1394 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.

8, 2009

CPW-Fed Planar Printed Monopole Antenna With

Impedance Bandwidth Enhanced
Chao Deng, Yong-jun Xie, and Ping Li

Abstract—A coplanar waveguide (CPW)-fed monopole antenna

is proposed, which is composed of a rectangular monopole patch
notched at the bottom, a T-shaped CPW ground in the notch,
and a tapered CPW ground out of the notch. The simulated and
experimental results show that the antenna achieves a fractional
impedance bandwidth of 164% for S11 10 dB, which is
about 2.3 times of the conventional one. The parametric studies
and measured radiation characteristics are presented. The results
show that the antenna exhibits good characteristics and is suitable
for portable mobile ultrawideband (UWB) applications.
Index Terms—Monopole antennas, planar antennas, rectan-
gular monopole, ultrawideband (UWB) antennas.

I. INTRODUCTION

M ONOPOLE antennas have been widely used in wireless

ultrawideband (UWB) communication systems because
of their simple structure, low costs, and omnidirectional radia-
Fig. 1. Antenna configurations: (a) the conventional; (b) the proposed.

tion pattern. The proposed designs of UWB monopole antennas

mainly include two types, which are respectively metal plate
monopole and planar printed monopole. The former needs a per-
pendicular ground plane, resulting in the increasing of antenna
volume and the inconvenience for integrating with monolithic
microwave integrated circuits, whereas the latter avoids the per-
pendicular ground plane. Therefore, planar printed monopole
antenna is more compact in structure and possesses advantages
in the portable UWB applications.
Recently, many planar printed monopole antennas have been
reported. The majority of these antennas have the regular shaped
configurations, such as circular, elliptical, modified circular,
modified elliptical, etc. [1]–[5] presented some coplanar wave-
guide (CPW)-fed circular monopole antennas with impedance
bandwidth ratio of 4:1 to 10:1. In [6], a CPW-fed elliptical
monopole antenna with the trapeziform ground was proposed,
achieving a bandwidth of more than 21:1. In [7] and [8],
the circular and elliptical monopole antennas were modified,
and the proposed antennas exhibited very large impedance
bandwidth with reasonably good radiation patterns throughout
the bandwidth. The research on the planar rectangular and
square monopole antennas was also carried out, but the results
show these antennas yielded less bandwidth than the circular
or elliptical ones [9]–[12]. In [13], a microstrip-fed square
monopole with semicircular base was proposed, and the an-
tenna impedance bandwidth ratio was increased to 11.31:1.
However, compared to the microstrip line, CPW possesses
advantages of lower loss and is more convenient for shunt and
series connections on the same side of the substrate avoiding
via holes. Therefore, CPW-fed monopole is preferred in the
antenna design.
In this letter, a novel CPW-fed rectangular monopole antenna
with a bandwidth of 164% is proposed and designed. The en-
hancement of the bandwidth is achieved by an M-shaped notch
at the patch bottom, a tapered CPW ground out of the notch, and
a T-shaped CPW ground in the notch. The design of the new an-
tenna and its simulated and experimental results are presented.
The parametric studies are also given to make a full discussion
about its characteristics.

II. ANTENNA CONFIGRURATIONS

Manuscript received November 08, 2009; revised December 02, 2009 and De-
cember 14, 2009. First published December 31, 2009; current version published
January 19, 2010. This work was supported by the Program for New Century
Excellent Talents in University (NCET-04-0950).
C. Deng and P. Li are with the National Laboratory of Antennas and
Microwave Technology, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, China, and also
with the Institute of Communication and Information Technology, Engineer
College of Chinese Armed Police Force, Xi’an 710086, China (e-mail:
dczq100w@yahoo.cn; nicehuahua@yahoo.cn).
Y. Xie is with the National Laboratory of Antennas and Microwave Tech-
nology, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, China.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this letter are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2009.2039743
1536-1225/$26.00 © 2010 IEEE
The conventional CPW-fed rectangular monopole antenna is
shown in Fig. 1(a). The rectangular patch and the CPW are
printed on the same side of the dielectric substrate. The an-
tenna is fed by the central strip of the CPW at the patch bottom.
It is found from the simulation with HFSS that the fractional
bandwidth of the antenna is about 70%. In order to broaden
its bandwidth, the antenna is improved, and the new configura-
tion is shown in Fig. 1(b). In the improved design, an M-shaped
notch is cut at the patch bottom to broaden the bandwidth as the
center-fed antenna. An exponentially tapered ground out of the
notch is adopted to minimize the capacitance between the patch
DENG et al.: CPW-FED PLANAR PRINTED MONOPOLE ANTENNA WITH IMPEDANCE BANDWIDTH ENHANCED
Fig. 2. Comparisons of the characteristics of the two antennas (units: mm):
w = 30 = 23 = 2 8 = 2 = 41 = 26 6 = 6 0 = 1 0
,w ,w : ,p ,l ,l : ,l : ,l
= 0 5 = 0 2 = 0 45 = 2 5 = 1 9 = 6 3 = 12 9
h : ,g : ,d : ,d : ,d : ,b : ,a
= 18 1 = 00 25
: , : . (a) Input impedance curves. (b) Reflection coefficient
curves.
bottom and the ground. The CPW ground in the notch is de-
signed as a T shape, which forms a width varying slotline with
the notch top. It can be seen that the slotline is open at the end
and is equivalent to a shunt capacitance.
Both of the antennas were printed on FR4 substrates and were
optimized with HFSS. To compare their characteristics, the sizes
of the substrates and the rectangular patches of the two antennas
were set to be the same. The CPWs were designed for a char-
acteristic impedance of 50 . A set of optimized parameter
values of the two antennas is shown in the captions of Fig. 2.
Fig. 2(a) shows the simulated input impedance curves. It can be
seen that the impedance curve of the new antenna is more flat
at the whole frequency band. The reflection coefficient curves
are plotted in Fig. 2(b). It is obtained from the simulation that
the bandwidths of the two antennas are, respectively, 2.53–5.2
and 2.4–24.3 GHz dB . That is to say, the frac-
tional bandwidth increases from 69.1% to 164% due to the new
design. Fig. 3 shows the surface current distributions of the two
antennas at 2.3, 10, and 15 GHz. It is shown that the surface
current distributions are modified in the novel design. It is also
indicated by Fig. 3 that the T-shaped ground plays an important
role in antenna impedance matching, for the current density on
its surface is relatively higher.
III. PARAMETRIC STUDIES AND SIMULATED RESULTS
A. The Tapered Ground
The tapered ground edges of the new antenna follow the ex-
ponential regularity of . The effect of the tapering
rate on the antenna impedance characteristic was simulated
when . Fig. 4 demonstrates the simulated reflection co-
efficient curves with different values of . It is seen that wide-
band multiresonant characteristics around 5, 10, and 16 GHz are
obtained with the help of the tapered ground. Here, the tapered
1395
Fig. 3. Surface current on the antenna at (a) 2.3, (b) 10, and (c) 15 GHz.
:,
:,
Fig. 4. The reflection coefficient versus frequency with different tapering rate
: w = 30 ,w = 23 ,w = 28 : ,l = 41 = 26 6 = 0 5
,l : ,h : ,g = 02 :
(units: mm).
CPW ground is used not only as a ground plane, but also as a
component to form the distributed matching network with the
monopole.
B. The M-Shaped Notch
The effect of the M-shaped notch on the antenna impedance
characteristic was simulated with HFSS. Fig. 5(a) shows the re-
flection coefficient curves with different values of . It is found
that the impedance characteristic at the lower and higher fre-
quency band is sensitive to the variation of . Fig. 5(b) gives the
reflection coefficient curves with different notch width and
length . It is indicated by the results that the lower cutoff fre-
quency can be turned down by changing the values of and
. Based on the above analysis, the combination of ,
mm, and mm is optimal for a lower low cutoff
frequency.
C. The T Configuration
The CPW ground in the notch plays an important role in
antenna impedance matching, and its configuration was em-
phasized in the improved design of the antenna. It was found
that the impedance characteristic at the whole frequency band
could be improved when this part of ground was designed to be
a T shape. Fig. 6(a) shows the reflection coefficient curves with
different values of . It is shown that the antenna impedance
characteristic ameliorates with the values of increasing.
Fig. 6(b) shows the reflection coefficient curves with different
values of . It can be seen that with the values of reducing,
the impedance characteristic between 7–16 GHz is improved,
and the high cutoff frequency rises accordingly. It is concluded
1396 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 8, 2009

Fig. 5. Effects of the M-shaped notch on the reflection coefficient: d =0 ,

d = 1 9 = 0 5 = 2 8 = 0 2 = 26 6
: ,h : ,w : ,g : ,l : ,l = 41 ,l =6 ,
l = 1 0 = 23 = 30 = 00 25
: ,w ,w , : . (a) Reflection coefficient curves for
=9
different  : a . (b) Reflection coefficient curves for different a and b (unit:
mm):  = 18 1 : .

Fig. 7. Effects of the ground sizes on the radiation patterns at 10 GHz. (a) Ra-
diation patterns for different values of l : w= 30 mm. (b) Radiation patterns
for different values of w : l =6 mm.

Fig. 8. The antenna photograph.

of is more than 11 mm. Fig. 7(b) shows the radiation patterns

at 10 GHz with different values of . It can be seen that the
elevation patterns are slightly affected by the variation of .
It is also found from Fig. 7(a) and (b) that both of the values
a = 12 9
Fig. 6. Effects of the T configurations on the reflection coefficient: : ,
b = 6 3 d = 0 45 d = 1 9 h = 0 5 = 2 8 = 0 2 = 26 6
: , : , : , : ,w : ,g : ,l : ,
of and play an important role in controlling the azimuth
l = 41 = 6 = 23 = 30 = 18 1 = 00 25
,l ,w ,w , : , : . (a) Reflection patterns. Therefore, it is important to design proper ground
=10
coefficient curves for different d : l : . (b) Reflection coefficient curves according to different applications.
=25
for different l : d : .
IV. EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS
that the return loss is better than 10 dB between 2.4–24.3 GHz The proposed antenna was fabricated according to the param-
when mm and mm. eter values in the captions of Fig. 2, and its photograph is shown
in Fig. 8. Fig. 9 demonstrates the measured reflection coeffi-
D. The Ground Sizes cient with the Agilent-N5230A vector network analyzer. There
The effects of the ground sizes on the antenna radiation is some discrepancy between the simulation and experiment due
patterns were researched by simulation. The radiation patterns mainly to the errors in processing and the effect of the SMA
are slightly affected at the lower frequency band. With the connector, which introduces a varying reactance, leading to the
frequency increasing, especially when the frequency is higher movement of resonant points, especially for the lowest one.
than 8 GHz, they are sensitive to the variation of the ground The radiation characteristics of the antenna were measured
sizes. Fig. 7(a) gives the simulated radiation patterns at 10 GHz in the anechoic chamber. Fig. 10 shows the measured gain and
with different values of . It is shown that the maximum radiation efficiency curves between 2.3–20 GHz. It is concluded
radiation deviates evidently from the broadside when the value that the radiation efficiency varies from 0.75 to 0.97, while the
DENG et al.: CPW-FED PLANAR PRINTED MONOPOLE ANTENNA WITH IMPEDANCE BANDWIDTH ENHANCED
Fig. 9. Measured and simulated reflection coefficient.
Fig. 10. Measured antenna gain and radiation efficiency.
Fig. 11. Measured antenna radiation patterns: (a) 2.3, (b) 10, and (c) 15 GHz.
antenna gain changes from 0.7 to 4.4 dBi across the frequency
band. Fig. 11 exhibits the measured azimuth and elevation pat-
1397
terns at 2.3, 10, and 15 GHz. It is indicated by the results that
the antenna exhibits good radiation characteristics, except that
the cross-polarization level rises with the frequency increasing.
It is mainly caused by the horizontal components of the sur-
face currents. However, for mobile environments with consid-
erable amount of multipath propagations, this would have less
impact on the system performances. It is notable here that the
novel configuration was optimized mainly for broadening the
impedance bandwidth of a CPW-fed rectangular planar printed
antenna. The methods to reduce the cross-polarization levels at
the higher frequencies are being researched.
V. CONCLUSION
It was pointed out by much research that the bandwidth of
the planar printed rectangular monopole was narrower than the
circular or elliptical ones. However, by the M-shaped notch at
the patch bottom and the proposed ground configurations in this
letter, its bandwidth can be widened to 164%. The bandwidth
of the proposed antenna is about 2.3 times of the conventional
one and is also wider than many other ones reported before.
The antenna exhibits a simple structure, small sizes, and good
wideband characteristic. It is a good candidate for the portable
mobile communication systems.
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