Antennas for UWB Communications: A Novel Filtering Perspective

Stan Zwierzchowski*, Gnostar Inc ./University of Calgary (sizrsch@.tclus.nel)

Michal Okoniewski, University of Calgary (michal@cncl.ucalaarvca)

Introduction Since the FCC permitted the commercial deployment of ultra-wideband

(UWB)communication systems in the 3.1GHz to 10.6GHz band [l], the development
community has split into at least three camps related to modulation schemes and
standards upon which to base U W B technology. The first such scheme consists of base-
band pulses for which the instantaneous EIRP occupies the entire permitted band and
which transmits data using pulse position modulation. In the next scheme carrier
modulated pulses are transmined with instantaneous bandwidth occupying only a portion
of the permitted band but large enough (>500MHz)to be classified as U W B ; pulse
position modulation would still be used in this scheme. The last scheme again uses the
narrower instantaneous UWB bandwidths, but additionally employs OFDM for data
modulation. As the bandwidth increases, antenna characteristics play an increasingly
significant role in system operation and performance. For systems that use the entire 3. I
to I0.6GHz bandwidth, the antenna can in fact be more dominant than the hansmitter
and receiver circuitry in establishing EIRP and received pulse shapes [2]. This opens up
the possibility of using the antemas to perfom a significant portion of the filtering
required in a system resulting in significant simplification of transmitter and receiver
circuits.
When hansmitting over an instantaneous bandwidth of several giga-hertz such as is
possible in U W B systems, traditional approaches to antenna characterization prove
inadequate for system design and characterization. The solution to this difficulty is to
employ transfer function methods for characterizing antennas. Several authors have
proposed transfer !iInction definitions to associate with antennas. Two novel and
different approaches for defining antenna transfer functions are presented in [2] and [3].
Other transfer function definitions are given in [4]and [5]. This paper makes use ofthe
definition given in [2].
System performance in terms of range and error rates is improved by transmitting as
much power as possible. For W B systems, this translates to transmitting a pulse for
which the EIRP occupies the permitted FCC mask as fully as possible [6j. This objective
can be pursued by incorporating the knowledge of antenna transfer functions [2,7] into
the antenna and system design process. By allowing the receivc antenna to have a
different design than the transmit antenna, the system designer obtains flexibility that
allows for the optimization of the received pulse within the receiver's circuitry. The
work presented in this paper extends the methodology of antenna design and
characterization based on the transfer function defined in [2] and [7] by introducing
methods of equalizing and optimizing the received pulse through a consideration of the
entire transmiffreceive antenna system.

Antenna Characterization The Antenna Transfer Function fH4.J The antenna

~

transfer function considered in this paper is defined by the signal ilow graph shown in
Fig. I . HA",^ and denote the transfer functions associated with the transmit and
receive antennas respectively. A detailed explanation of this flow chart model and
definition of all symbols as well as the utility of this transfer function approach can be
found in [2][6][7].

0-7803-8302-8/04/$20.0002004 IEEE 2504

 XGZGi- - Antenna I FreeSpace
-v
Antenna 2 Load Cireuil
Figure 1. Antenna transfer function H Asignal
~ flow diagram.
Transfer Function for A Dioole Antenna As a first illustration of the utilily of the
antenna transfer function (HA.,),the theoretical transfer function for an ideal dipole will
he used. The transfer function for an ideal dipole antenna is given by [7]:

and f is frequency, I is the length of the dipole, 0 is the elevation direction relative to the
axis of the dipole, Z, is the characteristic impedance of the transmission line connected
to the dipole, q. is the inhinsic impedance of free space, while R, is the radiation
resistance of the dipole and e is the speed of light.

Antenna Design to Optimize Received Pulse - A Theoretical Illustration In a UWB

communication system, ElRP is established by the transminer antenna characteristic and
the transmitter circuitry, The transminer antenna transfer function is thus constrained if
an ElRP mask is required to be met. But no such constraint is imposed on the receiver
antenna if it is used for reception only. Thus, by allowing for separate transmit and
receive antennas, the system designer can vary the transfer function characteristic of the
receive antenna to optimize the received pulsdsignal. As will be shown below, the
transfer function of the receiver antenna can actually be designed to equalize to some
extent the transfer function of the transmit anleM.3.
For a pair of ideal dipoles, the only antenna design parameter that can be changed is the
lengths of the dipoles. The antenna transfer functions for a 40- long ideal dipole and
a 25" long ideal dipole are plotted in Fig. 2. Using these hvo antennas along with a
reflectionless source that provides a step voltage excitation having an 8Ops risetime,
theoretical received pulses can be determined using the methods presented in [Z]. Fig. 3
shows the theoretical received pulse obtained when the transmit antenna is 25- long

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 and the receive antenna is either 25- or 40mm long, as indicated. As can be seen in
Fig. 3, using a receive antenna of 40- length provides for a received pulse with
sharper time resolution than that obtained with a 25- long receive antenna. This could
provide for better location accuracy in a given system.

0
(Gk)
5 IO 15 20
' (ma)
1 4s

Figure 2. Ideal dipole transfer functions. Figure 3. Received pulses.

Antenna Desien to Optimize Received Pulse - A Practical Illustration As an

illustration of how the receive antenna can equalize the transfer function characteristic of
s transmit antenna, Fig. 4 shows the empirically measwed received pulse when both the
transmit and receive antennas are 13mm high monopoles. The transmitter excitation is a
loops rise-time step. Fig 5 shows the received pulse obtained when the same transmitter
is used, but the receive antenna is instead a 20- high conical monopole. Note that the
pulse in Fig. 5 contains slightly more energy than the pulse in Fig. 4. More significantly
however, approximately 64% of the total energy of the pulse in Fig. 5 ir contained in the
first positive excursion (half-cycle) of the pulse, whereas for the pulse in Fig. 4, only
about 35% of the energy is contained in the first positive excursion (half-cycle) of the
pulse. Thus, the conical monopole antenna sharpens up the energy of the step so that it
is more concentrated towards the staTt of the pulse.

0 0.5 I 1.5 2 0 (nS) 0.1 I 1.s 2

-
Figure 4. Received pulse monopole. -
Figure 5. Received pulse conical monopole.

The reason for this difference in received pulses can be seen by examining the antenna
transfer functions that were determined empirically for the two antenna designs as
shown in Fig. 6 and Fig, 7. Below about 4GHz, the conical monopole transfer function
magnitude continues to rise with decreasing kequency which compensatedequalizes to
some degree the decreasing monopole transfer function magnitude. Further, the conical
monopole transfer function phase, when added to that of the monopole, produces a more
linear phase response than that of two monopoles. Thus Fig. 6 and Fig. 7 show that the
conical monopole equalizes IO some extent the characteristic of the monopole resulting

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 in a more sharply defined received pulse than that obtained when using only monopole
antennas.

!
0 (CHr) IO 15 (GHz) 5 IO 15
Figure 6. Transfer function magnitude (0-90'). Figure 7. Transfer function phsrr (8=90").

intersymbol interference and multipath. With equalization, improvements can be

obtained in bit-error-rates and location positioning. For UWB systems the antennas are a
significant part of the channel. It has been shown in this paper that useful filtering and
equalization can be done using the antennas in a UWB system. Furthermore, using the
receive antenna to do filtering and equalization reduces the burden on later filtcnng and
processing within the receiver, thus simplifying the receiver design. Another advantage
of using the receive antenna for this is that it acts on the signal before many of the
dominant noise sourccs in the receiver are encountered. Further, in UWB systems,
equalization of the nature shown in this paper will allow rectifying energy detection
schemes (e.g. peak detection) to be more easily implemented. This paper has introduced
a useful new perspective-related to filtering-for antennas that is obtained through
consideration of the antenna transfer function (HA.,) as defined in Fig. 1

References
[ I ] Federal CommunicationsCommission, First Order and Repon, Revision of Pan I S of h e
Commission's Rules Regarding UWB Transmission Systems, FCC 02-48, Apnl 22,2002.
121 S. Zwierzchowski and P. Jarayeri, "A Syslems and Network Analysis Approach to Antenna
_ .
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~ ~ New
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