Int. j. eng. sci., Vol(2), No (11), November, 2013. pp.

463-465

TI Journals

International Journal of Engineering Sciences

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ISSN:
2306-6474
Copyright 2013. All rights reserved for TI Journals.

Fractal UWB Planar Antennas with Unit-cell Technique for Base-band

Data Transmission applications
Mahdi Jalali *
Department of Electrical Engineering, Naghadeh Branch, Islamic Azad University, Naghadeh, Iran.

Tohid Sedghi
Department of Electrical Engineering, Urmia Branch, Islamic Azad University, Urmia, Iran.
*Corresponding author: jalali.mahdi@gmail.com

Keywords

Abstract

Antenna
Bandwidth
Monopoles
Base-Band
Data transmition

A tree fractal was used as the radiator of printed antenna. The antenna performance was simulated by high
frequency structure simulator (HFSS), and the fabricated antenna properties were measured by using Agilent
8722ES network analyzer. In this paper an UWB fractal antenna is described that exhibits excellent radiation
characteristics and is compact in size for wireless applications requiring low profile antennas. The measured
results show that number of resonances generated by the antenna is a function of the number of fractal
iterations employed, which has a direct affect on the antennas impedance matching properties. The both
simulated and measured results were discussed and so it is a proper choice to be used in UWB systems.

1.

Introduction

UWB technology requires electrically small antennas for wireless and personal communication systems. This is essential and presents a design
challenge. Miniaturized and low profile antennas have undesirable intrinsic attributes such as narrow bandwidth and inefficient radiation
characteristics resulting from reducing the antennas dimensions smaller than a quarter-wavelength at operating frequency. Fractal geometries
are one of the promising candidates in this concern in order to create more efficient antenna designs than the traditional Euclidean ones [1-3].
Self similarity and a space filling property are the two distinctive characteristics of fractal geometries. A self similar fractal antenna is able to
occupy spatial dimension in a more efficient manner. This effective use of space results in efficient energy coupling from excitation transmission
lines to free space in smaller volume. Some UWB antenna topologies based on fractal structures have been investigated based on these fractal
curves: Minkowski, Hillbert, Koch, Sierpinski, tree and etc. [4-7]. However, these fractal antennas are relatively large and have limited
impedance bandwidth. This paper present a novel fractal antenna, but here unlike the original antenna, micro-strip feed line instead of co
planner waveguide feed line technique is used and in comparison with primary antennas dimensions (20*20 mm2), the proposed ones is smaller
(20*20 mm2), and larger band width is achieved. The unit cell technology is applied on proposed antenna for generation of new current path and
new resonances which cause to work antenna in UWB range.

2.

Antenna Design

As shown in Fig. 1 the volume of antenna is only about 20*20*1 mm3 which is printed on commercially cheap FR4 substrate, with permittivity
of 4.4, and loss tangent 0.024. The feed line length (Lf) and width (Wf ) is 7.5 mm and 1.875 mm, respectively to achieve 50 characteristic
impedance. Several resonances are expected to be emerged by increasing the number of iteration of the proposed fractal patch. We have used a
rectangular ground plane, printed on back surface of the substrate. The dimensions of the ground are Wg=20 mm, Lg=7 mm and the fractal patch
has a distance of 0.5 mm to the ground plane. The designed antenna has been proposed on unit-cell technology which is efficient design for
generating new resonances. The geometry of fractal tree is shown in Fig 2. When the number of unit-cells of the fractal patch is increased the
surface current paths proportionally increase, which results in the generation of additional resonances and enhancement in the antennas
impedance bandwidth [3]. Finite Element Method was used to analyze the proposed antenna with commercially available Ansoft HFSS software
[6]. This software was used to optimize the antennas performance

3.

Antenna Measurment

The geometry of proposed antenna is depicted in Fig 1, which are simulated by using Ansoft HFSS version 11.1. It is understand from Fig 2, by
increasing the iteration of proposed antenna not only the length of patch increases but also the number of unit-cells with constant length varies
from 1 in Ant. 1 up to 3 in Ant. 2. A rectangular ground plane with dimension Wg=20 mm and Lg=7 is printed on back surface of substrate
which is used as an impedance matching circuit [3-6], the simulated S11 curves of fractal antenna with for different Antennas (Ant. 0 & Ant. I)
are plotted in Fig. 3, which it is concluded that increasing the iteration of Antenna has a major effect on impedance BW. By using Agilent Net
work analyzer we have could measured the impedance band width of all iteration of antenna which are illustrated in Fig. 4. Due to Fig. 4 it is
observed that by increasing the iteration of the proposed fractal antenna, not only the number of resonance increases in Ant. 2, but also by
pushing down and pulling up respectively the lower edge and higher edge of the impedance band width, a higher band width is achieved, which
this improvement in antenna BW is because of the fractal antenna space filling property [3-5]. Measured results for H (yz) pattern and E (xz)

Mahdi Jalali *, Tohid Sedghi

464

International Journal of Engineering Sciences Vol(2), No (11), November, 2013.

plane patterns are observed in Fig. 5 with both cross- and co-polarization which are Omni-directional and eight shaper respectively. both H and
E plane patterns were also plotted. Finally as it observed that there is a good agreement between measured and simulated results of return loss,
and much wider band width in comparison with the other proposed Antennas [1-5], [7].

Figure 1. (a) Geometry of proposed antenna (a) Ant. II, (b) Ground of Antennas, (c) unit-cell

Figure 2. (a) First three iterations of proposed antenna (a) Ant. 0, (b) Ant. 1, (c) Ant. 2 (Ant. II), (d) unit-cell.

Figure 3, S11 for Ant. 0 & Ant. I

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Fractal UWB Planar Antennas with Unit-cell Technique for Base-band Data Transmission applications
International Journal of Engineering Sciences Vol(2), No (11), November, 2013.

Figure 4 Measured S11 for Ant. 2

Figure 5 (a) Measured E and H planes patterns of Ant. II at 6 GHz

4.

Conclusion

A tree fractal antenna, for UWB applications with micro-strip feed is presented. Tree fractal is generated using unit-cell technology. By adopting
the proposed patch, much wider impedance band width is achieved and by increasing the unit-cells, new resonances are seen. The antenna
volume is only about 20*20*1 mm3, which covers the frequency band from 2.1 GHz to 12.1 GHz for VSWR<2. In this paper by increasing
fractal iteration, the control of the band width and resonances are presented and discussed. Both simulated and measured results are presented
and compared with each other to guaranties antennas satisfactory performance.

Acknowledgements
This paper is the result of a research project approved by research committee at Islamic Azad University, Naghadeh Branch, Naghadeh, Iran.

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