Designing chip or ceramic antennas under FEKO

Hello,

I would like to know if it is possible so simulate or design ceramic chip antennas under FEKO suite 5.5. I am working with Sensor Networks and we are using chip antennas, and I would need to simulate them, when these antennas are integrated in our circuits.

Thank you very much

Best regards

Albert

Hello,

maybe I can help you or not. I made some simulations of an array using ceramic antennas (from Sparkfun). I have simulated them with SuperNEC (as a dipole, because its similar radiation diagram) to obtain its radiation diagram. Then, I simulated the feeding lines with ADS changing the antennas by 50 ohms ports (the expected impedance). Some try&errors are necessary but they seem to work correctly. If you need I can give you more info. But I have never designed my own ceramic/chip antenna.

Good luck,
Enric.

Hello,

but I use FEKO. Nevermind, how do you introduce the antenna geometry in superNEC? these ceramic antennas may be are meandered monopols?

Best regards

Hello,

I simulated each ceramic antenna as a dipole adequate for my operating frequency (length = 0.45*lambda, approximately). Excuse me, but I can't help you with FEKO (but this forum is full of great designers!).

I have done some work with the free FEKO Lite version 6. One of their tutorials is modeling a ceramic patch antenna. With the Lite version you have to assume the ceramic is finite thickness but infinite X & Y. It looks like the full FEKO can model arrays of patches easily. I am just working on a bowtie embedded in a PCB.

Hello,

really? ceramic patch antenna? and what happen if my antenna is a kind of ceramic chip omnidirectional antenna. Or for example one of the fractus ceramic antennas on the ISM band 868MHz?

Thank you very much

Best regards

Albert

I think there are two simple prerequisites for simulating ceramic chip antennas:
- your 3D solver most be able to handle the complex geometry
- you need to know the geometry

I hope, you are able to answer both questions yourself. I guess however, that you don't know the exact geometry of e.g. the fractus part. You'll need xray or microsection photos of the multilayer design to determine it. Also the ceramic permittivity needs to be known.

Simulating the chip antenna as a λ/2 dipole would miss important properties of the electrical small antenna, particularly the high Q and respective low bandwidth an de-tuning effects by the enviroment.

Hello,

I think that the geometry is fractal and it corresponds to the hilbert fractal antenna.

Therefore I should try to insert the hilbert geometry on FEKO, quite complicated?

Thanks

Albert

Hilbert geometry or whatever, you have to know the 3-D design of the multilayer ceramic to model it exactly. It can be instructive to use literature designs, but it won't give answers for the real antenna. In my opinion, the "fractal" point is more a salesman slogan than an essential technical feature for an electrical small (l < λ/4) antenna.