Hexagonal Shaped Fractal UWB Antenna

Shrivishal Tripathi1, Sandeep Yadav2, Vivek Vijay2, Akhilesh Mohan

Ambesh Dixit2 Assistant Professor
1
Research Scholar, 2Assistant Professor Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering
IIT Jodhpur, India IIT Kharagpur, India
Corresponding Author-e-mail: shrivishal@iitj.ac.in

Abstract— We will discuss a small novel hexagonal shaped

geometry for ultra wideband (UWB) monopole antenna with II. THEORY AND DESIGN APPROACH
notch characteristics. The self-similar nature of this fractal like The proposed antenna scheming is based on a combination
geometry provides higher effective antenna length and wide
of the Minkowski like [3] fractal and the hexagonal geometry.
operating bandwidth because of the onset of multiple resonances.
Notch characteristics are introduced using a rectangular slot in
Here, this hexagonal shape works as an initiator, and
the ground plane, which enhances the reflection coefficient over Minkowski like structure works as a generator in the
the entire UWB frequency operating range for the proposed development of initial antenna design. The simulations were
device. The optimized 19 mm x 15 mm dimensions, for the carried out on a rectangular size of 15 mm x 19 mm ( WxL )
proposed antenna are the smallest among such geometries, on 0.787 mm thick dielectric Rogers RT/duroid 5880 substrate
exhibiting a large bandwidth from 3.1 GHz to 11.7 GHz with having dielectric constant εr = 2.2 and loss factor δ = 0.0009
VSWR < 2 over the entire frequency range. The proposed [22]. The radiator is fed by a 50 Ω microstrip line of 1.54 mm
antenna demonstrates nearly omnidirectional radiation pattern, width ( Wms ) for impedance matching.
proper impedance matching, and good return loss over the entire
UWB frequency range. To achieve the desired characteristics in the UWB
frequency bandwidth and compact size of the proposed
Keywords: UWB, Fractal geometry, Minkowski. antenna as shown in Fig.1, numerous bandwidth enhancement
design parameters such as effect of feed gap, and cutting notch
I. INTRODUCTION in ground plane has been studied. The optimized design
parameters for proposed UWB antenna are:
Antenna is a vital part of any communication system, and
being the front end of the system, it has to be designed very L  19mm,W  16mm, R  4mm, Wms  1.65mm,
cautiously to improve the system performance. Thus, the W1  4.4mm, W2  6.1mm,W3  0.2mm,Wg  3.4mm,
design constraints with enhanced antenna performance poses
several challenges such as smaller size, low cost, high data Wn  1.4mm, Ln  3.9mm and d  1.0mm .
transmission, low power consumption and wideband
capabilities etc. These problems may be addressed to an
extent, using fractal concepts, for reducing the antenna size
without hampering the antenna performance in Ultra-
Wideband (UWB) antenna designing. UWB antenna may
exhibit very high data transmission rate above 200 Mbps in
the few meters range at very low power levels, by spreading
the transmitted signal over the entire 3.1 GHz – 10.6 GHz
operating bandwidth of UWB [1]. Application of fractal
geometry in UWB antenna design exhibits not only the
miniaturization, and bandwidth enhancement properties, but
also provides the wideband operational bandwidth, due to its
multiple resonances [2].
In this paper, we proposed a novel UWB antenna, using
Minkowski like fractal geometry on the hexagonal shaped
structure. The optimized geometry is constrained in 15 mm x
19 mm. The resulting antenna design has an advantage of
compact size and simple structure, which makes it a better
choice for wireless device applications.
Fig.1. Geometrical design of the proposed hexagonal fractal UWB antenna
after optimizing numerous structural parameters

978-1-4799-3267-2/13/$31.00 © 2013 IEEE

Antenna size is related with its wavelength, and wavelength is surface current behavior on the radiator and ground is purely
related with the dielectric material of the substrate of standing wave pattern, which changes to a traveling wave
pattern at the higher frequencies. The electromagnetic (EM)
as g   /  eff where g is effective wavelength, and
waves couple easily to the structure as the antenna dimensions
 r is the substrate dielectric constant. Thus, the higher are smaller than the wavelength in the lower frequency range,
whereas at higher frequency radiation pattern is distorted
substrate dielectric constant will result into the smaller
slightly, due to the change in the nature of the current flow and
antenna dimensions. The proposed antenna size is compared
edge reflection in the fractal antenna [5].
with previously proposed smallest antenna size reported in
literature [4] for UWB antenna, as shown in Table I. The
significant reduction in antenna size is achieved as compared
to the smallest antenna reported for UWB band, in spite of a
141.8% larger effective wavelength.

Table I. Comparison Results of the Proposed Antenna with Other Antennas

First Substrate Antenna Size Antenna
Reson Dielectric (Actual in Size (in
ance constant mm X mm) terms of Type
Frequ (εr) Length X λg X λg)
ency Width
(GHz) mm2 (a) (b)
This 4.5 RO 5880 19X15 0.39X0.31 Microstri
Work (2.2) p Fig.3. Simulated radiation patterns for H-planes ( —) and E-planes (- - -) cut
[14] 4.2 FR4 (4.4) 18X12 0.45X0.30 Microstri at (a) 4.5 GHz, and (b) 10 GHz
p

III. SIMULATION ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION IV. CONCLUSION

The principles of electromagnetic fields and waves are very
important for the design and development of antennas for
various applications. The variation of reflection coefficient S11
with frequency, as shown in Fig. 2, suggests that the proposed
antenna is suitable for the entire UWB frequency range from
3.1 GHz to 11.7 GHz, with two distinct resonant frequencies
at 4.5 GHz, and 10 GHz.
The hexagonal shaped UWB antenna using Minkowski like
fractal structure has been studied, and its characteristics are
investigated. The investigated structure has significantly lower
dimensions of ~ 19 mm x 15 mm, minimum for such type of
antenna structures using the dielectric Rogers RT/duroid 5880
substrate having dielectric constant ε r = 2.2, loss factor δ =
0.0009, and substrate thickness h = 0.80 mm. The increased
effective length using Minkowski like fractal geometry and
introduction of notch in ground plane miniaturize the antenna
size drastically, and make this suitable for entire UWB
frequency range 3.1 GHz – 10.6 GHz. The compact size and
reduced effective geometrical space may reduce the
fabrication cost, and thus offering appropriate choice for
applications such as wireless devices, body area network etc.

Fig.2. Variation of Return Loss with frequency for the proposed antenna
structure
The radiation patterns for both E-planes and H-planes are
quite stable, but not symmetric across the axis throughout the
resonant frequencies of 4.5 GHz, and 10 GHz, as shown in
Fig. 3. This asymmetry in the radiation patterns is introduced
because of asymmetrical notch structure in the ground plane
across the axis. The radiation patterns are found to be
omnidirectional in H-plane and the variable eight (8) shapes in
E-plane at all resonant frequencies. At the lower frequencies,
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978-1-4799-3267-2/13/$31.00 © 2013 IEEE