Reconfigurable and Tunable Filtenna for Cognitive LTE Femtocell Base Stations

A single-port uniplanar antenna with a built-in tunable filter is presented for operation in multiple LTE bands for cognitive femtocell applications. The antenna is based on a monopole microstrip patch fed by coplanar waveguide. The frequency reconfigurability is achieved by using two PIN diodes to couple or decouple a ring slot resonator filter from the antenna feed line. By switching the PIN diodes, the proposed design can operate in either wideband or narrowband modes. When the antenna operates in the narrowband state, two varactor diodes are used to continuously tune the narrowband frequency from 2.55 to 3.2 GHz, while the wideband state is obtained over the 1.35–6.2 GHz band. The diodes and their biasing networks have nearly no severe effect on the antenna characteristics. Prototypes of the proposed structure using ideal and real switches, with and without varactors, are fabricated and tested. Measured and simulated results are in good agreement, thus verifying the good performance of the proposed design. The obtained results show that the proposed antenna is very suitable for cognitive radio applications, in which the wideband mode is used for spectrum sensing and the narrowband mode for transmission at different frequency bands.