Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium Proceedings, KL, MALAYSIA, March 2730, 2012 1531

A New Compact Ultra Wideband Printed Monopole Antenna with Reduced Ground Plane and Band Notch Characterization
Jawad K. Ali, Mahmood T. Yassen, Mohammed R. Hussan, and Mohammed F. Hasan Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Technology, Baghdad, Iraq

Abstract In this paper, a printed monopole antenna with reduced ground plane has been
presented as a candidate for use in ultra-wideband applications. The monopole antenna structure is a nearly square shaped with m-slot embedded in it. A 50 microstrip line is used to feed the proposed antenna. The proposed antenna has been supposed to be etched using a substrate with relative permittivity of 4.6 and thickness of 1.6 mm. Modeling and performance evaluation of the proposed antenna have been carried out using a method of moments based EM simulator, IE3D. Results show that the proposed antenna has a compact size of 20 mm 25 mm. The resulting antenna has been found to possess an impedance bandwidth, for voltage standingwave ratio less than 2, covering the required impedance bandwidth for UWB applications with 5/6 GHz band notch characteristics. Simulation results show that the lower frequency is primarily determined by the monopole radiating element perimeter, while the slot has an eective role to allocate the position of the band notch. A parametric study has been conducted to provide more understanding of the eects of antenna parameters on its performance. Besides the reasonable performance, the simple structure of the proposed antenna will make it an attractive choice for the antenna designers. 1. INTRODUCTION

Recently, ultra-wideband (UWB) systems have attracted much attention because of the need of exchanging huge quantity of information at high transfer rates in modern communication systems [1, 2]. Consequently, an increased interest has been reported to the UWB antenna design. For portable devices, an additional challenge is encountered; the antenna has to be miniaturized. The printed UWB antenna has been found to be a good option because it can be easily embedded into wireless devices or integrated with other RF circuits [3]. In 2002, the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) ocially released the regulations for UWB technology with allocated spectrum from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz for unlicensed UWB indoor medical, measurement and communication applications. Since then, intensive research work has been devoted to the UWB antenna design. Regarding the purpose of reducing the potential interference between the UWB system and others operating at 5/6 GHz, the antennas reported in the literature can be classied into three categories. The rst one includes antenna that are not characterized with a band notch in their return loss, or VSWR, responses [25]. In this context, microstrip fed printed monopole antennas having radiators with E-shape [2], swan-like shape patch with reduced ground plane [3], circular shape monopole with trapezoid shape ground [4], and octagon shape [5], are presented for UWB applications. In the other hand, the CPW feed line has been also used for UWB antennas with various possible slotted patch structures [6, 7]. The UWB antennas of the second category are characterized with a single 5/6 GHz band notch in their return loss responses [812]. Again, almost similar techniques have been adopted to achieve the UWB impedance bandwidth. Slotted elements of various shapes have been added to create the required notch in the antenna response. In addition, the use of the electromagnetic-bandgap (EBG) structure is proven to be eective create the required band notched response [13]. Elliptical monopoles with CPW feeds were fabricated on liquid crystal polymer (LCP) with recongurable 5/6 GHz band-notch characteristics has been presented in [14]. In the third category, antennas are characterized with two band notches in their return loss, or VSWR, responses [1520]. In most of these antennas, an additional notch has been added to prevent the interference of the UWB system with WiMax [1518]. However, in [19], the proposed antenna has two narrow band notches within the 5/6 GHz band itself. Special band notch requirements might be needed, besides the 5/6 GHz notch as reported in [20]. In all of the reported antenna structures, the dual band notch has been attributed by two dierent elements resulting in antennas with complicated structures. In this paper, a new microstrip fed compact printed monopole antenna with reduced ground plane has been proposed as a miniaturized antenna for UWB applications. It has simple struc-

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PIERS Proceedings, Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA, March 2730, 2012 Table 1: Summary of the Ref. Ant. dimensions, in mm. LG 19.90 WG 9.20 S 1.25 LE 13.45 WE 14.55 LM S 9.05 LT S 1.50 WM S 6.25 WT 1.70

(a)

(b)

Figure 1: (a) The proposed m-slot printed monopole antenna structure, and (b) its layout with respect to the coordinate system.

ture with 5/6 GHz band notch. The notch band position can be controlled via an m-shaped slot embedded in the radiating element of the printed monopole structure.
2. THE PROPOSED ANTENNA STRUCTURE

The geometry of the proposed UWB printed monopole antenna is shown in Figure 1(a). The antenna is to be modeled using an FR4 substrate with thickness of 1.6 mm and relative permittivity of 4.6. On the front surface of the substrate, a rectangular radiating patch with initial dimensions of 13.45 14.55 mm2 , has been etched. For design convenience, the proposed antenna is fed by a 50 Ohm microstrip line printed on the radiator side of the substrate. The feed line width is of about 3 mm, and is symmetrically located with respect to both the radiating element and the ground plane. On the other side of the substrate, a conducting ground plane of 19.90 9.20 mm2 is placed. An m-slot is etched on the rectangular radiating element with slot width, WM S = 6.25 mm, slot length, LM S = 9.05 mm, and slot trace width, LT S = 1.5 mm. The slot is symmetrically cut in the X-axis, while it is away from the upper edge of the radiating element by a distance, WT = 1.70 mm. Figure 1(b) shows the antenna layout with respect to coordinate system. This initial design has been found to almost meet the ultrawideband bandwidth requirements with the 5/6 GHz band notch. This antenna, with the depicted parameters, has been referred to as a (Ref. Ant.), in the parametric study to be later conducted. The proposed printed monopole antenna structure, shown in Figure 1, has been modeled using the commercially available method of moments based EM simulator, IE3D [21]. Table 1 summarizes the detailed dimensions of the Ref. Ant. parameters as labeled in Figure 1(a).
3. THE ANTENNA DESIGN

A printed monopole antenna with m-slot has been designed to resonate with the lower frequency is located at 3.1 GHz, as a starting step. After suitable dimension scaling, the resulting antenna radiating element length, LE , has to be determined. Observing the inuence of the various parameters on the antenna performance, it has been found that the dominant factor in the antenna is the monopole element perimeter, 2(LE + WE ), in terms of the guided wavelength g . 0 g = e where e is the eective dielectric constant. (1)

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(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

(f)

Figure 2: Simulated VSWR responses of the modeled antenna corresponding to the variations of: (a) LG , (b) S, (c) LE , (d) WE , (e) WM S , and (f) WT .

Then the lower resonant frequency, fL , relative to the radiating element length is formulated by fL Co 2(LE + WE ) e (2)

where Co is the speed of light in free space. Other antenna parameters, such as S, WM S , and WT , have only little eect on fL , as will seen later.
4. ANTENNA PERFORMANCE EVALUATION

According to (2), the Ref. Ant., with the parameters depicted in Table 1, has been modeled. The antenna exhibits an UWB response with an impedance bandwidth, for VSWR 2, extending from 3.1 to 11.01 GHz and a band notch, centered on 5.438 GHz, and extending, for VSWR 2,

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PIERS Proceedings, Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA, March 2730, 2012

from 4.755 to 5.825 GHz. An interesting parametric study has been conducted to demonstrate the eects of the variations of various antenna parameters on its performance in terms of the VSWR responses. Figure 2 summarizes the results of this study. Brief comments will be presented herein. In Figure 2(a), the eect of the variation of the ground plane length, LG , has been presented. The ground plane length has been reduced to 20 mm due to the existence of the slot structure in the monopole radiating element. This supports the ndings reported in [3]. The variation of LG does not aect both fL and the position of the notched band. Without the slot structure, it has been found that, not shown here to save space, the required ground plane length to achieve appropriate matching is of about 23 mm. The space width, S, between the radiating element and the ground plane top edge has a considerable eect on antenna response, as shown in Figure 1(b). Good matching has been achieved with S = 0.75 mm. The eects of variations of the radiating element dimensions, WE and LE , are shown Figures 2(c) and 2(d) respectively. The variation of LE has a slight eect on fL , but it has a noticeable eect on width of the notched band; larger WE results in narrower notched bands. However, the centers of the corresponding notch bands are little aected. Better matching can be achieved with smaller values of LE . On other hand, the variation of WE has a considerable eect on fL as Equation (2) implies. The same eect, as in the case of varying LE , has been noticed regarding the width of the notched band. Variation of the m-slot structure width, WM S , results in an interesting feature that the proposed antenna possesses, to control the position of the notched band, as shown in Figure 2(e). The position of fL in the resulting responses has not been aected, but smaller values of WM S leads to better matching. Another interesting result is shown in Figure 1(f), where the variation of the slot position, WT with respect to the top edge of the radiating element is investigated. The variation of WT has a little eect on fL , but it has a noticeable eect on width of notched band with its position remains unchanged. However, smaller values of WT , leads to better matching. The variation of LT S (not shown in Figure 2) has very slight eect on fL ; but it aects the width of the notched band. In summary, it has been shown that the proposed antenna oers many degrees of freedom to the antenna designer to select from, to produce an antenna meeting the requirements of the UWB systems with the 5/6 GHz band rejection. Figure 3 shows the simulated current distributions on the surface of the proposed antenna at 3.5, 5.5, 8.0, and 10.0 GHz. At 3.5, 8.0, and 10.0 GHz, the current mainly ows along the microstrip feed line, while low current densities around the m-slot.

Figure 3: Simulated current distributions on the surface of the proposed antenna at dierent frequencies.

Figure 4: Simulated 3D total electric eld patterns of the proposed antenna at 3.5, 8.0, 10.0 GHz.

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On the contrary, the current distribution on the antenna surface at 5.5 GHz is heavily concentrated around the slot. As a matter of fact, the excitation of the 5/6 GHz notched band is attributed to the surface current density produced by the slot at this band. The 3D radiation patterns corresponding to 3.5, 8.0, and 10.0 GHz are shown in Figure 4. An average gain of about 2 dB has been oered by the proposed antenna at these frequencies.
5. CONCLUSIONS

A compact microstrip line fed printed monopole antenna, with an m-slot structure and 5/6 GHz band notch characterization, has been presented in this paper as a candidate for use in UWB applications. The antenna has been analyzed using a method of moments based EM simulator, IE3D. Simulation results showed that the antenna possesses resonant behavior meeting the requirements of the UWB systems with notched band at 5/6 GHz. A detailed parametric study has been conducted to explore the eects of the most eective antenna parameters on its overall performance. The lower resonant edge of the UWB response has been found to be dominantly attributed by the length of the monopole radiating element. The position of notch band can be controlled by the slot structure dimensions, while its width is highly sensitive to the position of slot structure relative to the monopole radiating element. It is hopeful that the simple structure of the proposed antenna, its compact size, and the degrees of freedom of its design, will make it an attractive choice for the UWB antenna designers.
REFERENCES

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