Bandwidth enhancement of compact Fig.

1b shows the simulated voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR)

monopole antenna with triple band
rejections
Tong Li✉, Cheng Zhu, Xiangyu Cao and Jun Gao
A compact monopole antenna with enhanced bandwidth and triple
band rejections for ultra-wideband applications is presented. The
base of the proposed antenna is a semicircular patch which is fed by
a modified tapered coplanar waveguide line. By using the trident-
shaped feed line, much wider impedance bandwidth is obtained. To
avoid potential interferences, two trapezoid stubs and a C-shaped
stub are printed on the back surface of the substrate and are connected
to the antenna through three vias. The proposed antenna is practically
fabricated with a compact size of 20 × 24 mm2. Good agreement is
achieved between the simulation and measurement, which shows that
the proposed antenna offers a very wide bandwidth from 3.02 to
20.8 GHz (149%) with triple band rejections covering the 3.5 GHz
WiMAX and 5.2/5.8 GHz WLAN bands.
Introduction: As the detecting antenna in cognitive radio systems, ultra-
wideband (UWB) antennas have attracted tremendous interest. The
antenna is required to achieve as large a bandwidth as possible to effec-
tively detect idle frequency bands. This demand has led to many
researches on bandwidth enhancement, such as antennas with a modi-
comparison of the proposed UWB antenna and a common CPW-fed
monopole antenna. It can be seen that the trident-shaped feed line
greatly expands the upper edge of the bandwidth from 13.1 GHz to
more than 25 GHz, with no distinct change to the lower operating fre-
quency. It should be noted that the common monopole antenna also
has optimised parameters to obtain the best impedance bandwidth.
The antenna was fabricated on a 20 × 24 × 1.5 mm3 substrate (dielec-
tric constant εr = 2.65, tan δ = 0.002) and the measured VSWR is also
shown in Fig. 1b. As can be seen, the antenna achieves a broad band-
width from 3.36 to more than 25 GHz with VSWR < 2, which agrees
quite well with the simulated result.
To lower the minimum operating frequency, a C-shaped strip is in-
tegrated into the antenna. This strip is placed on the other side of the
substrate, connecting to the top side of the radiator through a metallic
hole, as shown in Fig. 2a. The presence of the C-shaped strip enlarges
the electrical length of the antenna and thus lowers the minimum oper-
ating frequency, or in other words, makes the antenna smaller.
Meanwhile, the C-shaped strip can also reject interference of the
WiMAX band by properly choosing strip dimensions.
19.6 10
simulated
4
9 measured
0.8
W21
8
2.8 7
W22

VSWR
6
fied elliptical radiator [1], a sawtooth-shaped ground plane [2], a pair 7.6 6.6 5
of parasitic patches [3], and so on. On the other hand, the UWB 4
3.02 GHz
antenna needs to deal with interference problems since there exist W1 3 20.8 GHz
other wireless communication systems within the broad operating Y
2
1
band, such as WiMAX from 3.3 to 3.6 GHz and WLAN operating at 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25
X
5.15–5.35 GHz and 5.725–5.825 GHz. Various antennas with band- frequency, GHz

notched characteristics have been proposed and the methods to a b

achieve a notched band mainly include etching slots and adding para-
sitic elements [4–6]. However, most reported designs only create a Fig. 2 Configuration of triple band-notched UWB antenna, and simulated
and measured VSWR
single notch to cover the whole WLAN band (5.15–5.825 GHz) and
the notch width is relatively too wide which will waste valuable band- a Configuration of triple band-notched UWB antenna
b Simulated and measured VSWR
width, especially in the intermediate band from 5.35 to 5.725 GHz.
In this Letter, a novel UWB antenna with compact size, enhanced
To further reject interference of the 5.2 GHz/5.8 GHz WLAN bands,
impedance bandwidth and triple band rejections is presented. The
two trapezoid strips are also placed on the back plane of the substrate,
antenna utilises a trident-shaped feed line to achieve a much wider im-
connecting to the feed line through two metallic holes. These strips
pedance bandwidth. A C-shaped strip is integrated into the antenna to
form two shunt LC resonators with the resonant frequency at 5.2 and
enlarge the antenna’s effective electrical length and thus lower the
5.8 GHz. Since the bandwidth of a resonant structure is in inverse pro-
minimum operating frequency. It also generates a notched band at
portion to capacitance [8], to obtain narrower notch width a high capa-
the WiMAX (3.5 GHz) band. To deal with interference problems in
citance is needed. Generally, a wide microstrip stub can achieve a high
the lower and upper WLAN (5.2/5.8 GHz) bands, two trapezoid strips
capacitance, but the large width may cause transverse resonance which
are integrated into the antenna. By choosing suitable strip dimensions,
will worsen the resonance property. Therefore, two trapezoid strips are
narrower notch widths can be obtained, thus reducing bandwidth
utilised here, as shown in Fig. 2a. Each strip end close to the feeding
wastage.
point is fixed to a small width (W1) so as not to destroy the radiation
property, while the width of the other end is adjusted to obtain suitable
Antenna design and performances: The configuration of the proposed capacitance. The final optimised dimensions are W1 = 0.6 mm, W21 =
primitive UWB antenna is illustrated in Fig. 1a. The antenna comprises 2.02 mm and W22 = 2.5 mm.
a semicircular patch fed by a tapered, trident-shaped coplanar waveguide
(CPW) line and two modified ground planes. The inner side of each
3.9 GHz co-pol 9.6 GHz co-pol 12.8 GHz co-pol
ground plane is arc-shaped and the outer side is cut off a triangle part. 3.9 GHz cross 9.6 GHz cross 12.8 GHz cross
The trident-shaped feed line improves the vertical current distribution
whilst suppressing the horizontal distribution, hence the impedance 0 0
bandwidth is significantly increased [7]. 330 30 330 30
–10 –10
300 –20 60 300 –20 60
–30 –30
20 8
simulated common CPW-fed antenna
270 90 270 90
7 simulated proposed antenna
measured proposed antenna
6.5 6
240 120 240 120
5
VSWR

1 24 4 210 150 210 150

0.9
2.2 13.1 GHz 180 180
3
3.36 GHz a b
10.4 Y 2
5.9 2.7
X
1
3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25
Fig. 3 Measured normalised radiation patterns
frequency, GHz a In xoz-plane
a b b In yoz-plane

Fig. 1 Configuration of compact UWB antenna, and simulated and measured Comparison of the simulated and measured VSWRs of the triple
VSWR band-notched UWB antenna is shown in Fig. 2b. The measured result
a Configuration of compact UWB antenna clearly indicates that the antenna generates three sharp notched bands
b Simulated and measured VSWR (3.33–3.8, 5.14–5.46 and 5.72–5.98 GHz) within the wide operating

ELECTRONICS LETTERS 8th January 2016 Vol. 52 No. 1 pp. 8–10

band ranging from 3.02 to 20.8 GHz. Obviously, the proposed antenna
effectively restrains interference from the WiMAX and WLAN bands
with little bandwidth wastage.
The radiation patterns at three operating frequencies of 3.9, 9.6 and
12.8 GHz were measured in an anechoic chamber, and the normalised
results are shown in Fig. 3. Apparently, the patterns are monopole-like
which have omnidirectional radiation in the H-plane (xoz-plane) and
bi-directional radiation in the E-plane (yoz-plane). In addition, the cross-
polarisation in the H-plane shows an obvious increase as the frequency
goes up, which can be attributed to the increasing horizontal current
component.
Fig. 4 illustrates the measured gain of the triple band-notched UWB
antenna. For the operating band, gains are relatively stable, while within
the three notched bands gains drop sharply because of the band notched
function.
6 Republic of China)
4
2
0 antenna for ultra-wideband communications’, Electron. Lett., 2008, 44,
gain, dBi
–2
–4
–6
–8
3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21
frequency, GHz
Fig. 4 Measured gains of proposed antenna
Conclusion: In this Letter, a novel compact UWB antenna with
enhanced bandwidth and triple sharp band rejections has been proposed.
By using a trident-shaped feed line, much wider impedance bandwidth
is obtained. To avoid potential interferences, two trapezoid stubs and a
C-shaped stub are integrated into the antenna. By choosing suitable
dimensions, three effective and controllable notched bands are obtained.
Good agreement is observed between the measured and simulated
results, which demonstrates that the proposed antenna is a good candi-
date for UWB applications.
ELECTRONICS LETTERS 8th January 2016 Vol. 52 No. 1 pp. 8–10
Acknowledgments: This work was supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (Nos. 61271100, 61471389 and
61401335), and Natural Science Basic Research Plan in Shaanxi
Province of China (Nos. 2014JQ8352 and S2015YFJM2369).
© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2016
Submitted: 6 July 2015 E-first: 27 November 2015
doi: 10.1049/el.2015.2301
One or more of the Figures in this Letter are available in colour online.
Tong Li, Xiangyu Cao and Jun Gao (Information and Navigation
College, Air Force Engineering University of CPLA, Xi’an 710077,
People’s Republic of China)
✉ E-mail: tongli8811@sina.com
Cheng Zhu (National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on
Antennas and Microwaves, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, People’s
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