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6, JUNE 2009
1597
AbstractA compact diversity antenna operating at an ultrawideband (UWB) frequency range of 3.15 GHz is proposed for use
in portable devices. The antenna printed on a printed circuit board
(PCB) slab consists of two notched triangular radiating elements
with two feeding ports. A ground plane is etched on the reverse side
of the PCB. The shape of the ground plane is optimized to improve
the isolation between the ports as well as impedance matching.
The simulated and measured results show that across the operating
bandwidth, the antenna can achieve a broad impedance bandwidth
20 dB, avwith good performance in terms of isolation of
erage gain of
2 dBi, and efficiency of 70%. The correlation between the radiation patterns shows consistent diversity
performance across the UWB bandwidth. A method to derive the
transfer function of the antenna has been proposed, which can be
used to obtain the radiated pulses in the time domain. Furthermore, a parametric study is conducted to provide antenna engineers with useful information for designing and optimizing the antenna.
Index TermsDiversity, portable devices, ultrawideband
(UWB) antennas.
I. INTRODUCTION
Manuscript received May 06, 2008; revised January 21, 2009. Current version
published June 03, 2009.
The authors are with the Institute for Infocomm Research, Singapore 138632,
Singapore (e-mail: spsee@i2r.a-star.edu.sg; chenzn@i2r.a-star.edu.sg).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2009.2019908
which is the same as the current wired USB 2.0 standard when
the communication range is within 3 m. Beyond 3 m but within
10 m, the data transfer rate may be reduced, for instance, to 110
Mbps, although in time to come, the data rate will be able to
reach 1 Gbps or more.
The WUSB specifications will be based on the UWB radio
efforts by the Multi-band OFDM Alliance (MBOA) and WiMedia Alliance, which both are industry associations that promote personal area range wireless connectivity and interoperability among multimedia devices in a networked environment.
In the multi-band OFDM-based UWB systems, the spectrum
can be divided into at most 15 sub-bands with each band having
.
a bandwidth of
As in the case of conventional radio systems, it is vulnerable
to multipaths. As such, the signals may combine destructively
at a receiver, causing fading to occur. However, the reliability
of the system can be improved with the use of diversity technology, which is achieved by using the information from the
different branches available to the receiver so as to increase the
signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio at the decoding stage. In an indoor
environment, the random polarization and direction of the incoming signals make pattern (spatial) diversity a suitable technique [2][4]. In the pattern diversity scheme, the antennas with
different beam patterns on each branch linked to the different
channels are used. The multipath components are weighted differently at each channel, creating different interference patterns
of the signal at each branch. Therefore, each channel will receive the transmitted signal with different strengths depending
on the branch pattern and the propagation characteristics at that
moment in time.
The diversity antenna design for portable devices in consumer
electronics, such as PCs, and mobile devices will be a challenging task due to the space constraint. It will be essential to
maintain low mutual coupling when the antenna elements are
placed in close proximity to each other and stable radiation performance across a broad operating bandwidth. The close proximity of the antennas not only makes the antenna system more
compact, but also enhances the pattern directivity which is desirable for pattern diversity. However, due to the increased mutual
coupling, the correlation between the channels will be increased
and the system efficiency will be reduced.
Several antenna types have been proposed for UWB applications [5][6]. However, the large size including the system
ground planes makes them unsuitable to be used in the WUSB
dongles. Also, the size of the diversity antennas designed for
PCMCIA cards in laptop computers is large as the elements have
to be sufficiently spaced apart in order to achieve good isolation
[7][10].
In this paper, a compact UWB diversity antenna for portable
devices is presented. As an example, the antenna is designed
to cover an impedance bandwidth of 3.15 GHz (lower UWB
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 57, NO. 6, JUNE 2009
band) and has a stable three-dimensional omni-directional radiation performance with high average gain across the operating
bandwidth for wireless portable devices such as USB dongles.
A method to calculate the transfer function of the antenna is proposed as well, from which the radiated pulses are obtained and
analyzed. In addition to the broad operating bandwidth, the antenna is designed to achieve a high isolation between two ports
across the operating bandwidth for diversity applications when
the elements are placed close to each other. Moreover, a parametric study is carried out in order to study the influence of some
of the important parameters such as the length of the notch, the
position of the feed point, the separation between the radiators,
and the width and length of the vertical strip on the ground plane.
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Fig. 4. Measured (a) average gain and (b) peak gain for the total field when
Port 1 was excited.
Fig. 3. Measured radiation patterns with Port 1 and Port 2 excitation in the (a)
=
plane, (b)
=
plane, (c)
x-y plane.
= 45 225
= 135 315
= 90 ( )
(1)
where,
stands for the average gain of the total field,
namely the sum of the
and
components along a specific
is the gain measured at a parcut or orientation;
or along a specific cut; and is the
ticular orientation
.
total number of measured
In order to calculate the average gain, the gain for both the
and
components at a certain point along a specific cut is
measured, and the gain for the total field is then calculated. With
this process repeated times, the average gain for the total field
can be obtained using (1).
Fig. 4(a) and (b) show the average gain and peak gain of
the total field at the principal planes, respectively. In this study,
only the radiation in one half-space will be of interest. For the
plane when Port 1 was excited and the
plane when Port 2 was excited, the average gain is
)
when Port 1 was excited and for the right half-space region
when Port 2 was excited. The value
of used in the calculation of the average gain is 91. The comparison in Fig. 4(a) and (b) shows that the measured peak gain is
23 dB higher than average gain over the bandwidth. This suggests that the radiation in such three planes is directional. The
variation of the average gain is a good indicator of the stability
of the radiation patterns within the bandwidth. From the figure,
it can be observed that the average gain is greater than
across the bandwidth. Also, it is noted that the variation in the
average gain is within 3 dB at the three principal planes. Due to
the symmetrical structure, the average and peak gain when Port
2 was excited will be the same as that in Port 1.
The 3-dimensional radiation patterns for the gain of total field
were measured at frequencies of 3.1, 4, and 5 GHz when Port
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 57, NO. 6, JUNE 2009
Port 1 was being excited. The nearly isotropic radiation characteristic is conducive to the application of the antenna in portable
devices.
Fig. 6 plots the simulated and measured antenna efficiency
from 35 GHz, which was calculated from the gain and the directivity of the 3-dimensional radiation patterns. It can be seen
that the efficiency is at least 70% across the bandwidth. On average, the antenna has a measured efficiency of about 80% with
a peak efficiency of 93% at 4.75 GHz. The lower measured efficiency as compared to the simulation is due to the additional
losses in the connectors and cables.
Fig. 7(a) shows the current distributions on the antenna at 3,
4, and 5 GHz when the left radiator is excited at Port 1. It can be
seen that most of the current is concentrated around the notch
and the central vertical strip instead of the ground plane, especially at the lower frequency of 3 GHz [11], [12]. As such, the
size of the radiator can be reduced and yet maintain the lower
edge operating frequency at 3 GHz. In addition, since there is
little current on the ground plane around the right radiator, mutual coupling between the two antenna elements is significantly
reduced. The current distributions at 3 GHz for the different
of the ground plane are also illustrated in Fig. 7(b).
lengths
It can be seen that the current is mainly concentrated around the
notch at 3 GHz for the different lengths of the ground plane.
This suggests that good isolation can be maintained with little
variation in the impedance matching at the lower operating frequency. In this way, the radiator can be optimized for a particular
ground plane and used on another ground plane of a different
length depending on the application requirements. In Fig. 7(a),
the higher current at 5 GHz on the radiator connected to Port 2
as compared to 4 GHz is consistent with the higher mutual coupling from Fig. 2.
C. Diversity Performance
Fig. 5. Measured three-dimensional gain for the total field at (a) 3.1 GHz, (b)
4 GHz, (c) 5 GHz.
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= 37 mm
= 37 mm
= 26 5 mm and
:
(2)
(3)
and
are the transfer functions of the transmit
where
and receive antennas. The impedances
and
are the reference source and load impedances of Port 1 and 2, respecand
are the input impedances of the transmit
tively;
and receive antennas, respectively; is the distance between the
transmit and receive antennas (which ensures the transmit and
receive antennas are in the far-field zone of each other.); is
and
are the unit vecthe free space wave number, and
tors that indicate the polarization direction of the transmit and
receive antennas, respectively.
and
with respect to the source and load
Normalizing
impedances, respectively,
(4)
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 57, NO. 6, JUNE 2009
where
and
represent the normalized input impedances
of the transmit and receive antennas, respectively. The normalized input impedances can be expressed in terms of the -parameters,
(5)
Taking the ratio of the system transfer functions, where
is the system transfer function with the
AUT as the transmit antenna and the SGA as a receive antenna,
is the system transfer function when
and
the SGA is used for both the transmit and receive antennas.
Since
(6)
where
is the complex transmission coefficient which takes
into account the polarization matching factor, if
(7)
(8)
The radiated pulse can be then obtained by multiplying the
spectrum of the source pulse that is defined in (9) with the
transfer function of the AUT and the distance factor,
,
before taking the inverse Fourier transform. The normalized
source pulse is plotted in Fig. 9(a). Using (8), the radiated pulses
,
,
at
were calculated and shown in Fig. 9.
and
These points were selected which correspond to the strong radiated fields when Port 1 was excited according to Fig. 3. In this
ps
study, as an example, a Gaussian monocycle with
was selected as the source pulse with the peak of its spectrum
located at 4 GHz
(9)
Fig. 9. (a) Normalized source pulse. Radiated pulses when Port 1 is excited
=
,
; (c)
=
,
; and (d)
for (b)
,
.
= 90
= 45 225
= 180
= 090
= 135 315
= 90
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TABLE I
FIDELITY OF RADIATED PULSES WITH VARYING TEMPLATES
selecting the optimal pulse parameter for the Gaussian monocycle, maximum fidelity can be obtained.
V. PARAMETRIC STUDY
A parametric study was carried out to investigate the effects
of the important parameters on the impedance matching and isolation. This will be helpful for antenna designers to optimize the
antenna during design. The effects of varying the separation (d)
between the two radiators, the width of the vertical strip
on the ground plane, length of the notch
on the radiator,
on the ground plane, position of
length of the vertical strip
as well as the length
and width
of
the feed point
the ground plane are studied. In the simulations, the values of
the parameters are the same as that shown in Fig. 1, except for
the parameter under investigation.
As observed from Fig. 10(a), when the distance (d) between
the radiators is increased, there is an upward shift in the lower
edge frequency. This is due to an increase in the real part of
the input impedance and a corresponding decrease in the imaginary part. The isolation is mainly affected at the lower and
upper edges of the pass-band. The width of the vertical strip
on the ground plane has a significant effect on the lower
edge frequency as shown in Fig. 10(b). The real part of the
input impedance is decreased and the imaginary part increased
with an increase in the width. The lower edge frequency for the
impedance matching and isolation experiences an upward shift
with an increase in the width of the strip.
The introduction of the notch on the radiators has a significant
influence on the impedance matching and isolation at the lower
edge frequency as shown in Fig. 10(c) [11]. With the notch,
the size of the antenna can be reduced. This can also be seen
from the current distributions in Fig. 7, where majority of the
current is predominantly concentrated near the notch region at
the lower operating frequency of 3 GHz. Generally, an increase
in the notch length (or decrease ) decreases the lower edge
frequency by increasing the real part of the input impedance and
reducing the imaginary part.
can be used to control the
The position of the feed point
impedance matching of the pass-band from 3.5 to 4.5 GHz as
observed from Fig. 10(d). The upper edge frequency can be increased with an increase in the point with a decrease in the
reactance. However, as the two resonances are spaced further
apart, the matching at the center frequency will be deteriorated.
The isolation is relatively insensitive to the position of the feed
point. The vertical strip on the ground plane can be used to reduce the mutual coupling as well as for impedance matching.
of the strip is
From Fig. 10(e) and (f), when the length
decreased, the mutual coupling increases significantly and the
impedance matching is degraded, especially when gets lower
than 25 mm.
The overall size of the antenna is dependent on the length
and width
of the ground plane. As shown in Fig. 10(g), an
increase in the width of the ground plane will decrease the upper
resonance such that the matching and isolation at the center
frequency are improved. From Fig. 10(h), it can be seen that
when the length of the ground plane is varied, good impedance
matching and high isolation can still be achieved. This suggests
that the ground plane effect of the proposed antenna is minimized. The length of the ground plane will be dependent on the
applications. By reducing the effect of the ground plane, the radiator which has been optimized for a particular ground plane
size can also be used on another ground plane of a different size
without the need to re-optimize the radiator.
VI. CONCLUSION
A printed compact ultrawideband diversity antenna has been
presented for portable devices. The achieved impedance bandof the proposed antenna covers the
width for
range of 3.15 GHz. The simulated and measured results have
shown that the antenna is capable of having good isolation of
and providing the pattern diversity to combat
the multi-path fading across the operating bandwidth. The key
of this design is that the ground plane effect has been reduced by
notching the radiators so that the mutual coupling through the
common ground plane has been greatly suppressed. The orthogonal configuration has ensured the reduction of mutual coupling.
Also, it was observed from the measurements that the average
gain for the total fields is also stable across the bandwidth. Also,
the radiation patterns of the antenna are nearly isotropic and the
radiation efficiency is at least 70%. The correlation coefficient
was also introduced to assess the overall diversity performance
of the antenna. The proposed antenna was able to achieve the
stable correlation coefficient across the bandwidth along a certain planes. A method to calculate the antenna transfer function
was proposed by using a pair of different antennas, which can
be used to compute the radiated pulses. The parametric study
was conducted to provide antenna engineers with useful information about the design and optimization of the proposed UWB
antenna.
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Fig. 10. Effects of varying the (a) d, (b) w , (c) l , (d) m, (e),( f) l , (g) w ,
(h) l on the impedance matching and isolation.
REFERENCES
[1] First Report and Order in the Matter of Revision of Part 15 of the
Commissions Rules Regarding Ultra-Wideband Transmission Systems FCC, 2002, ET-Docket 98-153.
University, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He has been appointed Technical Advisor in Compex since 2005. His research areas cover applied electromagnetics and antenna theory and design wireless communication and imaging
systems. In particular, he is interested in the R&D of small and broadband antennas and arrays for WLAN, WiMAX, WPAN, RFID, MIMO, ultrawideband
(UWB), millimeter wave (mmW), submmW, THz, and implanted systems. He
has authored and coauthored over 230 technical papers and the book Broadband Planar Antennas (Wiley, 2005), coedited UWB Communications (Wiley,
2006), and edited Antennas for Portable devices (Wiley, 2007). In addition, he
has contributed multiple chapters to three books about antenna designs. He has
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been granted five patents and filed eleven patent applications. Some of them
have been licensed to industry for productions.
Dr. Chen is a Fellow of IEEE and IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society
Distinguished Lecturer (20082010). He founded the IEEE International Workshop on Antenna Technology (iWAT), one of most important international antenna event, and as General Chair, organized the IEEE iWAT: Small Antennas
and Novel Metamaterials, 2005, Singapore. He is Chairing the iWAT Steering
Committee and managing future iWAT. He has played the important roles in
many international events as chairs for Technical Program Committee and International Advisory Committee as well as keynote/invited speakers.