Compact ultra‐wideband slot antenna with three notched‐band characteristics

A very compact ultra‐wideband (UWB) slot antenna with three L‐shaped slots for notched‐band characteristics is presented in this article. The antenna is designed and fabricated using a new stepped slot with different size, integrated in the ground plane, and excited by a 50 Ω microstrip transmission line. The stepped slot is used to minimize the dimensions of the antenna and to achieve an impedance bandwidth between 2.65 and 11.05 GHz with voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) less than 2. The length of the stepped slot is equal to a quarter wavelength to create a resonance in the desired frequency. Three L‐shaped slots with various sizes are etched in the ground plane to reject three frequency bands in C‐band (3.7‐4.2 GHz), WLAN (5.15‐5.825 GHz), and X‐band (7.25‐7.75 GHz), respectively. The notched‐band frequency can be controlled by changing the length of the L‐shaped slot. The proposed antenna has a very small size (20.25 × 8 × 1.27 mm³) compared with previous works. The measured and simulated results show a good agreement in terms of radiation pattern and impedance matching.     

Quad notch UWB antenna using combination of slots and split‐ring resonator

A novel coplanar waveguide fed UWB antenna with quad notch band characteristics has been proposed in this work. The antenna layout is designed based on a combination of well‐known geometrical shapes: a half ellipse patch, rectangle, and triangle. The shape of the ground plane is partially tapered rectangular. The overall dimension of the antenna is 41.5 × 32 mm. The antenna uses three U‐shaped slots at the top surface to create three notched band characteristics. A split‐ring resonator is then introduced at the bottom surface of the antenna. With the integration of split‐ring resonator at the bottom surface, an additional notch band at 7.25 to 7.75 (6.7%) GHz is created in the antenna. The designed antenna has an operating impedance bandwidth (VSWR ≤2) ranges from 3.03 to 12.34 GHz except in quad frequency stop bands of 3.3 to 3.7 (11.4%), 5.15 to 5.35 (3.8%), 5.725 to 5.825 (1.7%), and 7.25 to 7.75 (6.7%) GHz. The proposed antennas are successfully designed, prototyped, and measured. The simulated and measured results are extensively studied and discussed. Correlation between the time‐domain transmitting antenna input signal and the received antenna output signal is calculated in order to ensure that the proposed antenna can be used in pulse‐communication systems. This antenna finds applications in medical imaging, military radar systems, and other common UWB applications.     

Design and analysis of slot antenna with band notch function

In this article, the design, simulation, and construction of a novel wide rectangular slot antenna fed by a 50 Ω coplanar waveguide (CPW) are presented and investigated for multifunctional communication systems. The physical dimension of the antenna is 29 mm (length) × 32 mm (width) × 1.6 mm (thickness). Detailed simulations and experimental investigations are performed to understand its behavior and to optimize for 2.4 GHz wireless local area network (WLAN) and ultra wideband (UWB) operations. The proposed slot antenna is etched on an FR4 substrate with a thickness of 1.6 mm and relative permittivity of 4.4. To improve the impedance matching, a stepped stub structure with CPW feed technique is used. According to the measured results, the proposed antenna has a large bandwidth from 2.1 to 11.6 GHz for voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) less than 2, totally satisfying the requirement of 2.4 GHz WLAN and UWB systems, while providing the required band notch function from 5.1 to 5.9 GHz. The study of time domain characteristics and surface current distributions also indicate the band‐notched function of the antenna. The radiation patterns display nearly omnidirectional performance and the antenna gain is stable except for the rejected frequency band (5.1–5.9 GHz). Moreover, group delays are within 1.5 ns except for the notch‐band. It is observed that the simulated and experimental results have good agreement with each other. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2012.     

Design of a novel compact modified‐circular printed antenna for high data rate wireless sensor networks

This paper presents a novel compact circular patch Ultrawideband (UWB) antenna for sensor node applications. The microstrip‐fed low‐profile antenna comprises an elliptical ring slot, two crescent‐shaped slots and two dumbbell‐shaped slots in feedline. The antenna miniaturization is achieved by a novel combination of an elliptical ring slot, two crescent‐shaped slots in circular patch. The proposed prototype has been fabricated on inexpensive FR4 substrate and the relative permittivity is (ε_r = 4.3) with 1.6 mm thickness. The overall size of the proposed miniaturized antenna is about (0.1 λ_r × 0.15 λ_r), where λ_r is the resonating wavelength of the lowest UWB frequency (ie, 3.1 GHz). The measured radiation performances of the proposed antenna are nearly an omnidirectional pattern in H‐plane and bidirectional pattern in E‐plane for all the frequencies in the whole UWB band. The development process of the antenna, radiation properties and group delay is completely analyzed and discussed.     

Dual‐polarized textile‐based two/four element MIMO antenna with improved isolation for dual wideband application

This article presents the designs of dual‐polarized dual wideband textile‐based two and four elements multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) antennas for WLAN (IEEE 802.11a/b/g/c/n) and WiMAX (IEEE 802.16d) applications. These MIMO antennas cover the frequency spectra from 1.5 to 3.8 GHz (87% bandwidth) and 4.1 to 6.1 GHz (40% bandwidth). The characterization of the textile jeans substrate is determined experimentally using a vector network analyzer and dielectric assessment kit. These antennas provide near about 70% radiation efficiency with around 4 dBi peak gain in desired frequency ranges. The diversity performance is improved noticeably by printing meandered line structures on both planes. The proposed MIMO structure has a very low envelop correlation coefficient (ECC) <0.1 and high diversity gain (DG) >9.9. The Medium effective gain (MEG) also lies within a satisfactory value of ±3 dB. The two elements MIMO Antennas provide linear polarization at all desired frequency band while the four‐element antenna provides circular polarization at 2.4 GHz and linear polarization at 5.2 and 5.8 GHz application bands. The antenna also depicts good performance in wearable condition with safe specific absorption rate < 1.6 W/kg in all desired frequencies.     

Novel Design of UWB Jeans Based Textile Antenna for Body-Centric Communications

This research presents an ultra-wideband (UWB) textile antenna design for body-centric applications. The antenna is printed on a 1 mm thick denim substrate with a 1.7 relative permittivity. The jeans substrate is sandwiched between a partial ground plane and a radiating patch with a Q-shaped slot. The slotted radiating patch is placed above the substrate and measures 27.8 mm × 23.8 mm. In free space, the antenna covers the ultra-wideband spectrum designated by the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). Various parameters of the antenna design were changed for further performance evaluation. Depending on the operating frequency, the antenna's realized gain varied from 2.7 to 5 dB. The antenna achieved high radiation efficiency with an omnidirectional radiation pattern. A parametric study was performed in research on varying antenna substrates and other components of the antenna. The three outermost layers of the human body are used to model a human phantom for on-body simulation. After that, the antenna was placed at five different distances from the phantom. The findings demonstrate that at close distances to the phantom, the antenna's gain and efficiency at lower frequencies are reduced. The antenna's radiation efficiency and gain were much higher at higher frequencies for distances greater than 6 mm. Compared to free space, the antenna's radiation pattern was more omnidirectional, especially at higher frequencies. This antenna is novel, compact and has an ultra wide bandwidth, a maximum of 94.60% radiation efficiency and a 5 dBi gain that will make it a good candidate for body-centric communications.     

Ultrawideband circularly polarized antenna with dual band‐notched characteristics

This article presents an ultrawideband (UWB) crossed dipole antenna with circularly polarized (CP) and dual band‐notched characteristics. The proposed design is based on two orthogonal tapered dipoles for UWB CP operation and a square‐shaped cavity for high broadside gain over the entire operating bandwidth (BW). To generate dual band‐notched characteristics, two separated slots are inserted into each dipole's arm. This antenna yields measured impedance BW of 100% (3.2‐9.6 GHz) with dual‐band rejection centered at 5.2 and 5.8 GHz. Correspondingly, dual rejected bands are also observed in the original UWB CP band, which ranges from 3.2 to 8.2 GHz. Additionally, the proposed antenna exhibits high broadside gains better than 6.2 dBic and radiation efficiency greater than 82%.     

A simple planar monopole UWB slot antenna with dual independently and reconfigurable band‐notched characteristics

An extremely simple and compact planar monopole ultrawideband (UWB) slot antenna with dual band‐notched characteristics is proposed. The antenna is composed of a circular radiation patch, a microstrip‐fed line, and a partial ground. By etching an arc‐shaped slot on the radiation patch and a C‐like slot on the feed line, dual notched frequency bands at 3.3–3.7 GHz for WiMAX and 5.15–5.825 GHz for WLAN are achieved. And, the two notched bands can be adjusted independently by varying the length of the slots. Moreover, the band‐notched characteristics can be reconfigurable by shorting the corresponding slots. So, the antenna is capable of operating in one of multiple modes which makes it an excellent candidate for UWB applications. Meanwhile, experimental results indicate that the antenna has an available impendence bandwidth from 2.9 to 11 GHz which covers the UWB frequency band, and nearly omnidirectional patterns, stable gains, small group delay in operating band except rejected bands. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 24:706–712, 2014.     

A compact six port antenna for better spectrum utilization efficiency in cognitive radio applications

In this article, a novel six port antenna for better spectrum utilization efficiency in cognitive radio (CR) applications is presented. In this six port antenna system, an ultra‐wideband (UWB) sensing antenna and five wideband/narrowband (NB) antennas are integrated on the same substrate in a compact area of 1134 mm² . Antenna associated with port 1, which is meant for sensing, has ?10 dB reflection coefficient bandwidth of 3 to 11 GHz and the antennas associated with ports 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 have ?10 dB reflection coefficient bandwidths of 3.6 to 5.8 GHz (single band), 2.9 to 3.6 GHz and 5.4 to 7.98 GHz (dual band), 7.95 to 8.38 GHz and 9 to 9.85 GHz (dual band), 8.38 to 9 GHz (single band) and 9.7 to 10.7 GHz (single band), respectively. Minimum isolation of 20 dB is attained between UWB sensing antenna and any narrowband/wideband antenna except between the antennas associated with ports 1 and 2 where minimum isolation of 12 dB is achieved over the operating bandwidth of UWB sensing antenna. Moreover, among all wideband/narrowband antennas, isolation of less than 15 dB is achieved. More importantly, the narrowband and wideband antennas meant for communication cover all frequency bands in UWB and a good match between the simulated and measured results is noticed.     

Circularly polarized planar monopole antenna for ultrawideband applications

A broadband circularly polarized (CP) planar monopole antenna is proposed here for ultrawideband (UWB) communication. The antenna is composed of a modified annular ring patch fed by a tapered microstrip line and a rectangular semiground plane on the opposite side of the substrate. Capability of generating wide axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW) is another feature of the proposed antenna. Wide ARBW is achieved by introducing a rectangular slot and a stub in the ground plane. The CP antenna has an impressive ARBW of 5.52 GHz (81.42%, 4.02‐9.54 GHz) within the UWB frequency range (3.1‐10.6 GHz). Measured 10‐dB return loss bandwidth of the proposed antenna is 120.86% centered at 7.48 GHz (2.96‐12 GHz). The proposed antenna is well used for wireless local area network (5.2 and 5.8 GHz), Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (5.5 GHz), and other wireless systems in C band as well as CP‐UWB antenna communication.     

Novel Compact UWB Band Notch Antenna Design for Body-Centric Communications

In this paper, a novel and compact ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna with band-notched characteristics for body-centric communication is examined and implemented. The shape of the designed antenna looks like a ‘swan’ with a slotted patch. The performance parameters of this antenna for both the free space and on-body scenario for body-centric communication are analyzed and investigated through the simulation process using Computer Simulation Technology (CST). This antenna can avoid the interference caused by Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) (5.15–5.825 GHz) and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) (5.25–5.85 GHz) systems with a band notch because of newly designed UWB antenna is revised small form factor sized. At first, the performance parameters like return loss response, gain, radiation patterns, and radiation efficiency on the free space of this UWB antenna are evaluated. After that, the on-body performance parameters of the antenna are also examined to place the antenna at various distances like 2 mm, 4 mm, 6 mm, 8 mm, and 10 mm away from 3-layers of phantom body model at frequencies of 3.5 GHz, 5.2 GHz, 5.8 GHz, 8 GHz, and 10 GHz. All the on-body performance parameter results are compared and analyzed with free space performance parameter results. Lastly, by changing patch slot length and ground plane length, parametric studies were done for performance comparison. Due to its compact size, novel shape and significant on-body performance, the proposed antenna is very suitable for multi-purpose healthcare applications and sports performance monitoring.     

Compact hybrid Sierpinski Koch fractal UWB MIMO antenna with pattern diversity

In this article, a compact 2 element UWB MIMO antenna is proposed. It has a compact size of 40 mm × 20 mm (800 mm²). The antenna utilizes hybrid Sierpinski Koch fractal shape as the radiating element. The antenna elements are placed parallel and close to each other. The isolation between the antenna elements is increased by employing a modified stepped ground plane and a reflecting ground stub. The use of stub results in pattern diversity. A U‐ Shaped slot is etched in the radiating element to notch the WLAN band that interferes with UWB. The antenna performance is measured in terms of S‐parameter, radiation pattern and diversity performance. Considering S₁₁ < ?10 dB, the antenna offers an acceptable impedance bandwidth from 2.5 to 11 GHz, with an isolation better than 20 dB over the UWB range. It has a stable omnidirectional pattern. In terms of diversity performance, the antenna has an envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) of <0.1 and capacity loss of <0.1 bps/Hz. The channel capacity of the antenna in the outdoor environment is obtained using Wireless Insite. The channel capacity is found to be 2 Gb/s. The proposed antenna thus can be a good candidate for portable UWB application.     

Design of Miniature UWB-Based Antenna by Employing a Tri-Sectional SIR Feeder

A novel ultra-wideband (UWB)-based microstrip antenna is presented in this work by using a slotted patch resonator, a tri-sectional stepped impedance resonator (SIR) feeder, as well as a reduced ground plane. The whole structure was realized on an FR4 substrate. The impact of incorporating several cases of ground planes on the input reflection has been thoroughly investigated under the same tri-sectional SIR feeder and by employing a slotted patch radiator. Since the complete ground plane presents an inadequate frequency response, by reducing the ground plane, the induced UWB responses are apparent while the antenna exhibits higher impedance bandwidth. The impact of both the uniform impedance resonator (UIR) as well as the SIR feeder on the input reflection has also been examined by following the same adopted reduced ground technique and using a slotted patch radiator. As a result, the UIR feeder exhibits a dual-band frequency response, when a wide notched band is incorporated in the range from 4.5–6.5 GHz. The dual-band response of the bi-sectional SIR feeder is still apparent with a narrower notched band in the frequency range from 4–5 GHz. As far as the tri-sectional SIR feeder is concerned, the UWB response is discernible without recording the existence of a notched band. Additionally, the antenna displays a higher impedance bandwidth compared with the previously reported steps. Our proposed antenna configuration is designed with highly compact dimensions and an overall size of 14 × 27.2 mm². Moreover, it operates under the impedance bandwidth of 2.86–10.31 GHz that can be leveraged for numerous applications where wireless systems are used. Our approach presents several advantages compared with the other reported UWB-based antennas in the literature, whereas the measured S₁₁ pattern is in good agreement with the simulated one.     

A printed high gain UWB vivaldi antenna design using tapered corrugation and grating elements

A compact Vivaldi antenna is proposed with high gain over the ultrawideband (UWB) using novel combination of corrugation and grating elements. As it is very intricate to improve the radiation characteristics such as gain throughout the UWB using single technique, therefore, corrugation at the flares and grating elements in the area of tapered slot are used to improve gain over the UWB. Due to the corrugation, the gain and front‐to‐back ratio improved significantly over 3–8 GHz whereas the effect of grating elements is observed over 8 GHz. The antenna operates for 2.9 GHz to more than 12 GHz with S₁₁ < ?10 dB and is designed on 0.8‐mm thick low cost FR4 substrate (40 mm × 45 mm). The proposed antenna shows nearly stable unidirectional radiation patterns, peak realized gain more than 5 dBi, and front‐to‐back ratio better than 10 dB over the UWB. Furthermore, the time domain study of the antenna is carried out which shows good pulse handling capability with nearly flat group delay. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 25:610–618, 2015.     

A modified split ring resonator based printed compact monopole UWB antenna with spiked elliptical radiator having five band rejection features

A coplanar waveguide (CPW) fed printed compact monopole antenna with five band rejection features is presented. Wide bandwidth was achieved by beveling the lower part and adding a modified ellipse on the upper portion of the patch. An inverted circular arc, single circular split ring resonator (SRR) with wide opening and two symmetrical circular single SRRs were embedded for obtaining three stop‐band characteristics. Two symmetrical slits were inculcated in the ground forming defected ground structure (DGS) to get another stop‐band characteristic. Two concentric rectangular modified SRRs were etched to obtain a higher frequency stop‐band feature. The proposed antenna was designed, fabricated, and experimentally tested for the validation of results. The overall dimensions of the proposed antenna were 29 mm × 24 mm × 1.6 mm. The measured impedance bandwidth of the antenna was 2.87 to 13.3 GHz at | S₁₁ |< ? 10 dB. The measured results show that the proposed antenna has five band notches centred at 3.96, 4.35, 5.7, 8.54, and 9.95 GHz to reject WiMAX band (3.65‐4.04 GHz), ARN band (4.29‐5.18 GHz), WLAN band (5.5‐6.9GHz), ITU‐8 band (7.37‐8.87), and amateur radio band (9.2‐10.3 GHz) respectively. The proposed antenna maintains omnidirectional radiation pattern in H‐Plane and dumbbell‐shape radiation pattern in E‐plane. Further, stable gain over the whole UWB except at notched frequency bands was reported.     

High gain CPW‐fed UWB planar monopole antenna‐based compact uniplanar frequency selective surface for microwave imaging

In this article, a novel uniplanar ultra‐wideband (UWB) stop frequency selective surface (FSS) was miniaturized to maximize the gain of a compact UWB monopole antenna for microwave imaging applications. The single‐plane FSS unit cell size was only 0.095λ × 0.095λ for a lower‐operating frequency had been introduced, which was miniaturized by combining a square‐loop with a cross‐dipole on FR4 substrate. The proposed hexagonal antenna was printed on FR4 substrate with coplanar waveguide feed, which was further backed at 21.6 mm by 3 × 3 FSS array. The unit cell was modeled with an equivalent circuit, while the measured characteristics of fabricated FSS array and the antenna prototypes were validated with the simulation outcomes. The FSS displayed transmission magnitude below ?10 dB and linear reflection phase over the bandwidth of 2.6 to 11.1 GHz. The proposed antenna prototype achieved excellent gain improvement about 3.5 dBi, unidirectional radiation, and bandwidth of 3.8 to 10.6 GHz. Exceptional agreements were observed between the simulation and the measured outcomes. Hence, a new UWB baggage scanner system was developed to assess the short distance imaging of simulated small metallic objects in handbag model. The system based on the proposed antenna displayed a higher resolution image than the antenna without FSS.     

Compact UWB flexible elliptical CPW‐fed antenna with triple notch bands for wireless communications

A coplanar waveguide (CPW)‐fed flexible elliptical antenna with triple band notched characteristics is presented in this article. The designed antenna consists of an elliptical patch and slots incorporated CPW feed line to cover the bandwidth requirements for ultra‐wideband (UWB) applications. The designed UWB antenna has a fractional bandwidth of about 166.19% (1.20‐13 GHz) with a center frequency of 7.1 GHz in simulation and about 170.10% (1.05‐13 GHz) with a center frequency of 7.025 GHz in measurement. The overall dimension of the proposed flexible antenna is 45 × 35 × 0.6 mm³. The triple notched bands are realized by designing with circular shaped split‐ring‐resonators (SRRs) and defected ground structure (DGS). According to the measurement, first notched band (2.0? 2.70 GHz) is generated for rejecting 2.4 GHz WLAN by introducing a single circular ST‐SRR on the radiating patch. The second notch (3.45‐3.80 GHz) is obtained by embedding another circular ST‐SRR on the patch to mitigate the interference of 3.5 GHz Wi‐MAX system. Finally, due to presence of DGS, third notch (5.15‐6.20 GHz) is produced which suppresses the interference from 5.5 GHz Wi‐MAX and 5.2/5.8 GHz WLAN systems. The proposed antenna offers excellent performance in different flexible conditions that confirm its applicability on curved surfaces for UWB systems.     

A compact dual‐band zeroth‐order resonator antenna loaded with meander line inductor

A novel zeroth‐order resonator (ZOR) meta‐material (MTM) antenna with dual‐band is suggested using compound right/left handed transmission line as MTM. In this article, suggested antenna consists of patch through series gap, two meander line inductors, and two circular stubs. The MTM antenna is compact in size which shows dual‐band properties with first band centered at 2.47 GHz (2.05‐2.89 GHz) and second band is centered at 5.9 GHz (3.70‐8.10 GHz) with impedance bandwidth of (S₁₁ < ? 10 dB) 34.69% and 72.45%, respectively. At ZOR mode (2.35 GHz), the suggested antenna has overall dimension of 0.197λ_o × 0.07λ_o × 0.011λ_o with gain of 1.65 dB for ZOR band and 3.35 dB for first positive order resonator band which covers the applications like Bluetooth (2.4 GHZ), TV/Radio/Data (3.700‐6.425 GHz), WLAN (5‐5.16 GHz), C band frequencies (5.15‐5.35, 5.47‐5.725, or 5.725‐5.875 GHz) and satellite communication (7.25‐7.9 GHz). The radiation patterns of suggested structure are steady during the operating band for which sample antenna has been fabricated and confirmed experimentally. It exhibits novel omnidirectional radiation characteristics in phi = 0° plane with lower cross‐polarization values.     

A compact uniplanar ultra‐wideband frequency selective surface for antenna gain improvement and ground penetrating radar application

A simple structured single layered frequency selective surface (FSS) that has unit cell size of 11 × 11 mm², substrate thickness of 0.8 mm only and capable to work in a very widespread band from 0.001 to more than 17 GHz is proposed in this article. The FSS is competent to augment the gain of a UWB monopole antenna by 2 to 3.5 dBi when integrated at the back of antenna. The performances of “antenna‐FSS” structure is evaluated by simulation and experimental measurement where good correlations are obtained. The integrated structure provides wide impedance band (S₁₁ < ?10 dB) from 2.82 to 19.94 GHz (more than 150%) with improved broadside radiation and high radiation efficiency profile. The transient and frequency domain characteristics of “antenna‐FSS” composite structure are also evaluated in close proximity of diverse sub‐surfaces such as dry sand, wet sand, wood and concrete where an almost unaltered impedance band profile, linear transfer function response and non‐varying group delay responses are achieved which establishes the applicability of the composite structure in ground penetrating radar for low depth sub‐surface scanning applications.