How to Design a PCB with an Antenna 

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RF is hard! Where you place your Antenna is just as important as how well its matched. The product you place the antenna in can detune the antenna and kill your performance. Then you quickly end up in a 3D RF Modeling software and keep people like me employed :)

Thanks John, this was very informative. I will go for more!

Thanks John, This video is great that give me an idea for design of GHz range on PCB. I believe it is so complicate compared to my past experience only for external antenna from 40 to 2 meters for amateur radio.

thank you very much for nice, clean and straightforward explanations. i very much like your videos. immediately subscribed. thx a lot !

Nice video, well done, thanks for sharing it with us :)

Very helpful man, that is a really good work. Thanks a lot

The next problem is that you have to take into account how the product will be used. If the product is sat on a wooden desk, clear of other objects, you can characterise the radio parts in an accurate manner. If the product is handheld, or the sort of thing that is carried in a pocket, or all of the above (desk/hand/pocket), then you will not be able to put the perfect system toghether because proximity to "other things" will affect impedence, efficiency and radiation pattern. It might be worth noting that if the PCB traces are very short compared to the wavelength, then it makes very little difference how traces are spaced etc. This gets less and less true as the the wavelength gets shorter as the frequency gets higher. A product that works at 433MHz has a wavelength of about 70cm so it is less critical. A product that works at 2.4GHz has a wavelength of about 12cm and trace spacing etc become very imortant. You can self test antenna efficiency by making a cheap field strength meter: www.utaharc.org/rptr/wdr_fsm1.html Analogue meter with something like 100uA @ full scale: www.rapidonline.com/rvfm-model-sd-670-fsd-dc-100-a-moving-coil-meter-range-0-100-a-48-0305 A couple of diodes with low forward voltage as a rectifier. A capacitor to smooth the output of the rectifier. A resistor to discharge the capacitor (make it a trim-pot) A higher deflection on the meter = better overall efficiency, and this also takes into account how it is used (hand/desk/pocket).

谢谢

helpful 🙂!

i have a question please , if i have a PCB external antenna for 4G usage on my board , where is the best placement for it ? above the board , beside the board , perpendicular to the board !

I was wondering about the vias you call stitching vias at 12:50. I understand that they are giving a low impedance connection to the ground plane. But aren't their purpose also to shield the remaining circuit from the electric fields from the antenna - and vice versa?

Hi, great video. Can you make this video for an ESP32-S3 board with MIFA? I’m saw in the Design Guidelines that the output impedance of this IC is 35ohm+0j. So, how to calculate the CLC matching circuit if the output impedance of the ESP32 ? I have seen a few online calculators. Another question is, is it possible to design a 35ohm PCB Antenna and don't use any macthing component? Thank you very much.

Hi nice video! I learned a lot! But I'm still wondering how to design the CLC network (values of the C1,C2 and L1) Can you explain this to me?

So, if I select 2 layer PCB, I must use the board with thickness 0.6mm to 1mm (considering coplanar WG). Else the trace width will be very large.

You mentioned third party services that will analyze the board and give you the values for the CLC circuit for max power transfer. Can you give me some names of such services ? or if I do a google search, what would I search for ?

Nice movie! One question: I see a lot of islands, special reason for that, or in the middle of designing?

I didn't completely understand what you said. Will you or won't you need to get it professionally tuned if you use AppCAD? If it's about the ground plane can you not just simulate the impedance inclusive of the ground plane as well?

This is which antenna active or passive

DopTrace, its cool ^)

Anyone know a good low voltage bluetooth module with antenna that's already certified, for a good price?