multipleband

Multipleband, sometimes written multiband, is a term used in electronics and communications to describe devices, components, or systems designed to operate across more than one frequency band. In radio-frequency engineering, multiband designs enable transmission or reception over several bands without requiring separate antennas or front-ends for each band.

Antennas are a common area for multiband designs. Multiband antennas are engineered to resonate at several frequencies by using stacked elements, traps, folded geometries, or other structural features. This allows a single radiator to cover multiple bands such as VHF, UHF, and cellular bands. Multiband antennas are widely used in smartphones, vehicles, and base stations to support multiple services with a compact form factor.

Receivers and transceivers achieve multiband operation through wideband front-ends, tunable or switchable filters, impedance matching networks, or software-defined radio architectures that process signals from different bands in software.

Applications span consumer electronics and professional systems. Examples include mobile devices that access multiple cellular bands, devices that combine Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity, GPS and other satellite navigation receivers, as well as amateur radio transceivers that cover several bands in a single unit.

Design considerations for multiband implementations involve trade-offs among size, efficiency, bandwidth, isolation between bands, and cost. Performance can vary across bands, with compromises often needed at band edges. Advances in materials, metamaterials, and SDR techniques continue to expand practical multiband options.