Electromagnetics

ISSN: 0272-6343 (Print) 1532-527X (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uemg20

Novel, compact, circular-sectored antenna for

Ultra-Wideband (UWB) communications

Arnab De, Bappadittya Roy & Anup Kumar Bhattacharjee

To cite this article: Arnab De, Bappadittya Roy & Anup Kumar Bhattacharjee (2020): Novel,
compact, circular-sectored antenna for Ultra-Wideband (UWB) communications, Electromagnetics,
DOI: 10.1080/02726343.2020.1726001

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02726343.2020.1726001

Published online: 06 Feb 2020.

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ELECTROMAGNETICS
https://doi.org/10.1080/02726343.2020.1726001

Novel, compact, circular-sectored antenna for Ultra-Wideband

(UWB) communications
Arnab Dea, Bappadittya Royb, and Anup Kumar Bhattacharjeea
a
Department of ECE, NIT Durgapur, Durgapur, WB, India; bSchool of Electronics Engineering, Vellore Institute
of Technology, Amravati, AP, India

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This article presents a compact circular-sectored microstrip antenna Received 17 June 2019
embedded with circular slots and a sectoral ground plane for Accepted 13 September 2019
enhanced bandwidth and applicable for UWB communications exhi- KEYWORDS
biting an equivalent Fractional Bandwidth of 156.04% (2.5–20.25 Circular-sectored patch;
GHz) and allows a compactness of about 79.15% using Rogers RT- slotted antenna; UWB
Duroid 5880 as a substrate for lesser surface wave loss and attaining communication; WLAN and
broader bandwidth. The gain of the antenna ranges from 1.85 to 6.10 Wi-MAX applications
dBi throughout the resonant frequency band and the results
obtained from measurement are validated to justify the applicability
of this antenna for various WLAN and Wi-MAX frequency bands.

Introduction
The requirement of multiband and wideband antennas is growing daily due to the
development of various wireless standards in the telecommunication sectors. The
Federal Communication Commission (FCC) incorporated the use of 3.1–10.6 GHz fre-
quency band for use in UWB applications in 2002 (FCC and D 2002). Researchers, till
now have designed several UWB antennas because of their capabilities. As a result, these
wideband and UWB structures are common now a day because of its multifunctional
capability. Earlier the Microstrip Antennas (MSAs) were normally used for a particular
tuned frequency providing maximum power transmit or receive in that specific resonant
frequency. Various UWB antennas have been presented in (Chen 2003; Dastranj and Abiri
2010; Emadian and Ahmadi-Shokouh 2015; Gautam, Yadav, and Kanaujia 2013; Kumar
and Masa-Campos 2014; Lui, Cheng, and Zhu 2005; Mahmud, Islam, and Samsuzzaman
2016; Mohammadian, Azarmanesh, and Soltani 2010; Naser-Moghadasi et al. 2009;
Sadeghi, Ghobadi, and Nourinia 2009; Ye and Chu 2010), which allows covering various
narrow frequency bands like WLAN (5.1–5.9 GHz), Wi-MAX (3.25–3.75 GHz),
HIPERLAN/2 IEEE 802.11a (5.15–5.35 GHz/5.47–5.725 GHz) and Multichannel Video
and Data Distribution Service (MVDDS) (12.2–12.7 GHz). Due to larger advancement in
electronic systems, there is a challenge to miniaturize the structure as far as possible.
Therefore, compactness plays a vital part in the aspect of antenna design.
Different feeding techniques along with various structures were proposed thereafter to
enhance the bandwidth. Planar UWB antennas are proposed of many shapes such as
E-shaped (Dastranj and Abiri 2010), circular type (Emadian and Ahmadi-Shokouh 2015),
semi-circular (Sadeghi, Ghobadi, and Nourinia 2009), polygon shaped with parasitic slits

CONTACT Arnab De ade.ece1990@gmail.com Department of ECE, NIT Durgapur, Durgapur, WB

© 2020 Taylor & Francis
2 A. DE ET AL.

(Ye and Chu 2010), hibiscus petal shaped (Mahmud, Islam, and Samsuzzaman 2016), etc.
Again microstrip slot antenna accompanied by parasitic open circuit stubs is presented in
(Lui, Cheng, and Zhu 2005) to gain UWB purpose. CPW feeding is provided in (Chen
2003; Gautam, Yadav, and Kanaujia 2013; Mohammadian, Azarmanesh, and Soltani 2010;
Naser-Moghadasi et al. 2009). In most of the cases generally, monopole antennas with
CPW or microstrip line feeding are used for increasing the bandwidth, while the proposed
structure consists of co-axial probe feeding of 50Ω impedance matching with an asym-
metric dipole having quasi-monopole characteristics.
Di-electric materials play a major role in UWB purposes where a large value of Ɛr is favored
preferably in most of the cases like in Gautam, Yadav, and Kanaujia (2013) and Naser-
Moghadasi et al. (2009). However, these are achieved at the cost of greater size of the element,
gain in weight, extraneous radiations, dielectric loss, and surface wave loss while less value of Ɛr is
proposed in our geometry. Thick substrates are mostly preferred (Chen 2003; Gautam, Bisht, and
Kanaujia 2016; Gautam, Yadav, and Kanaujia 2013; Gupta and Mathur 2017; Kumar and Masa-
Campos 2014; Nikolaou and Abbasi 2017; Roy et al. 2016) because of their lower dielectric
constants providing better efficiency, larger bandwidth, and improved radiation power but they
are unable to reduce weight, undesired radiation, and coupling. Total effectiveness of an antenna
can be increased or decreased with respect to the thickness of the substrate, whereas the desired
results were achieved with thin substrate. The proposed structure fulfills all the factors mostly
regarding dimensions, dielectric constant, substrate height (h), thereby giving us good agreement
in respect of Gain, Return Loss, VSWR, Polarization, and Radiation Patterns. Also, an efficient
UWB antenna is designed by introducing unique techniques that will reject the bands that will
interfere with the UWB frequency. The proposed antenna enhances the bandwidth ratio, FBW,
and compactness (about 9.81%) by embedding symmetric circular slots in the patch.

Antenna design and simulation

The Geometry of the proposed antenna configuration is demonstrated in Figure 1. To
design the proposed one at first, a rectangular shape reference antenna is considered and
denoted as Antenna 1 having a dimension of 40 × 40 mm2 as shown in Figure 1(a). In

Figure 1. (a) Reference Antenna (Antenna 1), (b) Antenna 2 (front view with circular patch slot), (c)
Antenna 3 (back view where patch dimensions are same as Antenna 2), (d) proposed prototype or
Antenna 4.
 ELECTROMAGNETICS 3

the second step, the patch structure is changed and made as a circular sector shape of
radius (a) shown in Figure 1(b), where the ground plane structure is same as Antenna 1.
In the next step, the ground structure is modified and another circular sector part of
radius (b) is introduced in the ground plane which is shown in Figure 1(c). Now the
structure consists of two circular sectored parts, in which one element on the top is the
patch, shown in Figure 1(b) and the other sectored part is the ground plane on the back
surface, shown in Figure 1(c). In the last step, the final geometry is achieved by embedding
two symmetrical circular slots in the patch of radius (r1 = r2) 5.0 mm. The distance (d) is
the center-to-center distance of the two circles. The radius of the circles plays an
important part in enlarged bandwidth and compactness. A Rogers RT/Duroid 5880
substrate having thickness of 0.787 mm, dielectric constant (Ɛr) of 2.2 and loss tangent
(tan δ) = 0.002 is used for the structure. The overall dimension of the antenna as well as
width and length of the substrate are 40 mm and 40 mm, respectively. The designed
prototype is fed by a co-axial probe of 50 Ω impedance with the help of an SMA connector
of radius 0.5 mm. The feed point is optimized to match the input impedance over the
entire UWB range. Table 1 shows all the dimensions of the parameters starting from
Antenna 1–4.
ðA1  A2Þ
Compactnessð%Þ ¼  100 (1)
A1

where A1 = Surface area of the reference antenna and A2 = Surface area of the proposed
antenna. The compactness of the final antenna is found to be 79.15% using Equation 1.
The proposed antenna was simulated and optimized using Zeland IE3D software and
various parameters are analyzed in this paper. Table 2 depicts the results of Antenna 3 and
4 with respect to various parameters.

Results and analysis

Various design parameters are constructed and discussed in this section. At first, the
comparison of S-parameters with respect to frequency of all antennas (Antenna1–4) is
shown in Figure 2. It is observed from the above figure that −10 dB bandwidth of Antenna

Table 1. Parametric dimensions.

Parameters Wp Lp a b d r1 r2
Value (in mm) 40.00 40.00 25.00 34.65 14.30 5.00 5.00

Table 2. Comparison of Antennas of different types.

−10 dB Fractional Max
bandwidth bandwidth Compactness gain
Type Resonant frequency bands (GHz) (GHz) (FBW %) (%) (dBi)
Antenna 1 (2.48–2.51), (5.65), (7.51–7.58), 0.33 155.79 NA 5.12
(12.66–12.74), (13.68–13.73), (14.81–14.89),
(19.94–19.96)
Antenna 2 (4.84–4.88),(8.82–8.89),(12.79–12.81) 0.13 90.31 NA 5.22
Antenna 3 (2.65–6.32), (13.74–15.19) and (19.05–20.33) 6.40 153.87 69.34 5.34
Antenna 4 (2.5–20.25) 17.75 156.04 79.15 6.1
Note: Fractional BW is calculated by neglecting the notched bands under the condition of S11 ≤ 10 dB.
4 A. DE ET AL.

Figure 2. Comparison of S11 vs. frequency plot for all the antennas.

3 ranges from 2.65–6.32 GHz (3.67 GHz), 13.74–15.19 GHz (1.45 GHz), and 19.05–20.33
GHz (1.28 GHz) producing a fractional bandwidth (FBW) of 153.87% (2.65–20.33 GHz)
centered at a frequency of 11.49 GHz. Antenna 4 has −10 dB bandwidth ranging from 2.5
to 20.25 GHz producing a bandwidth ratio of 8.1:1 (bandwidth ratio of upper-frequency
level and lower-frequency level) and an FBW of 156.04% (2.5–20.25 GHz) clearly indicat-
ing its UWB characteristics.
Another important characteristics are the compactness of the antenna. Since miniatur-
ization plays an important part of the overall volume of the package so it has to be kept in
mind that the antenna is compact. In the case of Antenna 1, A1 = 40 × 40 = 1600 mm2
and Antenna 4 = [490.625–2 × π× (5)2] mm2 = 333.625 mm2. As a result, from Eq.1
a compactness of 79.15% is achieved which is near about 9.81% more than Antenna 3. The
VSWR vs Frequency plot of our proposed antenna is shown in Figure 3 which shows that
VSWR ≤ 2 for the desired resonant frequency band.
The Gain of the proposed prototype ranges from 1.85 to 6.10 dBi, where the gain is
about 1.85 dBi at 2.50 GHz and 6.10 dBi at 5.70 GHz as pointed out in Figure 4 which
shows increase of gain considerably from Antenna 1 to Antenna 4. The surface current
distribution patterns of Antenna 3 and Antenna 4 at 5.5 GHz are shown in Figure 5(a,b).
The figure depicts that the discontinuity of the surface electrical currents in the patch of
Antenna 3 [Figure 5(a)] is distinctly resolved in Antenna 4 [Figure 5(b)].
Here the two circular slots allow a good distribution of the electric current in the patch
which allows maximum electric current to increase from 144.13 A/m to about 165.68 A/m.
In this proposed structure the two symmetric circular slots make a crucial change in terms
of bandwidth enhancement. The impedance bandwidth enhances as a result of extra
modes being excited with the help of these circular slots.
 ELECTROMAGNETICS 5

Figure 3. VSWR vs. frequency plot for Antenna 4.

Figure 4. Comparison of gain vs. frequency plot of Antenna 1,2,3 and 4.

π
d ¼ 2a  2ðr1 þ r2Þ  ðr1 þ r2Þ (2)
2
6 A. DE ET AL.

Figure 5. (a) Current distribution pattern of Antenna 3 at 5.5 GHz, and (b) current distribution pattern
of the proposed prototype (Antenna 4) at 5.5 GHz.

From Equation 2, it is found that the value of d = 14.30 mm (r1, r2 = 5.0 mm). Similarly,
a relation can be obtained for fu and fl with respect to d where fl is the lower resonant frequency
level and fu is the upper resonant frequency level from Equations 3 and 4 respectively. By
changing the value of‘d’, the bandwidth of the proposed antenna can also be changed
accordingly and the frequency range can be fixed to maintain a particular value of ‘d’.

cðr1 þ r2Þ π2
fl ffi pffiffiffiffi  (3)
2a εr d

And,
 
cðr1 þ r2Þ d
fu ffi qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi  (4)
π
2a ðεr þ1Þ
2

where the values of fl and fu are more or less similar to that of the simulated results. Figure 6
shows the Axial ratio (AR) vs. Frequency plot which shows that AR is nearly equal to 1 (or
less than 3 dB) for most of the desired resonating band which shows that the antenna is
circularly polarized as well and show polarization diversity. The simulated and measured co-
polarization and cross-polarization radiation patterns of the proposed antenna at 3.20 GHz
and 5.80 GHz are shown in Figure 7. The measured and simulated far-field radiation
patterns of the final antenna at 3.20 GHz are depicted in Figure 8(a,b) showing the Left
hand Circular Polarization (LHCP) and Right Hand Circular Polarization (RHCP) compo-
nents at X-Z (φ = 0°) and Y-Z (φ = 90°) planes, respectively. The phase difference vs. theta
plot is shown in Figure 9 which shows that the two orthogonal electric field components are
90 degrees apart.
Higher antenna efficiency is found at the Wi-MAX and WLAN bands than the higher
frequency bands indicating that less power is absorbed as losses as a result of low
impedance mismatch. From Figure 10, it is seen that antenna efficiency is more than
90% specifically 91.2% at 3.2 GHz and 90.86% at 3.5 GHz, while it is 86.22% and 84.36% at
5.2 GHz and 5.5 GHz, respectively. Figure 11(a–d) exhibits surface current distribution
 ELECTROMAGNETICS 7

Figure 6. Axial ratio vs. frequency plot.

Figure 7. 2D Radiation pattern of Antenna 4 at (a) 3.20 GHz and (b) 5.80 GHz.

pattern of Antenna 4 at 5.50 GHz, 10.50 GHz, 16.0 GHz, and 19.50 GHz, respectively,
showing that there is uneven distribution of surface current around the two symmetric
circular slots at higher frequencies than at the lower frequencies as a result of dielectric
and conduction losses prompting in the degradation of antenna efficiency.
Table 3 points out the comparison of the proposed antenna with the state of art antennas
designed previously. From the table, it is noticed that although there is a drawback in terms of
dimensions like that of (Gautam, Bisht, and Kanaujia 2016; Gautam, Yadav, and Kanaujia
8 A. DE ET AL.

Figure 8. Measured and simulated polar radiation pattern of the final antenna at 3.20 GHz in the (a)
x-z plane (Φ = 0°) and (b) y-z plane (Φ = 90°).

Figure 9. Phase differences between LHCP and RHCP components of the antenna at 3.20 GHz in the
X-Z plane.

2013; Gupta and Mathur 2017; Lui, Cheng, and Zhu 2005; Nikolaou and Abbasi 2017; Ye and
Chu 2010), yet the antenna provides maximum −10 dB impedance bandwidth of 17.75 GHz
(FBW = 156.04%) with a considerable gain of 6.10dBi.
Although Dastranj and Abiri (2010) have results almost similar to that of the designed
prototype with higher gain yet achievement is in greater bandwidth with surface area half
that of (Dastranj and Abiri 2010). The photographs of the fabricated compact UWB
antenna are shown in Figure 12, whose performance is measured using Rohde and
 ELECTROMAGNETICS 9

Figure 10. Antenna efficiency vs. frequency plot of Antenna 4.

Figure 11. Surface current distribution pattern at (a) 5.50 GHz, (b) 10.50 GHz, (c) 16.0 GHz and (d) 19.50
GHz.

Swartz (ZVA-40) vector network analyzer (VNA). As demonstrated in Figure 13, there is
a good concurrence between the experimental and measured values.
 10
A. DE ET AL.

Table 3. Comparison of various antennas with respect to our designed prototype.

Reference Dimensions (mm2) Resonant bands (GHz) Notch bands (GHz) Type of feed −10 dB Bandwidth (GHz) FBW (%) Maximum gain (dBi)
(Dastranj and Abiri 2010) 85 × 85 (2.83–18.2) None CPW 15.37 146.00 6.5
(Sadeghi, Ghobadi, and Nourinia 2009) 40 × 40 (2.20 − 18.0) (5.1–6.2) Microstrip-line 14.70 156.43 (3.0–4.5)
(Ye and Chu 2010) 25 × 16 (3.1–10.6) (3.3–3.9), (5.0–6.0) Microstrip- line 5.90 109.49 (3.5–5.6)
(Mahmud, Islam, and Samsuzzaman 2016) 31 × 31 (3.04–11.0) None CPW 7.96 120.00 7.00
(Lui, Cheng, and Zhu 2005) 30 × 29 (2.91–11.16) (5.10–5.85) Microstrip – line 7.50 117.27 4.00
(Chen 2003) 72 × 72 (1.56–2.88) None CPW 1.32 60.00 (3.75–4.88)
(Gautam, Yadav, and Kanaujia 2013) 25 × 25 (2.6–13.04) None CPW 10.44 133.50 Not
mentioned
(Gautam, Bisht, and Kanaujia 2016) 38 × 25 (2.4–6.0) None Microstrip – line 3.60 86.71 2.85
(Nikolaou and Abbasi 2017) 28 × 20 (2.85–11.85) None CPW 9.00 122.45 3.20
(Gupta and Mathur 2017) 36 × 32 (2.93–9.53) None Microstrip – line 6.60 105.94 5.17
Proposed 40 × 40 (2.5–20.25) None Co-axial 17.75 156.04 6.10
Note: Fractional BW is calculated by neglecting the notched bands under the condition of S11 ≤ 10 dB.
 ELECTROMAGNETICS 11

Figure 12. Fabricated prototype of the proposed antenna (Ant. 4): (a) front view and (b) rear view.

Figure 13. Measured and simulated values of return loss for the proposed antenna.

Conclusion
A compact slotted circular-sectored antenna with UWB characteristics has been presented.
By embedding the circular slots on the patch we have increased the compactness by 9.81%
along with enhanced bandwidth to 156%. The proposed prototype is simple in structure,
cost-effective, and cover WLAN (5.2/5.8 GHz) and Wi-MAX (3.2/5.5 GHz) bands along
with Ultra-wide bands (3.1–10.6 GHz). The results also show the importance of sectorial
ground plane and its position for stabilized impedance matching, distributed current
distribution and omnidirectional radiation patterns.

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