Integration of small antennas for ultra small nodes in wireless sensor networks

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONIntegrated transceiver nodes are highly desired in wireless Sensor Network (WSN) applications. Using modern semiconductor technologies, transceiver circuits for sensor networks can be packaged into a small chip of a few millimeters square. However, the physical sizes of the antennas are closely related to their operating frequencies. Antennas and batteries are in general the most bulky part of a Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) transceiver node. In some WSN applications, such as smart dust sensor networks, a very stringent physical size requirement is employed [1]. Therefore, suppressing the physical size of the antenna and implementing appropriate integration is very challenging in WSN systems.In this paper, we present a frequency scalable design of an F-Inverted Compact Antenna (FICA) for use in ultra-small transceivers in wireless network nodes. Dimensions of these nodes are less than one cubic centimeter. We carefully measured and evaluated the performance of a 916 MHz FICA. Then we have scaled the antenna to 2.2 GHz, and proposed the integration of the antenna in a full WSN system.