European Journal of Scientific Research ISSN 1450-216X Vol.77 No.4 (2012), pp.477-484 EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2012 http://www.europeanjournalofscientificresearch.

com

A Compact Wideband Microstrip Antenna Intergrated with Band-Notched Design

Yanti Erana Jalil Centre for RF and Microwave Engineering Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Kajang, Selangor 43000, Malaysia E-mail: Yantierana@uniten.edu.my Chandan Kumar Chakrabarty Centre for RF and Microwave Engineering Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Kajang, Selangor 43000, Malaysia E-mail: Chandan@uniten.edu.my Baskaran Kasi Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering Kuala Lumpur Infrastructure, University College Kajang, Selangor 43000, Malaysia E-mail: baskaran@kliuc.edu.my Abstract This article describes a compact ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna that shows desirable band-notch and gain characteristics. The proposed antenna consists of a rectangular patch with a truncated ground plane that is fed by a 50 microstrip line. A band-stop function to eliminate the WLAN interfering signals is created by inserting two C-shape slots on the proposed radiator. It is shown that the frequency of the band-notch characteristic can be tuned by varying the parameters of the notching structure. The predicted and measured results show that the antenna achieves good impedance matching and reasonable radiation patterns over a bandwidth of 3 to 8.2 GHz. Furthermore, the fabricated antenna has a compact size of 23 24 mm2 while exhibiting the band rejection performance in the frequency band of 4.8 to 5.8 GHz. Keywords: Ultra Wideband Antenna, Microstrip Antenna, Partial Ground Plane, Frequency Notched.

1. Introduction
In 2002, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) authorized the unlicensed use of a bandwidth of 7.5 GHz (from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz) for ultra wideband (UWB) wireless communications [1]. From that moment, UWB technology has been rapidly advancing as a promising high data rate wireless communication technology for various applications. In spite of having allocated a wide frequency range, UWB devices suffer the consequences of having to share the spectrum with a number of other

A Compact Wideband Microstrip Antenna Intergrated with Band-Notched Design

478

established narrowband applications such as WiMAX (3.3 3.6 GHz) and WLAN (5 6 GHz). With the significantly low emitted power from UWB radios (EIRP 41.3 dBm/MHz), the interference with other applications was partly compensated [2]. While the operation of UWB radios is almost "invisible" for other applications, interference from a strong narrowband signal, within the UWB band could overload the receiver. This narrowband signal is received as interfering noise from the UWB receivers and can affect the overall systems performance of UWB communication systems in terms of increasing pulse distortion and bit error rate. To overcome this unwanted problem, it is desirable to design UWB antennas incorporated with band rejection characteristics in the affected frequency bands. Several studies have been reported recently on diverse antenna geometries, design methods and structures [3][6] to achieve band-rejection characteristics. Among others are by inserting halfwavelength slot in the ground plane [7], or embedding a inverted L-shape stub in the radiating patch [2],[8], or utilizing capacitively loaded loops [9][10], or inserting strip in the slot [11]. In contrast to the abovementioned works, M. Al-Husseini et al presented two designs of an UWB antenna with reconfigurable band notches [12]. The first design is based on several nested complementary split ring resonators while the second design has two identical split ring resonators. Both design methods are appropriate to be employed in order to produce UWB antenna with narrow frequency notches. Nonetheless, the frequency-notch bands are created at a random frequency band and not targeting any narrow band services. Additional weakness associated with some of the designs is that the antennas geometry is complex [9] or not suitable for pulse communication systems due to high dispersive behaviour [13]. In this paper, a rectangular patch microstrip antenna with wideband characteristic from 3 to 8.2 GHz is proposed. Simply by inserting a couple of C-shaped slots in the radiating patch, a frequency band-notched from 4.8 to 5.8 GHz can be achieved. The outline of this paper is as follows. In section 2, the geometry of the proposed antenna is presented. Details of the simulation and experimental results are discussed in Section 3. The conclusions are summarized in Section 4.

2. Antenna Geometry
The geometry and configuration of the proposed wideband antenna is shown in Figure 1(a). In this design, a rectangular patch is fed by a microstrip line printed on a partial grounded substrate. For this proposed model, the optimization was carried out to achieve the best impedance bandwidth. The microstrip line feed is designed to match a 50 characteristic impedance. The impedance matching of the proposed antenna is enhanced by correctly adjusting the dimension of the feeding structure and the patch size. Consequently, this antenna (will be referred to as antenna 1 in this paper) has a wideband impedance bandwidth with satisfactory radiation pattern.
Figure 1: Geometry of the proposed (a) Antenna 1 (b) Antenna 2.
W W Ws Lp L Wp Lf Wf L Lp Ls t Wf Wf Lg

(a)

(b)

479

Yanti Erana Jalil, Chandan Kumar Chakrabarty and Baskaran Kasi

The geometry and dimensions of the wideband antenna with band-notched design (will be referred to as antenna 2) is depicted in Figure 1(b). Two mirrored C-shaped slots are employed to create a frequency band-notch. These slots are etched onto the radiating patch. No additional retuning work is required for the previously optimized design parameters when the band-notched design is applied to the wideband antenna. Generally, the design concept of the notch function is to adjust the total length of the C-shaped slot to be approximately half-wavelength at the desired notch frequency [14]. As presented in [14], the notch frequency given the dimensions of the band-notched feature can be postulated as c f notch = (1) 2 L eff where L is the total length of the C-shaped slot, eff is the effective dielectric constant and c is the speed of light. At the beginning stage of the design, equation (1) is used to obtain the initial total length of a single C-shaped slot. Unfortunately, the desired frequency notched band cannot be obtained. For that reason, a second mirrored C-shaped slot is chosen to be added onto the radiating patch in order to solve the problem. The analysis of the notched design with different widths and lengths of the slots are performed to obtain the optimized values. The proposed antenna 2 is fabricated on a standard FR4 substrate with a dielectric substance of 4.3, a loss tangent of 0.025 and with thickness of 1.6 mm. Both antennas parameters are as shown in Table 1.
Table 1:
Variable W L Lp Lf Lg Ls Wp Wf Ws t Lg

Parameters of the antennas.

Dimension (mm) 23 24 14.3 9.3 7.35 12.2 12.7 3.3 4.1 1.2 3.5

3. Results and Discussions

Figure 2 shows the prototype of the proposed wideband antenna with notched frequency band (antenna 2). The antenna is fabricated on a standard FR4 substrate using its optimal parameter values from simulation processes as been presented in Section 2. The antenna is studied both numerically and experimentally. 3.1. Simulated Results The proposed antenna model is simulated through the simulation tool CST Microwave Studio in order to evaluate the overall performance of the antenna. Parametric study for different parameters of the antenna has been performed to find the most optimum values. This analysis is done by varying one parameter while maintaining other parameters constant. The simulated return loss of the proposed antenna with and without the notched band is shown in Figure 3. It is observed that, the calculated return loss curve for antenna 1 is less than 10 dB from 3 to 8.2 GHz indicates that the impedance bandwidth of the antenna is 5.2 GHz. By etching a couple of C-shaped slots onto the radiating plane as in antenna 2, a frequency notch band from 4.8 to 5.8 GHz is achieved. Apart from that, the impedance

A Compact Wideband Microstrip Antenna Intergrated with Band-Notched Design

480

bandwidth of the antenna 2 is also increase to 5.6 GHz with the calculated return loss is less than 10 dB from 2.85 to 8.45 GHz. Figure 4 illustrates the comparison of simulated VSWR for the proposed antenna design without and with C-shaped slots. From the figure, it can be clearly seen that by etching a couple of Cshape slots onto the radiating patch, the desired filtering property can be obtained. Compared to antenna 1 design, the 4.8 to 5.8 GHz band has been successfully blocks out by the band-notched antenna and still maintains good impedance matching at other frequencies in the UWB band.
Figure 2: Fabricated antenna.

Figure 3: Simulated return loss of the proposed antennas.

0

-5

Antenna 1 Antenna 2

Return Loss (dB)

-10

-15

-20

-25

-30 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Frequency (GHz)

Figure 4: Simulated VSWR of the proposed antennas.

10

Antenna 1 Antenna 2
8

VSWR

0 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Frequency (GHz)

481 3.2. Measurement Results

Yanti Erana Jalil, Chandan Kumar Chakrabarty and Baskaran Kasi

The return loss and VSWR are measured and plotted using Advantest Network Analyzer R3767CG (300 kHz 8 GHz). Figure 5 shows the simulated and measured return loss of antenna 2. It is noted that a relatively good agreement is achieved between measurement and simulation results. This antenna model has successfully filters out the 4.5 to 5.5 GHz band but still maintains good impedance matching at other frequency. However, a slight distortion at the higher frequency band can be observed in measurement result. This discrepancy from the simulation result might be due to the effect of imperfect soldering or fabrication tolerance. Performance of the measured and simulated VSWR of antenna 2 is illustrated in Figure 6. From the figure, it can be observed that the fabricated antenna 2 has a notched frequency band in 4.5 to 5.5 GHz as expected with VSWR > 2. Based on this finding, it is evident that the desired filtering characteristic is indeed initiated by the two mirrored C-shaped slots in the radiating patch. A good agreement between the simulated and measured result of antenna 2 can be observed from Figure 6. 3.3. Radiation Patterns and Gain The simulated radiation pattern of antenna 2 in the Eplane and the Hplane at 4.15 GHz, 5.15 GHz and 7.15 GHz are shown respectively in Figure 7. These frequencies are selected in order to demonstrate any degradation in the radiation pattern of the antenna when the frequency notch occurred (5.15 GHz). The Eplane is the xz plane while the H-plane is the yz plane with reference to the antenna orientation. In the Eplane, the value of azimuth angle of 00, 450 and 900 while for the H plane the value of elevation angle of 00, 450 and 900 are taken into consideration.
Figure 5: Simulated and measured return loss.
0 -5
Return Loss (dB)

Measured Simulated

-10 -15 -20 -25 -30 -35 2 3 4 5 6 Frequency (GHz) 7 8

Figure 6: Simulated and measured VSWR.

6 5 4
VSWR

Measured Simulated

3 2 1 0 3 4 5 6 Frequency (GHz) 7 8

A Compact Wideband Microstrip Antenna Intergrated with Band-Notched Design

482

It is noticed that the pattern in the Hplane for all chosen frequencies is quite omni-directional as anticipated. Meanwhile, in the Eplane, the radiation pattern with the shape of 8 is illustrated for all frequencies. Nevertheless, the radiation pattern at 5.15 GHz is discovered having a slight degradation. It can be stated that the proposed band notched structure have little influence on the radiation patterns of the UWB antenna. Figure 8 shows variation of the antenna gain versus frequency. The graph shows that the gain steadily increases with frequency and reaches a peak of around 2.3 dBi at 8 GHz. However, it can be significantly observed that the gain drastically decreases at the targeted notched band (4.8 to 5.8 GHz). The computed peak gain at 5.15 GHz is 3.4 dBi which is expected based on the return loss simulations. This value confirms the gain reduction over the notched band. It also validates the antennas ability to provide a satisfactory level of filtering to signal frequencies within the rejection bandwidth.
Figure 7: Simulated E plane and H plane radiation patterns for the proposed antenna 2 at (a) 4.15 GHz, (b) 5.15 GHz, and (c) 7.15 GHz.
90 10 120 60

0 150 30

phi = 0 0 phi = 45 0 phi = 90

90 10 120 60

0 150 30

theta = 0 0 theta = 45 0 theta = 90

-10

-10

Gain (dBi)

Gain (dBi)

-20

-20

-30

180

-30

180

-20

-20

-10

210

330

-10

210

330

0 240 270 300

0 240 270 300

10

10

E plane
90 10 120 60

(a)
phi = 0 0 phi = 45 0 phi = 90
30
0

H plane
90 10 120 60

0 150

0 150 30

theta = 0 0 theta = 45 0 theta = 90

-10

-10

-30

180

Gain (dBi)

-20

-20

-30

180

-20

-20

-10

210

330

-10

210

330

0 240 270 300

0 240 270 300

10

10

E plane
90 10 120 60

(b)
phi =0 0 phi =45 0 phi =90
30
0

H plane
90 10 120 60

0 150

0 150 30

theta = 0 0 theta = 45 0 theta = 90

-10

-10

Gain (dBi)

Gain (dBi)

-20

-20

-30

180

-30

180

-20

-20

-10

210

330

-10

210

330

0 240 300

0 240 270 300

10

10

E plane

(c)

H plane

483

Yanti Erana Jalil, Chandan Kumar Chakrabarty and Baskaran Kasi

Figure 8: Simulated gain of the proposed antenna 2.
3

Gain (dBi)

-1

-2

-3

-4 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Frequency (GHz)

4. Conclusions
This paper proposed a simple rectangular microstrip antenna design for UWB applications. The antenna is capable of achieving an input impedance bandwidth from 3 to 8.2 GHz. A couple of Cshaped slots are introduced in the radiating patch to create a notched band from 4.8 to 5.8 GHz in order to minimize the potential interferences from WLAN system. The prototype antenna has been fabricated and measured. The measured results demonstrate a good agreement with the simulated results. The proposed antenna system bandwidth meets the UWB requirements and can be used to avoid interference from WLAN system when they coexist with UWB services.

References
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] FCC report and order for part 15 acceptance of ultra wideband (UWB) systems from 3.1 10.6 GHz, Washington, DC, 2002. S. Nikolaou, A. Amadjikpe, J. Papapolymerou, M. M. Tentzeris, "Compact Ultra Wideband (UWB) Elliptical Monopole with Potentially Reconfigurable Band Rejection Characteristic," Asia-Pacific Microwave Conference, 2007, 1114 December 2007, pp.14. J. R. Kelly, P. S. Hall, P. Gardner, "Band-Notched UWB Antenna Incorporating a Microstrip Open-Loop Resonator," IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 59, No. 8, August. 2011, pp. 30453048. P. Moeikham, C. Mahatthanajatuphat, and P. Akkaraekthalin, "A compact ultrawideband monopole antenna with 5.5 GHz notched band," Progress In Electromagnetics Research C, Vol. 26, 1327, 2012 F. Xu, Z.-X. Wang, X. Chen, and X.-A. Wang, "Dual band-notched UWB antenna based on spiral electromagnetic-bandgap structure," Progress In Electromagnetics Research B, Vol. 39, 393409, 2012. S.-M. Zhang, F.-S. Zhang, W.-Z. Li, T. Quan, and H.-Y. Wu, "A compact UWB monopole antenna with wimax and WLAN band rejections," Progress In Electromagnetics Research Letters, Vol. 31, 159168, 2012. J. William, R. Nakkeeran, "CPW-Fed UWB slot antenna with band notched design," Asia Pacific Microwave Conference, 2009. 710 December 2009, pp. 18331836.

A Compact Wideband Microstrip Antenna Intergrated with Band-Notched Design [8] [9] [10]

484

[11] [12] [13] [14]

A. H. M. Zahirul Alam, M. R. Islam, S. Khan, "Designing an UWB patch antenna with band notched by using L-shaped slot and unsymmetrical feedline," Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering, 2008, 47 May 2008, pp. 101104. Wei Hu, Jianhua Zhang, Fengge Hu, "Design of an ultra-wideband antenna with dual bandnotched characteristic," 9th International Symposium on Antennas Propagation and EM Theory (ISAPE), 2010, November 29, 2010December 2, 2010, pp. 5759. S. Nikolaou, M. Davidovic, M. Nikolic, P. Vryonides, "Resonator type and positioning study for the creation of a potentially reconfigurable frequency notch in a UWB antenna return loss," Proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EUCAP), 1115 April 2011, pp. 350353. Hongwei Deng, Xiaoxiang He, Binyan Yao, Yonggang Zhou, "Compact band-notched UWB printed square-ring monopole antenna," 8th International Symposium on Antennas, Propagation and EM Theory, 2008, 25 November 2008, pp. 14. M. Al-Husseini, J. Costantine, C. G. Christodoulou, S.E Barbin, A. El-Hajj, K.Y. Kabalan, "A reconfigurable frequency-notched UWB antenna with split-ring resonators," Asia-Pacific Microwave Conference Proceedings (APMC), 2010, 710 December 2010, pp. 618621. A. Vasylchenko, R. Dubrovka, W. De Raedt, C. Parini, G.A.E Vandenbosch, "Pulse response behavior of a UWB antenna with switchable band-notching feature," Proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EUCAP),1115 April 2011, pp. 369371. Qing-Xin Chu; Ying-Ying Yang, "A Compact Ultrawideband Antenna With 3.4/5.5 GHz Dual Band-Notched Characteristics," IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 56, No. 12, December 2008, pp. 36373644