of the antenna are -8 dBi and
ance with 3.5 pF PA capacitance (Cpar) is shown in Fig. 19. -21 dBi respectively. The measurement inaccuracy of the used
The lower peak is at 315 MHz, but the upper resonance is at a test site is approx. +-3 dB so the measured results are close to
higher frequency than the targeted 390 MHz. With Cpar tun- the simulated ones.
ing up to ~9 pF it can be tuned down to 390 MHz. Again this
is done by the Si4010 automatic antenna tuning feature when
the TX operating frequency is at 390 MHz.

Fig. 19 315/390 MHz dual band loop antenna measured impedance

magnitude curve (Cpar=3.5 pF, Cser=1.3 pF, Cser2=22 pF). Fig. 21 Coordinate system used in the radiation simulations

8 Radiation Simulations and Measurements 9 Conclusion

The applied coordinate system for the radiation simulations A novel dual band loop antenna working in the UHF ISM
and measurements are shown in Fig. 20. The simulated radia- bands is presented. With applying a proper series capacitance
tion characteristics at 310, 315 and 390 MHz are shown in in the small loop practically realizable antenna structure is
Fig. 21. Here only the upper half hemisphere above the pcb is achievable. Tuning methods are shown to optimize the antenna
shown i.e. the θ runs between -90° and 90°. The φ runs in 45° performances at the two targeted frequencies. An antenna is
steps so both the ZX (φ=0° or 180°) and ZY (φ=90° or -90°) designed, built and measured, which works well with the
cut characteristic included as well. Si4010 RF IC at 315 and 390 MHz.

58 Period. Polytech. Elec. Eng. Comp. Sci. A. Zólomy, T. Bódi, E. Unruh, Z. Vida
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Printed Multiband Loop Antenna Design 2016 60 1 59