IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 54, NO.

11, NOVEMBER 2006

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Compact Ultrawideband Rectangular Aperture

Antenna and Band-Notched Designs
Yi-Cheng Lin, Member, IEEE, and Kuan-Jung Hung

AbstractA simple and compact ultrawideband (UWB) aperture antenna with extended band-notched designs is presented.
The antenna consists of a rectangular aperture on a printed circuit
board ground plane and a T-shaped exciting stub. The proposed
planar coplanar waveguide fed antenna is easy to be integrated
with radio-frequency/microwave circuitry for low manufacturing
cost. The antenna is successfully designed, implemented, and
measured. A compact aperture area of 13 23 mm2 is obtained
with promising performances, including broadband matched
impedance, stable radiation patterns, and constant group delay.
The correlation between the mode-based field distributions and
radiation patterns is discussed. Extended from the proposed
antenna, three advanced band-notched (56 GHz) designs are also
presented as a desirable feature for UWB applications.
Index TermsAperture antennas, band-notched UWB antennas, coplanar waveguide (CPW) fed antennas, planar antennas,
printed circuit board (PCB) antennas, slot antennas, ultrawideband (UWB) antennas.

I. INTRODUCTION
HE recent allocation of frequency band from 3.1 to
10.6 GHz by the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) for ultrawideband (UWB) radio applications has presented an opportunity and challenge for antenna designers. The
FCC first approved rules for the commercial use of UWB in
February 2002. By April of that year, the FCC gave formal
approval for the unlicensed use of the technology between 3.1
and 10.6 GHz [1]. Since then, the feasible design and implementation of UWB system has become a highly competitive
topic in both academy and industry communities of telecommunications. In particular, the antenna of ultrawide bandwidth
is the key component of the UWB system and has attracted
significant research power in the past few years [2]. Challenges
of the feasible UWB antenna design include the ultrawideband
performances of the impedance matching and radiation stability, the compact appearance of the antenna size, and the low
manufacturing cost for consumer electronics applications.
Among the planar UWB antenna designs in the recent literature, the slot antenna type [2][7] is one of the most promising
candidates for UWB applications. The advantages of slot antennas include wide bandwidth performance and low cost in

Manuscript received September 19, 2005; revised February 6, 2006. This

work was supported in part by the National Science Council, Taiwan, R.O.C.,
under Contracts NSC 94-2219-E-002-007 and NSC 94-2752-E-002-002-PAE.
Y.-C. Lin is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan
University, Taiwan, R.O.C. (e-mail: yclin@cc.ee.ntu.edu.tw).
K.-J. Hung is with the Graduate Institute of Communication Engineering,
National Taiwan University, Taiwan, R.O.C..
Color versions of Figs. 19 and 1114 are available online at http://ieeexplore.
ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2006.883982

the printed circuit board (PCB) process. The bandwidth enhancement is the main focus of these slot antenna designs and
can be categorized in two kinds. One is to manipulate the field
distribution in the slot with a tapered shape [2] or with a feeding
scheme to generate multiple resonances of close bands [3]. The
other is to use a widened slot (or aperture, precisely speaking)
and a fork-like stub for excitation such that a broad bandwidth
can be achieved [4][6]. The latter approach has significant
progress on the bandwidth enhancement and has reached the
UWB bandwidth requirement recently [6]. However, the design
of using fork-like stub requires relatively large aperture and contains many parameters for the complex geometry. In addition, it
is difficult to modify the designed antenna for the band-rejection
function, a desirable feature in the UWB system.
Over the designated bandwidth of UWB systems, there are
existing bands used by wireless local-area network (WLAN)
(IEEE802.11a and HIPERLAN/2) operating in the 5.15
5.825 GHz band. It is desirable to design the UWB antenna
with a notched band at 56 GHz [7] to minimize the potential
interferences.
In this paper, a coplanar waveguide (CPW)-fed rectangular
aperture antenna with a T-shaped exciting stub is proposed.
Compared to the fork-like stub, the proposed T-shaped stub has
three advantages.
1) The aperture area can be significantly reduced (more
than 50% from [6]) without compromising the antenna
performances.
2) The antenna can be easily extended to the advanced bandnotched design without retuning the dimensions of the
original aperture and exciting stub.
3) The exciting T-stub has a simple geometry with less parameters, releasing the computation load in the optimization process.
The proposed antenna is successfully designed, built, and verified. A compact aperture area of 13 by 23 mm is achieved. The
antenna performs promising characteristics on the impedance
matching, radiation patterns, and group delay over the entire
UWB band. In this paper, the proposed antenna is further extended to the band-notched function. The design concept is described and three different band-notched designs provided for illustration. The measured return loss and antenna gain spectrum
are included, showing the successful band-rejection capability
for all three proposed band-notched designs.
II. ANTENNA DESIGN
A. Antenna Structure
Fig. 1 shows the geometry and configuration of the proposed
antenna. The antenna consists of a rectangular aperture etched
out from the ground plane of a PCB and a CPW-fed T-shaped

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 54, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2006

Fig. 2. Effects of the stub width W on the return loss. The dimensions of other
parameters are LL = 35, WW = 30, Ls = 23, Ws = 13, L = 10:8, T = 2,
S = 3:6, and G = 0:4 (unit: mm).

Fig. 1. Geometry and configuration of the proposed antenna.

stub for excitation. Since the antenna and feeding structure are
implemented on the same plane, only one layer of substrate with
single-sided metallization is used, making the manufacturing of
the antenna very easy and extremely low cost. The CPW transmission line is designed with 50 and terminated with a shape
memory alloy connector for the measurement purpose in this
paper. In practice, the CPW line is integrated with radio-frequency/microwave circuitry on the system board. Design of the
rectangular aperture is determined by minimizing the aperture
area while satisfying the input impedance matched for the entire
UWB band, especially for the lower frequencies. In this paper,
a compact aperture area of 13 23 mm is achieved, that is, the
dimension is less than a quarter-wavelength for the lowest frequency (3.1 GHz). The excitation of the antenna is formed by
a simple T-shaped stub of only three parameters: the length L,
the width W, and the extrusion depth T, as shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 3. Effects of the stub length L on the return loss. The dimensions of other
parameters are LL = 35, WW = 30, Ls = 23, Ws = 13, W = 4, T = 2,
S = 3:6, and G = 0:4 (unit: mm).

B. Parametric Study
The commercial simulation tool Ansoft HFSS is employed in
this paper to perform the design and optimization process. Since
the T-shaped stub is the main factor in the optimization process,
its three parameters W, L, and T are selected to perform the sensitivity study first. The effects of parameter W, L, and T on the
input impedance are simulated and shown in Figs. 24, respectively. Fig. 2 shows that the stub width W mainly influences the
impedance at lower frequencies (34 GHz). Fig. 3 shows that the
stub length L may affect the impedance in both low and middle
bands. Compared to the stub width W and length L, the extrusion
depth T is relatively sensitive to the input impedance over the entire UWB band, as shown in Fig. 4. Note that the implementation
tolerance and gap/line limit of PCB fabrication should be controlled based on the aforementioned parametric study curves.
III. MEASUREMENT RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A. Impedance Bandwidth
The designed antenna of optimized dimensions is implemented with a low-cost FR4 substrate with dielectric

Fig. 4. Effects of the extrusion depth T on the return loss. The dimensions of
other parameters are LL = 35, WW = 30, Ls = 23, Ws = 13, L = 10:8,
W = 4, S = 3:6, and G = 0:4 (unit: mm).

constant

, loss tangent
, and thickness
mm. The measurement of return loss is carried out
with an HP8722-ES network analyzer. The radiation patterns
are measured in a far-field anechoic chamber. Fig. 5 shows the
measured return loss of the designed antenna with a comparison
with simulation results. A good agreement between simulation
and measurement is achieved. Fig. 5 shows that the input
impedance is well matched as the 10-dB return loss bandwidth
covers the entire UWB band (3.110.6 GHz).

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Fig. 5. Measured and simulated return loss of the proposed antenna with optimal dimensions LL = 35, WW = 30, Ls = 23, Ws = 13, L = 10:8,
W = 4, T = 2, S = 3:6, and G = 0:4 (unit: mm).

B. Field Distribution and Radiation Patterns

From the spectrum of impedance performance in Fig. 5, it can
be seen that there are three resonances around the frequencies
at 4, 7, and 10 GHz. These resonances correspond to the different modes of field distribution and play important roles on
the explanation of the radiation patterns. The electric field distributions of these resonant modes are then simulated and the
correspondent radiation patterns are investigated at 4, 7, and 10
GHz, as shown in Figs. 68, respectively. Fig. 6(a) shows the
first resonant mode at 4 GHz, where the electric fields are concentrated at the upper center part with polarization mainly in
the y-axis. This set of field distribution is locally similar to that
mode in a rectangular waveguide [8], and considered
of
as the fundamental mode of the aperture antenna. The radiation
pattern of this mode is like a small dipole oriented in the y-axis
leading to a bidirectional pattern in the E-plane (yz-plane) and
omnidirectional pattern in the H-plane (xz-plane), as shown in
Fig. 6(b) and (c), respectively.
Fig. 7(a) shows the second resonant mode at 7 GHz where
both x- and y-component fields exist. Note that the x-component fields of the left and right sides of the stub are in the opposite directions that cancel out each other at far fields in the
symmetric E-plane. Therefore, the E-plane patterns are almost
unchanged and still have good polarization isolation (x-polarized level better than 20 dB), as shown in Fig. 7(b). However,
the x-component fields generate cross-polarized patterns in the
H-plane, as shown in Fig. 7(c). The cross-polarized patterns can
be modeled as the radiation from two small x-polarized dipoles
of out of phase, leading to the nulls in the x-axis (due to the element factor) and z-axis (due to the array factor) with relative
maximums in between.
Fig. 8(a) shows the third resonant mode at 10 GHz, where the
y-component fields are partially shifted to lower part and concentrated to the left and right sides of the CPW feed. This field
distribution contains multiple higher order modes and makes
the peak of E-plane patterns shift slightly from the z-axis, as
shown in Fig. 8(b). Since the x-component fields are similar to
that of the second resonant mode, the cross-polarization patterns
of H-plane are of similar shape, as shown in Fig. 8(c). Note that

Fig. 6. The first resonant mode at 4 GHz: (a) distribution of electric fields, (b)
E-plane (yz-plane) patterns, and (c) H-plane (xz-plane) patterns.

the copolarized patterns in the H-plane are no longer omnidirectional due to the array factor. However, the radiation in the
z-axis is still kept maximal.

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 54, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2006

Fig. 7. The second resonant mode at 7 GHz: (a) distribution of electric fields,
(b) E-plane (yz-plane) patterns, and (c) H-plane (xz-plane) patterns.

Fig. 8. The third resonant mode at 10 GHz: (a) distribution of electric fields,
(b) E-plane (yz-plane) patterns, and (c) H-plane (xz-plane) patterns.

The simulation and measurement of radiation patterns show

a good agreement from Figs. 68, including the copolarization
and cross-polarization patterns in both E- and H-planes. The
characteristics of radiation patterns of the proposed antenna over
the entire UWB spectrum are summarized as follows.
1) The direction of maximum radiation is constantly around
the z-axis, normal to the aperture plane.

2) The polarization isolation in the direction of maximum radiation is very good, with cross-polarization level better
than 20 dB.
3) The copolarized gain might degrade slightly for the second
resonant mode due to the cross-polarization decoupling.
However, it is increased at higher frequencies as the array
factor effect is enhanced.

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Fig. 9. Measured group delay of the proposed antenna.

C. Group Delay Characteristics

In the UWB system, the phase of the radiated field should
vary linearly with the frequency, that is, a stable group delay
response is desirable. In this paper, two identical prototypes of
the proposed antenna were built for the purpose of group delay
measurement. The network analyzer HP 8722-ES with time-domain gating is employed. Measured group delay of the proposed
antenna is presented in Fig. 9. The variation of the group delay
over the UWB band is less than 300 ps with the average 1 ns,
the traveling time of the propagating waves between a pair of
proposed antennas 30 cm apart.
IV. BAND-NOTCHED DESIGNS
The notch-band function is desirable in the UWB system
to reduce the interferences with the IEEE802.11a and
HIPERLAN/2 WLAN systems operating in the 56 GHz
band. In this paper, three kinds of band-notched designs are
presented to demonstrate the superior features of the proposed
antenna using the T-stub excitation scheme. Fig. 10 shows the
geometry and dimensions of these designs. The first design
embeds an isolated slit of total length equal to half a wavelength
for the frequency at 5.5 GHz inside the T-stub, as shown in
Fig. 10(a). The second design employs two open-end slits at
the top edge of the T-stub, as shown in Fig. 10(b), where the
effective length of each slit is around quarter wavelength for
the 5.5 GHz resonance. The third design utilizes two parasitic
strips of half a wavelength at 5.5 GHz, as shown in Fig. 10(c).
Generally speaking, the design concept of the band-rejection function is to make the input impedance singular (minimum resistance) at the sub-resonant frequency. To implement
it, a narrow-band resonant structure is added to the original
wide-band antenna area. Based on this concept, the above three
designs using the isolated slit, the open-end slits, and the parasitic strips, as illustrated in Fig. 10(a)(c), are accomplished. In
addition, the field distributions of these designs at the resonant
frequency 5.5 GHz are simulated and shown in Fig. 11(a)(c),
respectively. Note that when the band-notched designs are applied to the antenna, there is no retuning work required for the
previously determined dimensions of the T-stub and aperture of
the antenna.

Fig. 10. Geometry of the three band-notched designs using (a) the isolated slit
(b) the open-end slits, and (c) the parasitic strips.

Performances of measured return loss of the three bandnotched designs are shown in Fig. 12. Compared to the original
design, all three band-notched designs successfully block out
the 56 GHz band and still perform good impedance-matching
at other frequencies in the UWB band. Fig. 13 shows the measured gain spectrum of the developed antennas of the original
and three band-notched designs. Note that the rigorous copolarization gain instead of the total gain is presented here for
the case closer to the setup of the group delay testing, where
the antennas are copolarization aligned in an LOS environment.
Fig. 13 shows that the antennas of band-notched designs successfully perform the rejection in the 56 GHz band and good

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Fig. 12. Measured return loss of the three band-notched designs, compared to
the original design.

Fig. 13. Measured copolarized gain of the proposed antennas: the original and
three band-notched designs.

Fig. 11. The field distribution of three band-notched designs using (a) the isolated slit, (b) the open-end slits, and (c) the parasitic strips.

performances at other frequencies in the UWB band. It is also

observed that the antenna gain drops slightly around 7 GHz, resulting from decoupled cross-polarized patterns. However, the
gain increases at higher frequencies because of the array factor
effect, as mentioned in Section III-B. Fig. 14 shows the photograph of the developed antennas of the original and bandnotched designs. Note that the ground plane dimensions are selected as 30 35 mm for all the developed antennas in this
paper. In practice, when integrated with the system board of different ground plane size, the antenna might need a retuning for
the optimized dimensions.

Fig. 14. Photograph of the developed UWB antennas: the original (upper left)
and three band-notched designs.

V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a compact UWB rectangular aperture antenna is
proposed. The antenna structure is simple and the aperture size

LIN AND HUNG: COMPACT UWB RECTANGULAR APERTURE ANTENNA

compact. The advantages of the T-stub exciting scheme are described. Discussion of the correlation between the field distribution of the antenna aperture and the radiation patterns is given.
Broad impedance bandwidth, stable radiation patterns, and constant group delay are obtained. Three types of band-notched
structures extended from the original design are provided and
verified. The simulation and measurement results of the proposed antenna show a good agreement in terms of the return
loss and radiation patterns.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to acknowledge C.-F. Liu for the
helpful discussion on the band-notched designs of this paper.
REFERENCES
[1] Federal Communications Commission, First report and order, revision
of Part 15 of Commissions rule regarding ultra-wideband transmission
system FCC 02-48, Apr. 22, 2002.
[2] T. G. Ma and S. K. Jeng, Planar miniature tapered-slot-fed annular slot
antennas for ultra-wideband radios, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag.,
vol. 53, pp. 11941202, Mar. 2005.
[3] N. Behdad and K. Sarabandi, A multiresonant single-element wideband slot antenna, IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 3, pp.
58, Jan. 2004.
[4] J. Y. Sze and K. L. Wong, Bandwidth enhancement of a microstripline-fed printed wide-slot antenna, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag.,
vol. 49, pp. 10201024, Jul. 2001.

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[5] R. Chair, A. A. Kishk, and K. F. Lee, Ultra-wideband coplanar waveguide-fed rectangular slot antenna, IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag.
Lett., vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 227229, 2004.
[6] G. Sorbello, M. Pavone, and L. Russello, Numerical and experimental
study of a rectangular slot antenna for UWB communications, Microwave Optical Technol. Lett., vol. 46, no. 4, pp. 315319, Aug. 2005.
[7] I. J. Yoon et al., Ultra-wideband tapered slot antenna with band cutoff
characteristic, Electron. Lett., vol. 41, no. 11, pp. 629630, May 2005.
[8] R. F. Harrington, Time-Harmonic Electromagnetic Fields. New
York: McGraw-Hill, 1961.

Yi-Cheng Lin (S92M98) received the B.S. degree in nuclear engineering

from National Tsing-Hua University, Hsingchu, Taiwan, R.O.C., in 1987, the
M.S. degree in electrical engineering from National Taiwan University, Taipei,
in 1989, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from The University of
Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1997.
From 1997 to 2003, he was with Qualcomm Inc., San Diego, CA, as a Staff
Engineer working on antenna design and development for mobile satellites,
wireless handsets, and MIMO communication systems. Since 2003, he has been
a Faculty Member with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Graduate Institute of Communication Engineering, National Taiwan University. His
primary research interests include antenna miniaturization, ultrawideband antennas, and diversity antennas for MIMO systems.
Kuan-Jung Hung was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, R.O.C., in 1982. He received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from National Taiwan University
of Science and Technology, Taipei, in 2003. He is currently pursuing the M.S.
degree in communication engineering at National Taiwan University, Taipei.
His research interests include the design and analysis of planar antennas for
UWB and WLAN applications.