IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.

3, 2004 227

Ultrawide-band Coplanar Waveguide-Fed

Rectangular Slot Antenna
R. Chair, Member, IEEE, A. A. Kishk, Fellow, IEEE, and K. F. Lee, Fellow, IEEE

Abstract—An ultrawide-band coplanar waveguide (CPW) fed

slot antenna is presented. A rectangular slot antenna is excited

by a 50- CPW with a U-shaped tuning stub. The impedance

bandwidth, from both measurement and simulation, is about
110% ( S11 10 dB
). The antenna radiates bi-directionally.
The radiation patterns obtained from simulations are found to be
stable across the matching band and experimental verification is
provided at the high end of the band.
Index Terms—Slot antennas.

I. INTRODUCTION

P RINTED microstrip slot antennas have attracted much at-

tention due to its low profile, lightweight and ease of inte-
gration with monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMIC).
However, its narrow bandwidth is a drawback [1]. Techniques
on bandwidth enhancement of the slot antennas have been re-
ported in [2]–[4]. When the antenna is fed by a microstrip line,
misalignment can result because etching is required on both
sides of the dielectric substrate. The alignment error can be elim-
inated if a coplanar waveguide feed is used to excite the slot,
since etching of the slot and the feeding line is one sided. Some
bandwidth enhancement techniques using the CPW-fed slot an-
tennas have resulted in about 60% impedance bandwidth [5]. Fig. 1. Geometry of the CPW-Fed rectangular slot antenna (units in mm).
This paper presents an ultrawide-band coplanar waveguide
fed rectangular slot antenna etched on a thin substrate. A
U-shaped tuning stub is used to enhance the bandwidth of the
slot antenna. Measured and simulated impedance bandwidth
of 110% is achieved for this antenna. The radiation patterns
are bidirectional. The patterns obtained from the simulation are
stable across the matching band and verified experimentally at
the high end of the band. An average gain of more than 2 dBi
is obtained. The simulation software used is IE3D 10.1 [6].

II. ANTENNA STRUCTURES

Fig. 1 shows the proposed printed slot antenna. The slot is
etched at the center of a 10-cm ( ) 10 cm ( )
ground plane. The substrate has a dielectric constant
and thickness ( ) mm, where is the free-
space wavelength at the center frequency 6.14 GHz. The rectan- Fig. 2. Measured and simulated return loss. 0000000 measurement, - - - - - -
gular slot has a width (0.65 ) and length simulation.
(0.43 ). A 50- coplanar waveguide with slot width
and center conductor width
Manuscript received July 8, 2004. This work was supported in part by the is used. In addition, a U-shaped tuning stub embedded within
National Science Foundation under Grant ECS-0220218. the slot terminates the CPW feed. The stub has a total length
The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Center for of and width . The -axis is
Applied Electromagnetic Systems Research (CAESR), the University of Mis-
sissippi, University, MS 38677 USA (e-mail: rchair@ieee.org). the antenna symmetry line. Detailed dimensions are shown in
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2004.836580 Fig. 1.
1536-1225/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
228 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 3, 2004

Fig. 3. Measured radiation patterns at 9 GHz. (10 dB/Div). (a) E-Plane

0000000
(yz-plane). (b) H-Plane (xz-plane). Co-Pol, - - - - - - X-Pol.

III. RESULTS
Fig. 2 shows the measured and simulated return loss of the
CPW-fed slot antennas. The resonant frequencies of the simu-
lation and measurement results are in good agreement within the
matching frequency band 2.79–9.48 GHz, which corresponds to
an impedance bandwidth of 110% ( dB). The wide
bandwidths are due to the multiple resonances introduced by the
combination of the rectangular slot and the U-shaped stub. The
resonant frequency and bandwidth are controlled by the size of
the rectangular slot and tuning stub. Details studies of the effect
of the various parameters are lengthy and are not included in
this letter. Figs. 3 and 4 show the measured and simulated ra-
diation patterns, respectively; at 9 GHz, Fig. 3(a) contains the
-plane patterns and Fig. 3(b) the -plane patterns. Note that
the slot antenna radiates bidirectionally, with similar radiation
level in both directions. The 3 dB beamwidths at 9 GHz are 100
and 46 in the -plane and -plane, respectively. The copolar to
Fig. 4. Simulated radiation patterns. (10 dB/Div). (a) 3 GHz. (b) 6 GHz. (c) 9
cross-polar level is 18 dB in the -plane and 8 dB in the -plane GHz. 0 0 0 0 0 Co-Pol (E-Plane/yz-plane), 0000 Co-Pol (H-Plane/xz-plane),
within the 3-dB beamwidth of the main beams. Fig. 4(a)–(c) ------ X-Pol (H-Plane/xz-plane).
CHAIR et al.: ULTRAWIDE-BAND COPLANAR WAVEGUIDE FED RECTANGULAR SLOT ANTENNA
shows the simulated radiation patterns at 3, 6, and 9 GHz, re-
spectively. Since our anechoic chamber is for X-band, we are
only able to verify experimentally the patterns at the high end
of the band, i.e., 9 GHz. When comparing the measured results
to the simulation results as shown in Fig. 4(c), good agreement
is obtained at 9 GHz. Both the -plane and -plane patterns
give similar beamwidths and shapes. Notice that the cross-po-
larization level increases at 6 GHz because the stub arm length
is close to a half wavelength at this frequency range. Also, it
can be seen that the beamwidth is wider at the lower end of the
frequency band. The average gain, obtained from simulation, is
about dBi dBi across the matching band.
IV. CONCLUSION
A new ultrawide-band coplanar waveguide fed rectangular
slot antenna on a thin substrate was presented. The wide-band-
width of 110% was achieved by using a U-shaped tuning stub.
229
Results obtained from the numerical simulation showed that the
antenna had stable bidirectional radiation patterns across the op-
erating band. The radiation patterns were experimentally veri-
fied at the upper end of the band.
REFERENCES
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[6] IE3D 10.1, Zeland Software, Inc., Fremont, CA.