Ground Modified Double-Sided Printed Compact UWB Antenna: R. Azim, M.T. Islam and N. Misran

A double-sided printed compact antenna for UWB application is
proposed. The proposed antenna, having a total size of 30 22 mm,

consists of a patch fed by a microstrip line and a partial ground
plane. The modied ground plane with triangular shaped slots on its
top edge helps to increase the bandwidth of the proposed antenna.
The double-sided printed antenna has a bandwidth (VSWR 2)
from 3.08 to 15.90 GHz and a maximum gain of 5.9 dBi. Antenna
radiation patterns show stable variation within its operating band.
Introduction: Owing to its high data transmission rate, large bandwidth,

and short-range characteristics, ultra-wideband (UWB) technology has
been widely used in various applications such as the wireless personal
area network (WPAN), wireless body area network (WBAN), indoor
localisation and biomedical imaging [1]. Designing UWB antennas to
match these applications is still a major challenge and has attracted
the interest of many researchers [2, 3]. Despite UWB performance,
the antennas proposed in [2] and [3] are not suitable to integrate into
printed circuit boards owing to their large size and the manufacturing
difculties.
Owing to its low cost, low prole, ease of fabrication and wide bandwidth, the printed planar structure appears to be the most promising candidate for wideband applications. Recently, various planar antennas
have been proposed and investigated because of their advantages
[4 7]. For example, a small UWB elliptical ring antenna fed by a coplanar waveguide has been proposed and investigated in [8]. It achieved
wideband performance by extending the length of the elliptical rings
major axis and demonstrated an ultra-wide 10 dB return loss bandwidth
from 4.6 to 10.3 GHz. Although the antenna has fairly compact
dimensions of 29 26 mm, it does not cover the entire ultra-wideband.
An improved design of a planar elliptical dipole antenna for UWB
applications has also been developed recently [9]. By using elliptical
slots on the dipole arms, the antenna has achieved wideband characteristics, having an operating bandwidth of 94.4%. However, the antenna
does not process a physically compact prole, having dimensions of
106 85 mm.
In this Letter, a new double-sided printed antenna with compact size
and good impedance characteristics is presented for UWB applications.
To enhance the impedance bandwidth, antenna parameters are optimised
and the ground plane is modied by cutting slots on the top edge to form
a symmetrical sawtooth shape. By modifying the ground plane a wider
impedance bandwidth has been achieved compared to the design in
[4 9]. The designed antenna was successfully implemented and
experimental results are presented.
30
y
14.5
7.5
14.75
units: mm
x
22
3
initial design
4
1
5
5
triangular shape
modified ground
slot
plane
a
top view
bottom view
b
Fig. 1 Geometry of proposed antenna and photograph of prototype

a Geometry of proposed antenna
b Photograph of prototype
Antenna conguration: The conguration of the initial design of the

proposed antenna is shown in Fig. 1a. The radiating patch, which has
ELECTRONICS LETTERS 6th January 2011 Vol. 47
4
simulated (with slot)
simulated (without slot)
measured
VSWR
R. Azim, M.T. Islam and N. Misran
a compact size of 14.5 14.75 mm is printed on the top side of an

FR4 PCB substrate of thickness 1.6 mm and relative permittivity 4.6.
A microstrip line of width 3 mm is printed on the same side of the
patch on the substrate as the radiator. The nite partial ground plane
with initial dimensions of 30 7.5 mm is printed on the bottom side
of the substrate. The length of microstrip line is xed at 7.25 mm to
achieve 50 V characteristic impedance. An SMA connector is connected
to the port of the microstrip feed line. There is an overlap of 0.25 mm
between the patch and the ground plane. The geometric parameters of
the proposed antenna structure can be adjusted to tune the VSWR as
well as the bandwidth over a wide range of frequencies. From the optimisation of antenna parameters it is found that the antenna is capable of
tuning from 3.04 to 11.94 GHz providing an impedance bandwidth of
8.9 GHz.
To improve the bandwidth of the proposed antenna, the ground plane
is modied by cutting triangular shaped slots on its top edge. The resultant ground plane with a symmetrical sawtooth shaped edge is
shown in Fig. 1a. Fig. 1a also shows the geometry of a single triangular
shaped slot. Fig. 2a shows that the antenna with the modied ground
plane having
optimised
triangular shaped slots with dimensions of
p
p
4 mm 5 mm 5 mm can be operated from 2.9 to 16.0 GHz providing a bandwidth of 13.1 GHz. Compared to the antenna having no
slots in the ground plane, the antenna with triangular shaped slots on
the top edge of the ground plane can enhance the bandwidth by 45%
(4.1 GHz). The insertion of slots on the top edge of the ground plane
increases the gap between the radiating patch and the ground plane,
resulting in enhancement of impedance bandwidth.
2
1
0
2
10
12
14
16
frequency, GHz
a
6
gain, dBi
Ground modified double-sided printed

compact UWB antenna
0
3
10
11
frequency, GHz
b
Fig. 2 Simulated and measured VSWR for proposed antenna and measured
maximum antenna gain
a Simulated and measured VSWR
b Measured maximum antenna gain
Results and discussion: The proposed antenna has been analysed and
optimised by Zeland IE3D simulation software based on the method
of moments. The antenna prototype was fabricated as shown in
Fig. 1b. The antenna was measured in an anechoic chamber using an
Agilent E8362C vector network analyser and the Satimo hybrid
StarLab 16 near-eld antenna measurement system. It is observed
from Fig. 2a that the measured impedance bandwidth (VSWR 2) of
the proposed antenna is from 3.08 to 15.9 GHz, which is equivalent
to 135%. The measured results are in good agreement with those of
the simulation. The difference between simulation and measurement is
mostly due to the inuence of the feeding cable and inaccuracies in fabricating the antenna structure. Despite its very small size, the proposed
antenna has achieved wider bandwidth than the antennas proposed in
[4 9] and is able to tune over a wide bandwidth to cover the entire
range of 3.1 to 10.6 GHz assigned for UWB applications. Fig. 2b illustrates the measured gain of the fabricated antenna in the frequency range
of 3 to 11 GHz. With an average gain of 4.04 dBi, the antenna achieves a
maximum gain of 5.9 dBi at 9.4 GHz and the measured gain variation is
less than 2 dBi. It is obvious that the measured gain is higher than the
gain of those antennas reported earlier in [5] and [6]. The radiation
characteristics of the frequencies across the band have been studied.
Fig. 3 shows the measured radiation patterns of the xz-plane and the
No. 1
yz-plane at 3.6, 7.2 and 9.6 GHz. For brevity, only the copolarisation
eld is shown here. It can be observed that the yz-plane radiation patterns
are almost omnidirectional and the xz-plane patterns are monopole-like.
Although some dips observed in both the xz- and the yz-plane could be
due to the fact that the microstrip feed line is directly printed below the
slotted partial ground plane, the radiation patterns through out the operating band are quite stable.
3.6 GHz
240
210
180
270
0
-10
-20
-30
-40
7.2 GHz
300
330
0
150
30
120
60
210
180
270
0
-10
-20
-30
-40
References
300
330
0
150
30
120
60
90
90
R. Azim, M.T. Islam and N. Misran (Institute of Space Science

(ANGKASA) and Department of Electrical, Electronic and Systems
Engineering, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM Bangi,
Selangor, Malaysia)
E-mail: [email protected]
9.6 GHz
240
# The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2011

12 November 2010
doi: 10.1049/el.2010.3160
One or more of the Figures in this Letter are available in colour online.
Fig. 3 Measured radiation patterns

a xz-plane
b yz-plane
Conclusion: A printed compact antenna has been proposed and fabricated. The antenna having a total size of 30 22 mm is printed on
both sides of a low-cost FR4 PCB substrate. The modied ground
plane with triangular shaped slots on the top edge helps to increase
the impedance bandwidth. It is observed from measurement that the
proposed antenna with the modied nite ground plane has achieved
an impedance bandwidth (VSWR 2) of 12.82 GHz (3.08 to
15.90 GHz), which covers the entire UWB band. The symmetric and
stable radiation pattern with an average gain of 4.04 dBi makes the
proposed antenna suitable for use in UWB applications.
1 Verbiest, J.R., and Vandenbosch, G.A.E.: A novel small-size printed

tapered monopole antenna for UWB WBAN, IEEE Antennas Wirel.
Propag. Lett., 2006, 5, (1), pp. 377379
2 See, T.S.P., and Chen, Z.N.: An electromagnetically coupled UWB plate
antenna, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., 2008, 56, (5), pp. 1476 1479
3 Zhou, H., Liu, Q., Sun, B., and Yang, Y.: A band-notched swallowtailed planar monopole antenna for UWB application, Microw. Opt.
Technol. Lett., 2008, 50, (3), pp. 793795
4 Kiminami, K., Hirata, A., and Shiozawa, T.: Double-sided printed bowtie antenna for UWB communications, IEEE Antennas Wirel. Propag.
Lett., 2004, 3, pp. 152 153
5 Ren, Y.J., and Chang, K.: An annual ring antenna for UWB
communications, IEEE Antennas Wirel. Propag. Lett., 2006, 5, (1),
pp. 274 276
6 Xiao, J.X., Wang, M.F., and Li, G.J.: A ring monopole antenna for
UWB application, Microw. Opt. Technol. Lett., 2010, 52, (1),
pp. 179 182
7 Liu, J., Gong, S., Xu, Y., Zhang, X., Feng, C., and Qi, N.: Compact
printed ultra-wideband monopole antenna with dual band-notched
characteristics, Electron. Lett., 2008, 44, (12), pp. 710711
8 Ren, Y.J., and Chang, K.: Ultra-wideband planar elliptical ring antenna,
Electron. Lett., 2006, 8, (8), pp. 447 449
9 Nazli, H., Bicak, E., Turetken, B., and Sezgin, M.: An improved design
of planar elliptical dipole antenna for UWB applications, IEEE Antennas
Wirel. Propag. Lett., 2010, 9, pp. 264 267
ELECTRONICS LETTERS 6th January 2011 Vol. 47 No. 1

Ground Modified Double-Sided Printed Compact UWB Antenna: R. Azim, M.T. Islam and N. Misran

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A double-sided printed compact antenna for UWB application is

proposed. The proposed antenna, having a total size of 30 22 mm,

Introduction: Owing to its high data transmission rate, large bandwidth,

Fig. 1 Geometry of proposed antenna and photograph of prototype

Antenna conguration: The conguration of the initial design of the

ELECTRONICS LETTERS 6th January 2011 Vol. 47

R. Azim, M.T. Islam and N. Misran

a compact size of 14.5 14.75 mm is printed on the top side of an

Ground modified double-sided printed

R. Azim, M.T. Islam and N. Misran (Institute of Space Science

# The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2011

Fig. 3 Measured radiation patterns

1 Verbiest, J.R., and Vandenbosch, G.A.E.: A novel small-size printed

ELECTRONICS LETTERS 6th January 2011 Vol. 47 No. 1

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