Ultra-Thin CPW-Fed Rectangular Slot Antenna for UWB Applications

Shih-Hsun Hsu* and Kai Chang

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA
Email : shihhsun@ee.tamu.edu

Introduction

Due to the requirements of large capacity of data and high speed data
transmission rate, Ultra-Wideband (UWB) technology has become the promising
communication system. Recently, many planar UWB antennas with various
configurations have been developed including monopole antennas [1], bow-tie
antennas [2], etc.. CPW-fed slot antenna has the advantages of easy integration
with other devices and wide bandwidth. Attempts have been made to further
enhance the bandwidth through the use of tuning stubs [3]-[4]. Paper-thin and
wearable antennas also draw attentions. In Huang’s paper [5] an aperture-coupled
slot antenna is designed on a single layer paper-thin membrane. Wearable UWB
antennas fabricated on camouflage cloth have been studied in [6]. In this paper a
very thin (2 mil) CPW-fed rectangular slot antenna with a fork shaped tuning stub
to increase the impedance bandwidth is developed. The extremely thin substrate
used in the design makes the antenna suitable for being implemented on clothes or
pasted onto vehicle glasses. Both the simulated and measured results show that
the antenna provides a large impedance bandwidth (S11 < -10 dB) from 3-11
GHz. The measured result of the antenna attached on the clothes is also
demonstrated, which shows the antenna can be used as a wearable antenna.

Antenna Design

Fig.1 shows the geometry of the proposed antenna. The antenna is etched on
Rogers 3850 liquid crystal polymer substrate with a thickness of 0.0508 mm and
dielectric constant of 2.9. The size of the antenna and ground plane is
70mm×70mm. The rectangular slot has a size of 44.1mm×30mm. Excitation is
made through a 50Ω CPW feed line. The center strip and gap of the CPW line are
6.7 mm and 0.15mm to achieve the 50 Ω characteristic impedance. The spacing
between the bottom edge of the tuning stub and the ground plane is 1.22mm,
which critically controls the impedance matching and the power coupling from
feed line to the tuning stub. Other dimensions of the antenna are illustrated in Fig.
1. Wider bandwidth is obtained mainly by the excitation of multiple resonant
modes [3]. Besides the original resonant mode of the slot, the tuning stub can
introduce another resonant mode. The tuning stub is designed starting from a
rectangular patch. By notching the rectangular patch, the impedance bandwidth
can be improved. Simulations of the antenna are done by IE3D [7] using the
magnetic current modeling method. The size of the ground plane is assumed to be
infinite to facilitate the simulation.

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 Results and Measurements

To measure the very thin antenna, a layer of foam material (εr ≈ 1) is used to
support the antenna. The computed and measured return losses are shown in Fig.
2 for comparison. The results show that the antenna has a very wide impedance
bandwidth as expected. Due to the flexibility of the very thin substrate, the
antenna can be easily curved to fit to any surface without affecting the bandwidth
performance. Measurements have been made to test the potential of the wearable
antenna by attaching the antenna to clothes (sports jacket for example). Fig. 3
shows that the bandwidth performance is even better, which implies the feasibility
of the wearable antenna. Radiation patterns of both E plane (Φ = 90o) and H plane
(Φ = 0o) co-polarization fields at frequencies of 4, 7, and 10 GHz are shown in
Fig. 4. The patterns are stable through the entire frequency band except the H
plane pattern around 7 GHz, which might be because the tuning stub itself
resonant strongly around that frequency and thus slightly distort the radiation
pattern. It is inferred that the ripples on the patterns (as θ approaches ± 90o) result
from the finite ground plane and the relatively large discontinuity at the cutting
edges of the ultra-thin substrate. The average measured gain is about 6.9 dBi for E
plane and 5.5 dBi for H plane.

Conclusions

A CPW fed UWB slot antenna using extremely thin substrate has been
presented. Good bandwidth characteristics have been achieved and the radiation
patterns are stable among different frequencies. According to measurement
results, the paper-thin antennas are also found to have the potential to be used as
wearable antennas or the vehicular antennas.

References

[1] J. Liang, C.C. Chiau; Xiaodong Chen; and, C.G. Parini, “Study of Printed
Circular Disk Monopole Antennas for UWB Systems,” IEEE Trans. on
Antennas and Propagation, vol.1, pp. 830 - 833 June 2003
[2] K.Y. Yazdandoost and R. Kohno., “ Bow-tie Antenna for UWB
Communication Frequency,” in 2004 IEEE Int. Antennas and Propagation
Symposium Digest, vol 3, pp. 2520 – 2523, Monterey, CA, June 2004
[3] H. D. Chen, “Broad CPW-Fed Square Slot Antennas with a Wideband Tuning
Stub,” IEEE Trans. on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 51, pp. 1982-1985
Aug. 2003
[4] R. Chair, A. A. Kishk, and K. F. Lee, “Ultrawide-band Coplanar Waveguide-
Fed Rectangular Slot Antenna,” IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagat.
Letters, vol. 3, pp. 227-229
[5] J. Huang, “Paper-Thin Membrane Aperture-Coupled L-Band Antennas,”
IEEE Trans. on Antennas and Propagation, vol 53, pp. 2499-2502 Aug. 2005

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[6] T. Young, W. A. Davis, and W. L. Stutzman “Wearable Ultra-Wideband Half-
Disk Antennas,” in 2005 IEEE Int. Antennas and Propagation Symposium
Digest, Washington DC, July 2005
[7] IE3D 11.1, Zeland Software, Inc., Fermont, CA

Fig.1 Geometry of the proposed antenna (unit : mm)

0
-5
Return Loss (dB)

-10
-15
-20
-25
-30 Measured
-35 Simulated
-40
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Frequency (GHz)

Fig. 2 Measured and simulated return loss.

0
-5
Return Loss (dB)

-10
-15
-20
-25
-30
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Frequency (GHz)

Fig. 3 Measured return loss of the antenna attached on clothes.

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 (a)

(b)

E plane H plane
(c)
Fig. 4 Measured E plane and H plane radiation patterns at
different frequencies. (a) 4 GHz, (b) 7 GHz, (c) 10 GHz.

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