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A Brief Review on Bowtie Antenna

Conference Paper · December 2012

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.2206.4805

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 PROCEEDING OF NCCN-12, 3-4 FEBRUARY, 12

A Brief Review on Bowtie Antenna

Baljinder Kaur, Postgraduate Student, Lakhvinder Singh Solanki, Associate Professor,

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering,
SLIET Longowal-148106, Sangrur, Punjab, India

 many techniques to broaden the impedance bandwidth of

Abstract— The present paper deals with a brief review on small antennas and to optimize the characteristics of the
different shapes of bowtie antenna used to improve its broadband antennas have been widely investigated.
Performance including, better return loss, flatter input
Desirable features of a wideband antenna are low-profile
impedance, and more stable radiation pattern. It is not the
intention of the author to provide a detailed survey on all the
and wide bandwidth in a compact size. Many existing
configurations. The main purpose of this paper is to provide a wideband antennas are large in size and some have only
detailed survey on various approaches adopted especially, circular polarization. On the other hand low-profile, dual-
rounding, beveling, and creating different slot configurations on polarized antennas frequently have limited bandwidth. The
different parts of antenna. major UWB Antenna Design Challenges include Compact
size while providing acceptable VSWR, Bandwidth, Gain,
Index Terms— Bandwidth, Bowtie antenna, Return Loss, UWB
antenna.
Efficiency, Omni-directional pattern, to be suitable for on
chip design, with good impedance matching, light weight and
II. INTRODUCTION low cost.
The ultra wide band antenna designs may be broadly
Antennas are indispensable component of any wireless
divided as Travelling wave structures like Vivaldi antenna [3,
communication device. Thus they are the inevitable
4], Frequency independent structures like the biconical
component for creating the so called ―wireless human
antenna or the bowtie Antenna [5, 6], Self complementary
network‖. An antenna is a transducer between the transmitter
antennas that are characterized by a self-complementary
and the free space waves and vice versa. They efficiently
metallization like the logarithmic spiral antenna and fractal
transfer electromagnetic energy from a transmission line into
antennas [7-9], combinations of the above like the log
free space.
periodic antenna [10-12] and the electrically small antennas
As the growing demand for wireless communications is
which includes the modified monopoles [13-15]. New designs
constantly increasing, the need for better coverage, improved
with frequency notch in the existing WLAN bands in the 5-6
capacity and higher transmission quality rises. Thus, a more
GHz range have also been reported [16, 17].
efficient use of the radio spectrum is required. Originally
Although existing designs offer excellent performance,
developed for Radar technology Ultra Wide Band has evolved
many other considerations have become important. As
to prove essential in the WPAN and WLAN market as a high
broadband receivers came into common use, emphasis on
speed networking solution for burst data [1]. UWB antennas
inexpensive, easily manufacturable designs increased. The
are gaining widespread popularity because of their various
well-known ―bow-tie‖ antenna originally proposed by Lodge
superior qualities. According to the definition of the Federal
and later re-examined by Brown and Woodward exemplifies
Communications Commission, a UWB device has a fractional
these benefits [18].
bandwidth that is greater than 0.2, or occupies 500 MHz or
A large volume of literature is available in journals and
more of the frequency spectrum, regardless of the fractional
books explaining various Bowtie antennas. A brief
bandwidth [2]. The release of an extremely wide spectrum for
recollection of the contributions by various eminent
emerging commercial microwave UWB applications has
researchers to the field of antennas with related literatures is
greatly spurred the research and development of microwave
depicted here.
ultra wideband (UWB) technology for communications,
imaging, radar, and localization applications. Henceforth,
III. VARIOUS DESIGN CONFIGURATIONS OF BOWTIE
ANTENNAS
While going through literature, there are various shapes of
bowtie antenna which have been investigated for improved

performance including, better return loss, flatter input
impedance, and more stable radiation pattern. The next
subsection will present a review on different shape
modifications proposed in the literature to increase the
bandwidth of bow-tie antennas.
A. Triangular and Quadrate bowtie antenna
The triangular bowtie was introduced by Oliver lodge in
1898 as an UWB antenna [19]. Compton et al [20] presented
a rigorous theoretical formulation for analyzing the bow-tie
antenna on a dielectric substrate shown in figure 1. The
numerical results show that for wide bows the dominant
current is a wave propagating along the axis of the bow at the
dielectric wavenumber. For increasing bow-tie length, the
impedances spiral rapidly toward a quasistatic value given by
transmission line theory, and as the bow narrows the
dominant current becomes an edge current with the
quasistatic wavenumber.
Fig. 1. The geometry of a bow-tie antenna in Cartesian (x, y, z) and radial
Coordinates (r, b), and the corresponding oblique coordinates (s, t) with
unit vectors, n1, n2 [20].
In [21] a straight-end bow-tie antenna has been analysed in
the frequency domain, in which MoM was also used. Due to
its planar structure, the Electric Field Integral Equation
(EFIE) is employed to solve the antenna problem. To avoid
the "staircase" approximation, the bow tie's surface is
modelled by planar triangular patches and the method of
moments is afterwards applied to solve the EFIE using the
well- known Rao-Wilton-Glisson (RWG) basis function [22]
and the results has been shown to agree with the well
accepted results of Brown and Woodward for the measured
impedance and field patterns of bowtie antennas in free space.
Hossain et al. [23] have made a comparison between bow-
tie and slot antenna in context of surface current distribution
and profile of current density and magnetic field intensity.
The impact of polarization of electric field on above
parameters also been analyzed for both type antennas. The
Authors have developed a simulation program of MATLAB
7.0 using Method of Moment (MoM) based upon RWG basis
PROCEEDING OF NCCN-12, 3-4 FEBRUARY, 12
functions [22] to study the surface current distribution during
reception of signal. Slot antenna is found to be very sensitive
to the polarization of the received signals.
Uysal et al. [24] presented the design of a coplanar-
waveguide bowtie antenna (CPWBA) at -band (developed for
a 5.5-GHz 20-Mb/s transmit/receive radio modem for wireless
indoor communications), 2-, and 4-element microstrip bowtie
antenna (MBA) arrays with favorable radiation
characteristics. However, the bandwidth of conventional
printed bow-tie antennas [24] is not yet sufficient to cover the
UWB frequency band. In [25], Kiminami et al. proposed a
double-sided printed bow-tie antenna, which presents stable
characteristics over the UWB frequency band (3.1-10.6 GHz).
Rahim et al. [26] investigated the effect of the angle to the
return loss and radiation patterns of bow-tie microstrip
antenna. Two bow-tie microstrip antennas have been
designed with two different angles of 40° and 80°.The
impedance matching network with the microstrip
transmission line feeding has been used in this study. The
BW from the measurement and simulation result is found to
be nearly 3% with a return loss more than 20 dB. The authors
have concluded that the angle of the bowtie microstrip
antennas does not affect its return loss, but the higher value of
angle (θ) gives a radiation pattern more directional.
B. Rounded edge/ corner bowtie antenna
Different types of bow-tie antennas with round corners are
studied in detail by various researchers.
Qu and Ruan [27] have proposed a quadrate bowtie
antenna with round corners and the measured impedance
bandwidth is from 2.64 to 12 GHz for the antenna shown in
Fig. 2. Three types of bowtie antennas in the same height. [27]
figure 2 (a). The authors have observed that the larger
antenna’s area in the same height, the wider the impendence
bandwidth, and the higher antenna in the same area, the
wider the pattern bandwidth is.

Fig. 3. Simulation results of three types of antennas shown in
figure 2.
R=10mm, L=25mm and H=70.7mm.
Fig. 4. (a) Triangular Bowtie antenna with round corner (TBARC). (b)
Triangular Bowtie antenna (TBA). D = 70.7 mm, θ = 90o. [28]
Fig. 5. Comparison of input impedance and return loss between TBA and
TBARC of different R3 (mm) D= 7.07mm, θ=90o [28]
In [28] they have further studied the effect of round corners
on quadrate, rounded-edge and triangular shaped bow-tie
antennas and concluded that the existence of round corners
improves the return loss and flatness of input impedance and
enhance the stability of radiation patterns. The return loss for
Triangular bowtie antenna and Triangular bowtie antenna
with round corners shown in figure 4, is compared in figure
5. The efficiency of bowtie antennas with round corners does
not decrease. They have compared the results of the three
antennas for different values of radius (R) of rounded corners,
and observed that increasing R beyond certain value has no
more positive effect on performance and return loss. Amin et
al. [29] realized and analyzed quadrate bowtie antennas with
round corners [28] and rounded corner bowtie antenna [30]
on paper substrate for UHF RFID tags. The proposed
PROCEEDING OF NCCN-12, 3-4 FEBRUARY, 12
antennas have significant prospective to be used on small,
extremely cheap solutions where read range and/or high data
transfer rate is essential.
A wideband elliptical bowtie antenna is proposed in [31].
Simulated results reveal that it can achieve an impedance
bandwidth of 141% (1.30-6.65 GHz) and stable radiation
pattern over the whole operating band and the overall
dimension is 0.74λo. Costa and Dmitriev [32] analyzed
modified bowtie nanoantennas with polynomial sides in the
excitation and emission regimes. The results show that these
novel antennas possess a controllable resonance by the
polynomial order.
C. Slotted bowtie antenna
Feed line is one significance of printed antenna structure,
one type of feed line that popular apply to printed antenna is
CPW-fed slot antennas, is now increasingly interesting for
modern wireless communications. They have many features
such as low radiation loss, less dispersion, easy integrated
circuits and simple configuration with single metallic layer,
and no via holes required. These antennas have recently
become more and more attractive. Recently, the study of a
bow-tie slot antenna with CPW-fed has been presented in the
literature.
Eldek et al. [33] have investigated the characteristics of a
Fig. 7. Measured and simulated of the proposed antenna (6c). [34]
bow-tie slot antenna with tapered tuning stubs fed by a
coplanar waveguide, and studied the effects of the antenna
dimensional parameters through simulation results. Authors
have observed that adding the stubs increases the input
resistance, shifts the main resonance to a lower frequency and
creates a new resonance at a higher frequency. The proposed
antenna is designed to operate from 1.6 to 2.8 GHz with
percentage bandwidth of 54%.

Fig. 6. Configuration of the bowtie antenna: (a) without round corner and small
sectors (b) without round corners (c) with round corners and two small sectors.
[34]
Ruan et al. [34] have proposed a modified ultra-wideband
bow-tie slot antenna with round corners and two small
sectors. The authors have compared it with two other types of
bowtie antennas one without round corners and second
without round corners and small sectors shown in figure 6.
The bandwidth of the proposed antenna is up to 80% (9.5 to
22.4 GHz).
Liu et al. [35] have proposed a novel CPW-fed bow-tie
aperture antenna for ultra-wide band (UWB) application.
Beveling technique is employed to increase the impedance
width and slot loading is introduced to improve the
impedance matching. The proposed antenna has been
fabricated and the measured impedance bandwidth is from
2.7 to 12 GHz, and the radiation patterns are found relatively
stable almost over the entire ultra-wide band of 3.1 to 10.6
GHz.
Tawk et al. [36] have presented a new approach for the
design of a multi-resonant printed bowtie antenna by creating
different slot configurations on different parts of a single
antenna. The proposed antenna gives multiple resonances at
2.4 GHz, 3.5 GHz and 5.3 GHz.
IV. CONCLUSION
After an exhaustive survey of literature, it is observed that
the potential researchers in this field have proposed different
shape modifications to improve the performance of bowtie
antenna. Round corners provide better return loss, flatter
input impedance, and more stable radiation patterns. They
also decrease the antenna area. To have wider bandwidth and
simple planar antenna configuration, bow-tie slot antennas
are good candidates. To enhance the band- width of CPW-fed
bow-tie slot antennas, some techniques have been proposed,
including the use of a tapered metal stub to achieve
impedance matching, the use of inductive coupling, and the
adjustment of slot flare angle to enhance bandwidth. The
wideband characteristics of modified bowtie structures are
still not extensively investigated for their use as generating
element in the design of fractal antenna so far. Thus, studies
on this issue are expected with great achievements.
PROCEEDING OF NCCN-12, 3-4 FEBRUARY, 12
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