2014 3rd Asia-Pacific Conference on Antennas and Propagation

A 3.0GHz~13.8GHz Ultra-wideband Planar Monopole

Microstrip Antenna
Pei-Pei Lu, Lei-Qiang Ma, Qun Wu*
School of Electronics and Information Engineering
Harbin Institute of Technology
Harbin, China
kidpeipei@126.com

Abstract—This paper presents a planar microstrip-fed
monopole antenna for ultra wideband (UWB) applications. This
antenna is based on the planar rectangle monopole antenna. The
characteristic of the antenna can be improved by altering the
figure of the radiation patch and the ground. HFSS is used to
conduct simulation calculation so as to get various performance
parameter of the antenna, to make sure that its frequency band
range is 3.1GHz~10.6GHz, and to meet the design requirement of
the ultra-wideband antenna. The antenna size 32mm × 38mm ×
1mm, and it realizes the miniaturization of the antenna.
Keywords—ultra-wideband; planar monopole antenna; HFSS,
miniaturization
I. INTRODUCTION
Since the Federal Communication Commission (FCC)
allowed 3.1 – 10.6GHz unlicensed band for ultra-wideband
(UWB) communication in 2002, UWB communication systems
attract great attentions in the wireless world [1-3]. UWB
communication systems have many advantages, including high
speed data rate, extremely low spectral power density, high
precision ranging, and low cost. So the study of ultra-wideband
antenna is always a hot spot.
structure in the shape of the radiation patch and the ground to
increase the bandwidth [6], the return loss of the antenna in
3.0GHz to 17.2 GHz bandwidth is less than or equal to -10 dB.
When the bandwidth is 2.9-13.8GHz the VSWR value is less
than or equal to 2. So the frequency range 3.0-13.8GHz meets
the requirements. And the H plane pattern keeps
omnidirectional distribution. Thus it realizes the optimization of
the original antenna performance.
II. THE DESIGN OF THE ANTENNA
The structure of the microstrip antenna is very ordinary.
Generally, the dielectric constant of substrate is no more than 10.
The paper chooses RT5880 as the substrate, because of low
permittivity, and better flexibility. The thickness H is 1mm,
dielectric constant εr is 2.2. The size of the substrate is W0 ×L0.
This antenna adopts the 50 Ω microstrip line feeding. The
detailed dimensions are shown in Table I. The geometry
structure of the proposed antenna is illustrated in Figure 1. In
antenna design, we analyze and simulate this antenna by using
Ansoft HFSS software. By changing the shape of the patch and
floor, the size of the antenna can be reduced and the bandwidth
of the antenna can be improved.

Over the past few years research shows that TEM horn
antenna [4], patch antenna and slot antennas [5] can be used as
the UWB antenna in the past few years. The patch antenna has
advantages of low profile, light weight, easy integration and low
manufacturing cost and it has potential advantage in the mobile
communication. But the bandwidth of the patch antenna is
narrow. Many researchers have tried many ideas to improve the
bandwidth; among these ideas resistive loading and changing
the antenna’s shape are very successful. In recent years, many
scholars have also studied how to realize the miniaturization of
the antenna. The analysis of current distribution on the surface
of the antenna, and reducing the radiator and ground plate
structure to improve the antenna radiation characteristics are the
common methods to minimize the volume of the antenna.
In this paper, the rectangular planar monopole antenna is
used as the prototype. Using the ladder structure and gradient

978-1-4799-4354-8/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE 650 Harbin, CHINA

 Fig.3. The simulated voltage standing-wave ratio (VSWR) of
the antenna

Fig.1. The structure of the proposed antenna The far field radiation of the antenna is shown in the Figure
4 and 5. From the plane radiation direction figures under
different frequency, we can find E plane figure is the same as
TABLE I. THE VALUES OF THE VARIABLES (MM) the dipole radiation pattern distribution trend. And as the
frequency increases, there is a little distortion. At the same time,
W0 L0 W1 L1 W2 L2 Wf Lf Wx the H plane pattern mainly keeps omnidirectional distribution.
And as the frequency increases, there is also a little distortion.
32 38 17 13 12 6 3 16.8 8 But the change trend is relatively smooth. Obviously, the
radiation characteristics of the antenna in the whole bandwidth
Wq Lq L3 W3 Wt Lt LG Lx are suitable for UWB communication system requirements.
1 1 2.6 1 2 2.5 16 1.5

III. THE SIMULATION AND ANALYSIS OF THE ANTENNA

In this paper, we use Ansoft HFSS to simulate the UWB
antenna. The return loss S11 of the simulation result is shown in
Figure 2. It is easy to find that When the bandwidth is in 3.0—
17.2 GHZ, the value of S11 is less than - 10 dB. The voltage
standing-wave ratio (VSWR) is shown in Figure 3. It can be
seen that when the bandwidth is in 2.9—13.8GHz, the VSWR (a)2.9GHz (b) 5.5GHz
value is less than or equal to 2. So the bandwidth is lager than
the FCC’s requirement.

(c) 7.5GHz (d) 10GHz

Fig.4. The simulated E plane radiation pattern at different
frequency

Fig.2. The simulated return loss S11 of the antenna

651
 ((a)) 2.9GHz (b) 5.5GHz

(c) 7.5GHz (d) 10GHz

Fig.5. The simulated H plane radiation pattern at different
frequency

IV. CONCLUSION
The planar monopole antenna is a hot one for the research of
the UWB antennas. In this paper, the ladder structure and
gradient structure in the shape of the radiation patch and the
ground are proposed to increase the bandwidth of the planar
monopole antenna. The bandwidth is extended to 3.0GHz to
13.8 GHz. Moreover, the radiation characteristic is good in
working bandwidth. The size is small and the structure is simple,
so the proposed antenna meets the design standards of the UWB
antennas.

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