A new planar antenna, suitable for use on a shoulder, has been studied for police and fire service portable radios in the 350-MHz band. This shoulder-mounted antenna, which is a type of planar inverted F antenna (PIFA), features extreme compactness while maintaining a higher gain than that of a conventional whip antenna and small impedance changes in the presence of a human body. The low-profile structure enables the antenna to be unseen when the operator wears a jacket. A prototype of the antenna has been built and tested, and the measured impedance characteristics and the radiation patterns are presented. Emphasis is placed on the effect of the human body. The antenna provides a gain of 5.5 dBd, which is 3.5 dB higher than that of a whip antenna. Field measurements verified the excellent performance under a multiple propagation environment.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.