Seamless integration of active antenna with improved power efficiency

Loss reduction to improve the power efficiency in active integrated antenna (AIA) is a key design drive. This paper first analyzes the loss mechanism in a convention AIA structure. A new integration scheme of a GaN power amplifier (PA) transistor with an antenna without using any output matching network (OMN) and harmonic tuning network (HTN) is then proposed to construct a seamlessly integrated AIA. This is achieved by a novel design of a slot antenna with optimized input impedance at its fundamental frequency as well as for harmonic tuning, which essentially absorbs the OMN and HTN functions in the conventional Class-F power amplifier design. By eliminating these passive networks between the transistor and the antenna, the associated insertion and mismatch losses as well as the overall circuit size are reduced. For verification, two prototypes are designed, fabricated and measured, one with the integrated design and the other with a conventional design for comparison. Both AIAs operate between 3.4 and 3.6 GHz. Experimental results show that the power-added efficiency (PAE) of the seamlessly integrated AIA is over 52% within the operating band. Compared with the conventional cascaded design of a PA and an antenna, the PAE is improved by 14.2%.