Electrically Small, Conformal Wi-Fi 6E Antenna for Compact Laptop Devices

A low-profile Wi-Fi 6E antenna for laptop applications is proposed in this paper. The proposed antenna is electrically small covering 2.4/5/6 GHz Wi-Fi 6E frequency bands. A planar geometry is first introduced that is later conformed for achieving minimal area in the horizontal plane (x–y plane). A total size of 4 mm × 10.7 mm × 3.7 mm is obtained for conformal topology. A thin and flexible polyimide substrate of thickness 0.15 mm is used for attaining conformity. Regarding the antenna structure, it consists of a shorted and meandered monopole strip connected with a rectangular-shaped loop that is capacitively coupled by a Г-shaped driven trace. The meandered strip and the loop structure aid in the excitation of the fundamental 0.25-λ monopole mode and also 0.25-λ loop mode at 2.4/5 GHz, respectively. Moreover, the Г-shaped coupling strip produces the 0.25-λ monopole mode in the 6 GHz frequency band. The proposed antenna conforms to the Chu–Harrington limit with ka value of < 0.78 implying that the antenna is electrically small. In addition, the implementation of the antenna inside a commercial laptop is also illustrated.