A MNG-TL Loop Antenna Array With Horizontally Polarized Omnidirectional Patterns

A horizontally polarized omnidirectional planar loop antenna that employs an artificial mu-negative transmission line (MNG-TL) is proposed. The MNG-TL is designed using periodically loaded parallel-plate lines. The reactive loading is inspired by the zeroth-order resonator (ZOR), which has a propagation constant of zero. Due to the unique property of an infinite wavelength, the MNG-TL loop antenna presented in this paper allows current along the loop to remain in phase so that a horizontal polarized omnidirectional pattern is generated. A series-fed array, which is composed of four MNG-TL loop antennas and operates at 2.4 GHz band, is designed, fabrication, and measured. The MNG-TL loop antenna array offers a horizontally polarized omnidirectional radiation pattern with enhanced gain of 6.5 ~ 7.9 dBi and measured radiation efficiency exceeding 85% for covering bands. The concept extends the degrees of design freedom for horizontally polarized omnidirectional antenna array.