Dual Port Antenna Combining Sensing and Communication Tasks for Cognitive Radio

Dynamic spectrum access has been proposed as the effective solution to overcome the spectrum scarcity issue, supported by cognitive radio technology. Sensing and communication functions are both the most important tasks in cognitive radio systems. In this paper, an antenna system combining sensing and communication tasks is proposed to be integrated into cognitive radio front-ends. The sensing task is performed by means of an ultra-wideband quasi-omnidirectional antenna. Whilst the communication task is ensured by using a narrowband antenna. Both antennas have been designed on the same layer of an FR4 substrate, for manufacturing cost constraint. Therefore, the isolation between them must take into consideration. The measured mutual coupling of less than -18 dB is achieved over the whole impedance bandwidth. The proposed sensing antenna covers a wide range frequency bands ranging from 2 to 5.5 GHz. While the communication antenna operates at 2.8 GHz, and by adding inductors to the antenna, the resonant frequency can be tuned from 2.6 to 2.7 GHz. The whole antenna system was designed, fabricated, and tested. Measurement and simulation results prove the feasibility of the proposed structure for cognitive radio applications.