PIERS Proceedings, Hangzhou, China, March 24-28, 2008

132

Time Domain Studies of Ultra Wideband Dielectric Loaded

Monopole Trans-receive Antenna System
Atanu Roy1 , Saswati Ghosh2 , and Ajay Chakrabarty1
1

Department of Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering, IIT Kharagpur, India

2
Kalpana Chawla Space Technology Cell, IIT Kharagpur, India

Abstract This paper presents the time domain studies of a wideband trans-receive antenna
system consisting of a quarter-wave monopole loaded with an annular dielectric resonator antenna. This antenna has recently become attractive to antenna designers due to its broadband
characteristics. However, while using this antenna in ultra wideband trans-receive system, the
time domain characterization of the whole system is required and investigation on this has not
yet been performed by other researchers. In this paper, the transmit antenna is excited by a
wideband signal. The time domain waveform of the received voltage developed at the load end
of the receiving antenna is presented both for far field and near field position of the receiving
antenna. The results are simulated using CST Microwave Studio, version 5.
1. INTRODUCTION

The monopole loaded with dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) has found important application as
broadband antenna [13]. A very interesting work on the guidelines for the design of this antenna
was presented in recent literature [3]. The broadband characteristics of the hybrid antenna both in
transmit and receive mode as EMI sensor in frequency domain had already been studied. There has
been considerable interest on the studies of different loaded and dielectric resonator antennas for
their wideband characteristics [47]. However, the authors have not noticed any appreciable work
on the time domain analysis of this antenna in a wideband trans-receive antenna system including
the mutual coupling between the antenna elements and concentrated on this. In this paper, the time
domain studies of the trans-receive antenna system including the medium is presented for far field
and also considering the near field coupling between the antennas. The frequency-domain concepts
and terminology are commonly used to describe the transmitting and receiving response of an
antenna. These are satisfactory for a continuous wave (CW) or narrow band applications. However,
for an instantaneous wideband excitation the time-domain analysis of the antenna is necessary.
One convenient way of analyzing the trans-receive antenna system in the time domain involves the
evaluation of the amplitude and phase of the response over the entire frequency spectrum. For
a really wideband antenna the amplitude of the transmitted/received signal will be flat and the
phase variation will be linear within the frequency band. The inverse Fourier transform of this
signal will represent the time domain waveform which should be identical to the input waveform
for a wideband system. Here the equivalent circuit of the trans-receive antenna system is estimated
in terms of the equivalent receiving antenna circuit. The transmit antenna is excited by a wideband
signal. The electric field radiated by the transmit antenna is considered as the incident electric field
on the receive antenna. The voltage developed across the load connected to the receive antenna
due to this incident field is evaluated. The time domain waveform is achieved by taking the inverse
Fourier transform of the load voltage in frequency domain.
2. THEORY

The general configuration of a trans-receive system consisting of a transmit antenna and another
receive antenna is shown in Fig. 1(a). The transmit antenna is driven by a voltage source VG ()
having an internal impedance ZG () = RG () + jXG (), while the receive antenna is terminated
in load impedance ZL () = RL () + jXL () and has a terminal voltage VL (). The incident field
is the electric field radiated by the transmit antenna excited by the appropriate input voltage. A
physical trans-receive system including a DRA-loaded monopole antenna as transmit and receive
antenna is shown in Fig. 1(b).
We define a function F EG () which is written in terms of the input voltage and the electric
field transmitted by the antenna considering the mutual coupling between the transmit and receive
antenna as follows:
E()
F EG () =
(1)
VG ()

Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium, Hangzhou, China, March 24-28, 2008

Transmit Antenna

133

Receive Antenna

(b)
(b)

(a)

Figure 1: (a) A complete trans-receive antenna system consisting of a transmitting and receiving antenna,
(b) A physical trans-receive system using hybrid DRA.
0

Return loss (dB)

-5
-10
-15
-20
-25
measured [2]

-30

simulated

-35
-40
3

Figure 2: Cross section of hybrid monopole antenna [2].

Frequency in GHz

10

11

12

Figure 3: Return loss of a DRA-loaded monopole

antenna.

The strong coupling is embedded in the F EG () in Equation (1) and it depends on the distance
in the near-field range. Similarly another function F EL () is defined as the ratio of the voltage
received at the load end VR () to the incident electric field E() at the surface of the receive
antenna due to the transmit antenna.
F EL () =

VR ()
E()

(2)

It should be noted that F EL () depends on the distance between the two antennas in the near
field range, however it is same as the transfer function of the receive antenna when they are in far
field.
Hence the trans-receive function F LG () of the overall system that relates the receive antenna
load voltage to the generator voltage at the transmit antenna is achieved as follows:
FLG () = FEG () FEL ()

(3)

The inverse Fourier transform of the load voltage gives the time domain waveform of the load
voltage due to the suitable excitation. For the simulation the electromagnetic software CST Microwave Studio, version 5 is used [8].
3. GEOMETRY OF THE PROBLEM

The geometry of the antenna studied here is shown in Fig. 2 [2]. The hybrid antenna consists of
a thin monopole and an annular DRA, both sharing the same axial reference and mounted on a
finite ground plane. The quarter-wave monopole is designed to have a resonance at the lower end
of the frequency band, while the DRA is designed to have a resonance near the upper end of the
desired spectrum range. The two resonant frequencies are chosen to maintain a minimum return

PIERS Proceedings, Hangzhou, China, March 24-28, 2008

134

loss of 10 dB throughout the operating frequency range [2]. The dimensions of the hybrid antenna
as taken from the literature [2] are as follows:
L = 15 mm, d = 1.3 mm, a = 4.5 mm, b = 1.2 mm, h = 7.2 mm, Ground plane radius = 40 mm,
for DRA r = 20.
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The simulation of the trans-receive system is performed using CST Microwave Studio. The return
loss versus frequency of the hybrid DRA loaded monopole antenna is shown in Fig. 3, which is in
compliance with the experimental results presented in [2].

(a)

(b)

Figure 4: Input excitation signal of the trans-receive antenna system. (a) Time domain plot, (b) Frequency
domain plot.

(a)

(b)

Figure 5: Plot of the load voltage at the receiving antenna of the trans-receive antenna system. (a) Center
to center distance = 90 mm, (b) Center to center distance = 400 mm.

The transmitting antenna of the trans-receive system is excited by a waveguide port. The input
signal of excited waveguide port is normalized to 1 sqrt (Watt) peak power and the waveguide
port realizes an input power of 1 W over its entire port face. The amplitude of all signals in CST
Microwave Studio is normalized to this reference signal. So in case of waveguide ports the excitation
is in sqrt (watt). Also the Fourier transform of this normalized input signal, gives the signal in
frequency domain with unit sqrt (watt)/sec. The time domain and frequency domain waveform of
the excitation voltage applied to the transmit antenna is shown in Fig. 4. The frequency domain
plot of the excitation signal (Fig. 4(b)) shows a wideband waveform in the desired frequency range.
The load voltage developed at the load end of the receive antenna is evaluated both in frequency
domain and time domain. The transmit antenna and receive antenna are assumed as parallel,
radiating in the broadside directions. The results are shown for different distances e.g., 90 mm,
120 mm and 400 mm between the antennas. Applying the conventional far field conditions in the

Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium, Hangzhou, China, March 24-28, 2008

135

V o lts

Lumped element voltage time signal

0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
-0.05
-0.1
-0.15
-0.2
0

Time/ns

(b)

(a)

Figure 6: Plot of the load voltage at the receiving antenna of the trans-receive antenna system (center to
center distance = 120 mm). (a) Frequency domain plot, (b) Time domain plot.

Lumped element voltage time signal

Volts

0.02
0.01
0

-0.01
-0.02

(a)

2
Time/ns

(b)

Figure 7: Time domain waveform of the received voltage at the load of the trans-receive antenna system.
(a) Center to center distance = 90 mm, (b) Center to center distance = 400 mm.

entire frequencies of interest, the 90 mm and 120 mm distance is considered in the near field region
whereas the 400 mm is considered in the far field region. However, due to the excessively long
simulation time for far field simulation, it was not possible to extend the simulation for higher
distances in the far field. The frequency domain and time domain plot of the load voltage for
various separations between the elements are presented in Figs. 57. The received voltage versus
frequency plot for the three distances are shown in Figs. 5 & 6(a). The time domain plots of the
received voltage for the three cases are shown in Figs. 6(b) & 7. The time for wideband pulses at
the receive antenna side indicates the separation between transmit and receive antenna.
5. CONCLUSION

This paper presents the initial investigation on the time domain characterization of a trans-receive
antenna system using a hybrid monopole/DRA considering the mutual coupling between the transmit and receive antenna. The time domain waveform of the voltage developed at the load end of
the receive antenna is found to be identical to the input waveform for both near field and far field
region, which proves the wideband nature of this trans-receive system. This study may find an
important application in the ultra wideband technology.
REFERENCES

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2. Lapierre, M., Y. M. M. Antar, A. Ittipiboon, and A. Petosa, Ultra wideband

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PIERS Proceedings, Hangzhou, China, March 24-28, 2008

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Users Manual of CST Microwave Studio, Version 5.