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Published in IET Microwaves, Antennas & Propagation

Received on 24th July 2008
Revised on 10th December 2008
doi: 10.1049/iet-map.2008.0253

ISSN 1751-8725

Miniaturised coplanar waveguide-fed antenna

and band-notched design for ultra-wideband
applications
A. Mehdipour1 A. Parsa2 A.-R. Sebak1 C.W. Trueman1
1
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada H3G 2W1
2
Department of Electrical Engineering, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada H3T 1J4
E-mail: a_meh@ece.concordia.ca

Abstract: A miniaturised coplanar waveguide-fed ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna is presented here. The
wideband operation is obtained through an optimised curvature of the radiating element. The input
impedance of the antenna is matched using an elliptically tapered coplanar waveguide line. A high-band
rejection characteristic at wireless local area network frequencies is achieved by inserting an v-shaped slot on
the antenna surface. The frequency domain dispersion characteristic is studied by means of the antenna
transfer function both numerically and experimentally. Time domain characteristic of the antenna is
investigated in detail for both UWB single-band and multiband schemes. In order to efficiently characterise
the antenna system for an arbitrary pulse source excitation, the pole/residue model of the antenna system
transfer function is presented using the matrix-pencil method.

1 Introduction antenna performance [8, 11]. Owning a balanced structure,

Since the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
authorised the use of short-range ultra wideband (UWB)
signals in the frequency band of 3.1– 10.6 GHz for the
commercial applications [1], the demand for design of
high-performance UWB antennas has been increased.
Planar antennas are one of the most attractive antenna
types considered for the use in UWB radio. This is because
of their low cost and easy to fabricate characteristics
[2 – 10]. In addition to high performance, the wireless
industry always seeks small size antennas for use in
handheld and RF/Microwave devices [5– 10]. However,
there is usually a trade-off between the bandwidth and the
size of antenna. As a result, the miniaturisation process
requires compromising between the size and performance
of the antenna [5]. The small size planar antennas such as
the microstrip-fed antennas with ground plane have been
introduced for UWB applications in [6– 8]. The size
reduction in these antennas usually leads to small ground
plane, which is on the substrate surface, in the opposite
side of the radiation element. The surface current on the
small ground plane becomes considerable, and it affects the
the coplanar waveguide (CPW)-fed antennas are very good
candidates since the feed line and slots are on one side of
the substrate [9, 10].
In order to judge the performance of an UWB antenna, the
dispersive behaviour of the antenna should also be taken
into account. The dispersion behaviour can be analysed in
both frequency and time domain. In time-domain
characterisation, the antenna can be verified for single-band
and multiband cases [12]. In a single-band scheme that is
usually considered in antenna analysis [5–10], the entire
frequency band is allocated to one pulse. In a multiband
approach, the whole frequency range is covered with several
modulated pulses in different sub-bands [13, 14]. This is
useful for reducing the interference. The interference can be
easily avoided by stopping the signal transmission in sub-
bands, which are used by other systems.
Since UWB antennas are used for radiating different pulse-
source excitations, a parametric model, which characterises the
impulse response of the antenna system can be very useful
[15 – 18]. By using a parametric model, the antenna can be

974 IET Microw. Antennas Propag., 2009, Vol. 3, Iss. 6, pp. 974– 986
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characterised by a number of poles and residues for each

orientation. Having the parametric model of an antenna in
terms of a closed form expression, the antenna response can
be easily obtained for an arbitrary pulse shape excitation. In
other words, the parametric model of the antenna system is
very useful in UWB communication system design.

In this paper, a miniaturised CPW fed antenna is proposed

for UWB applications. The antenna curvature is composed of
three elliptical curves. This makes the antenna more flexible
for optimisation process. In order to have VSWR ,2 over
the entire frequency range, the antenna is optimised using
Ansoft HFSS software [19]. The antenna is then fabricated
and successfully tested. To avoid interference with nearby
wireless local area networks (WLANs), a notch is
introduced in the antenna response, covering the WLAN
bandwidth. This is realised by cutting an v-shape slot on
the surface of the radiation element.

To study the proposed antenna dispersion characteristics, Figure 1 Geometry of the proposed antenna
the antenna is analysed in both time and frequency a Top-view
domain. Using the antenna transfer function, the frequency b Cross-section view
c Band-Notched design
domain dispersive behaviour of the antenna is evaluated d Photograph of the fabricated antennas
both numerically and experimentally. In time-domain
characterisation, both single-band and multiband schemes
we optimise the antenna geometrical parameters for
are carefully investigated. Furthermore, a parametric model
VSWR , 2 (S11 , 29.5 dB) over the entire frequency range
of the antenna system (pole/residue model) is obtained by
(3.1–10.6 GHz). The optimisation procedure is done by
using the matrix-pencil method [20].
using Ansoft HFSS software optimisation tool. The
geometrical parameters are obtained as: R1 ¼ R2 ¼ 4,
The organisation of this paper is as follows. The antenna
R3 ¼ 8.8, R4 ¼ 5.5, R5 ¼ 0.5, R6 ¼ 1.8, L1 ¼ 6.6, L2 ¼ 9,
structure and parametric studies are demonstrated in
L3 ¼ 7.1, g1 ¼ 18, g2 ¼ 1, s1 ¼ 2 and s2 ¼ 1.4
Section 2. The radiation pattern and time/frequency
where the unit is millimetre. The substrate size is
domain dispersion characteristics of the proposed antenna
D1  D2 ¼ 35  35 mm2. Referring to Fig. 1b, the 50-ohm
are discussed in Section 3. Using the directional transfer
CPW line dimensions are w ¼ 3 mm and g ¼ 0.2 mm.
function of Tx/Rx setups, the pole/residue model of the
Using these parameters, the antenna is fabricated as shown in
antenna system is presented for different orientations in
Fig. 1d. Fig. 2a shows the simulated and measured VSWR of
Section 4. Section 5 contains the conclusion.
the proposed antenna. A good agreement is observed.

2 Antenna design In order to have the notch-band characteristics at WLAN

frequencies (5.15–5.825 GHz), a kind of slot known as half-
2.1 Antenna geometry wave resonant structure has been introduced in [21–23] so
The proposed antenna structure is shown in Fig. 1a. The
antenna is printed on the top of a light-weight 0.508 mm
thick Rogers RT Duroid 3003 (1r ¼ 3, tan d ¼ 0.0013)
substrate. The feed line is a 50-ohm CPW line, which is
connected to the radiating element through a wideband
tapered structure formed by two ellipses. These ellipses are
defined by L1 , L2 , L3 and g2 parameters. This tapered
transition matches the antenna input impedance to a 50-ohm
SMA connector. The radiating element curvature is
composed of three quarter-ellipses defined by R1 , R2 , R3 , R4 ,
R5 and R6 parameters. By using these ellipses in shaping the
radiating element, it is possible to form a smooth curved
structure. Furthermore, this curvature shape provides more
flexibility for a further antenna optimisation. These
parameters control both the bandwidth and its lower
frequency limit. Making the antenna size as small as possible, Figure 2 VSWR of the proposed antenna

IET Microw. Antennas Propag., 2009, Vol. 3, Iss. 6, pp. 974– 986 975
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far so that it resonates at the frequency f0 when the length of slot
is l0/2 where l0 is the wavelength at the central notch
frequency ( f0). In fact, the slot behaves like a quarter-
wavelength short-circuit stub in a series configuration with
the equivalent input impedance circuit of the antenna or like
a half-wavelength short circuit stub parallel with the input
impedance of the antenna [24]. The simplest half-wave
resonant structures are slits or triangular slots on the radiation
element as introduced in [21–23]. The slits can be used in
both vertical and horizontal forms on the radiation element
surface where sometimes they would be large in size.
However, one of the disadvantages of the physically large slits
is that they affect the radiation pattern of the antenna at out
of notch-band frequencies, which is not desirable [25].
Moreover, for small antennas with compact size, the length of
slot resonators is limited by the size of antenna, which limits
us in adjusting the centre notch frequency to the lower
frequencies of interest. To compact the slot size, curved-shape
resonators (such as U or t shapes) are commonly used to
achieve the band-rejected characteristics [7]. The fractal shape
resonators were introduced to improve the notch behaviour of
the antenna response at the desired centre frequency [25, 26].
The fractal shapes are efficient resonators due to the small
dimension and high-Q operation where Q is the quality factor
defined as f0/Df. Because of the high-Q operation, the
antenna performance deterioration occurs only at the desired
notch-band frequencies, not out of this band. However,
because of the complicated structure of fractal shapes, the
number of design parameters would be large. Therefore
introducing a much simpler structure with high band-
rejection performance and good Q-characteristic is desirable.
Figure 3 Different types of slots
a Different notch-band techniques
b VSWR of the proposed antenna using different notch-band techniques
c Simulated and measured VSWR of the proposed notch-band technique
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As shown in Fig. 1c, we propose a semi-fractal v-shape
slot (called Slot-A) on the radiating element surface, which
shows a high-band rejection characteristic with appropriate
Q characteristic. The length of Slot-A can be obtained
approximately from [24]
c
Lstub ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi (1)
2f0 1reff
where Lstub ¼ 3pr0 . Slot-A is composed of two 3p/2 arcs
with radius r0 . In order to compare the performance of the
proposed notch-band slot with other techniques, we have
inserted different types of slots on the antenna surface as
shown in Fig. 3a. In Fig. 3b, the performances of different
notch-band techniques are compared with the performance
of the v-shape slot. The centre notch frequency ( f0) is
adjusted to be around 5.7 GHz. The dimensions of v-slot
are obtained as r0 ¼ 2.5 mm and s0 ¼ 22 mm. The width
of slot is 0.5 mm. The dimensions of other slots are shown
in Fig. 3a. It can be seen that for slit type resonator
(Config. I), although the band rejection is high at the
centre notch frequency, the resonator shows a poor Q
factor, which deteriorates the antenna VSWR for a wide
range of frequencies around the centre notch frequency. For
curved U and t shape slots, the resonator shows a
reasonable Q-characteristic, but the band rejection
magnitude (VSWR , 10) is not high at the centre notch
frequency. It is observed that by using the v-shape slot, a
very high notch-band rejection (VSWR ¼ 22.5) is achieved
at the centre notch frequency with acceptable Q-
characteristic (VSWR . 3 for 5.4 GHz , f , 5.95 GHz).
IET Microw. Antennas Propag., 2009, Vol. 3, Iss. 6, pp. 974– 986
doi: 10.1049/iet-map.2008.0253
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Figure 4 VSWR of the proposed antenna against

a g2
b R1 parameters
c Surface current distribution at 3.5, 6.5 and 9.5 GHz frequencies, when g2 ¼ 1 mm and R1 ¼ 4 mm

For notch-band design, we determine the best location of

slot (s0) through a parametric study to obtain the highest
VSWR at the centre frequency of notch. The simulated
and measured VSWR of the band-notched design with
r0 ¼ 2.5 mm and s0 ¼ 22 mm are displayed in Fig. 3c. The
measured central notch frequency is 5.81 GHz, which is in
satisfactory agreement with the simulation result.

Because of compact size, considerable band rejection, and

high Q-characteristic, the proposed v-shape slot is a very
good candidate for use in this notch-band UWB antenna.
Furthermore, as will be shown in the next section, the
desired centre notch frequency ( f0) can be easily adjusted
by sweeping one parameter, the radius r0 .

2.2 Parametric study

A numerical parametric study is carried out to evaluate the
performance sensitivity to the design parameters and to
obtain the optimum values. For brevity, we only evaluate
the effects of two important geometrical parameters, g2 and
R1 on the return loss of the proposed antenna as shown in
Figs. 4a and 4b, respectively.

The distance gap ( g2) adjusts the capacitance coupling

between the radiation element and ground plane, which plays
an important role on the antenna impedance matching Figure 5 Band-notched design
behaviour. As shown in Fig. 4c, the current distribution on a Normalised surface current distribution on the band-notched
Region-A where the feed line is connected to the radiation antenna with r0 ¼ 2.5 mm
element is high compared to other parts of radiating element b Centre frequency of notch versus r0 parameter

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Figure 6 Normalised radiation pattern of the proposed antenna at three frequencies

a E-plane at 3.5 GHz
b H-plane at 3.5 GHz
c E-plane at 6.5 GHz
d H-plane at 6.5 GHz
e E-plane at 9.5 GHz
f H-plane at 9.5 GHz

over the frequency range of interest. As a result, the geometrical
parameters of this region (such as g2) play an important role on
matching performance. Fig. 4a indicates that the lower and
upper frequencies of the bandwidth depend highly on the
parameter g2 . It is seen from Fig. 4b that the low edge of the
VSWR ,2 bandwidth does not change considerably with
respect to R1 , whereas the high-frequency performance is
sensitive to the variation of this parameter with an optimum
value of 4 mm. As shown in Fig. 4c, it is observed that the
ground plane, Region-B, is close to the region of radiating
element characterised by parameter R1 and has a large current
distribution at high frequencies compared to the current
distribution at lower frequencies. Therefore the coupling
between Region-B and radiation element is significantly
affected at high frequencies by changing the R1 parameter.
For the band-notched design, the normalised surface current
distributions at three frequencies, 3.5, 5.7 and 8.5 GHz are

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depicted in Fig. 5a. It can be seen that Slot-A resonates at the

centre frequency of the notch. The effect of r0 variation on the
centre notch frequency is also shown in Fig. 5b.

3 Radiation pattern and

dispersion analysis
3.1 Radiation pattern
The radiation patterns of the proposed antenna and band-
notched design were measured in an anechoic chamber
using a standard double Ridge Horn. The normalised
radiation patterns in the E-plane ( yz-) and H-plane (xz-)
at three different frequencies are shown in Fig. 6. There is
good agreement between the simulation and measurement
results. The antenna shows nearly donut shape radiation
pattern in the E-plane and almost omnidirectional
radiation pattern in the H-plane over the entire frequency
range of interest. It is also observed that the cross-
polarisation is more than 10 dB lower than the co-
polarisation in both E- and H-planes at most frequencies.
The relatively high cross-polarisation at a few cases can be
explained by observing the surface current distribution on
the radiation element (Fig. 4c). The cross-polarisation is
produced by the x-directed surface current. It is observed
that at frequencies where cross-polarisation exists, the
current distribution is large along the parts of the radiating
element, which contain the x-directed current. For
example, it is seen that the x-directed current distribution
at 9.5 GHz is strong at the corners of radiating element,

Figure 8 Transfer function measurement

a Tx/Rx setup
b The transfer function of the proposed antenna
c The transfer function of the band-notched design

which leads to a high cross-polarisation. The cross-

polarisation can also be explained in terms of an array of
two out of phase x-directed current dipoles at the top
corners of the radiating element. The notches at 08 and
1808 in the cross-polarisation pattern shown in Fig. 6f
correspond to the notches of the array factor, while the
notches at 908 and 2708 are due to the dipole element factor.

Fig. 7 shows the measured radiation pattern of the band-

Figure 7 Measured normalised radiation pattern of the notched design, which is normalised with respect to the
band-notched design with respect to the reference antenna reference antenna (antenna without Slot-A) for the
H-plane (2) and E-plane (O) of Ref. antenna, H-plane ( – ) and frequencies 3.5, 5.7, 6.5 and 8.5 GHz. For simplicity, only
E-plane (o) of band-notched design the co-polarisation patterns are reported. It can be seen

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change the radiation pattern significantly at the frequencies

out of the notched bandwidth.

3.2 Antenna transfer function

The dispersion characteristics of the antenna can be defined
by the magnitude of the transfer function (jS21j) and group
delay of the antenna Tx/Rx setup. Fig. 8a shows the
configuration used for the transfer function measurement.
The transfer function S21 can be written as
       
S21 f ¼ HTx f HCH f HRX f (2)

where HTX ( f ) and HRX ( f ) are the Tx and Rx antenna

Figure 9 Simulated and measured boresight gain of the
antenna
that at the central notch frequency ( f0 ¼ 5.7 GHz), the
radiation pattern in both E- and H-planes deteriorates and
drops more than 10 dB lower than the radiation pattern of
the reference antenna. The presence of the slot does not
transfer functions, respectively. Furthermore, HCH ( f ) is
the channel transfer function in free space. As a result,
ideally, when the antenna transfer function possesses almost
a flat magnitude and linear phase (constant group delay)
over the desired frequency range, the received pulse is not
noticeably distorted. In measurement setups, the antennas
are located d ¼ 20 cm away in front of each other in an
anechoic chamber. Using HP 8720 network analyser, the

Figure 10 The single-band scheme

a Pulse signal
b Normalised spectrum

Figure 11 The multiband scheme

a Normalised pulse signal
b Normalised spectrum of each subband pulse (—) and total spectrum of the signal (—o—)

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transfer function of the antenna is measured as shown in
Fig. 8b. It is observed that the magnitude of the transfer
function has low ripples and almost constant group delay
over the entire frequency range. As illustrated in Fig. 8c,
the transfer function of the band-notched design shows
that the antenna is non-responsive at notch band
frequencies. About 40 dB reduction of S21 ( f ) magnitude
and more than 5 ns variation of group delay is observed at
the centre frequency of the notch. Here, we only analyse
the boresight transfer function of the antennas. The
directional transfer function study will be discussed in the
next section in more detail.
The IEEE standard antenna gain can be obtained by
means of the antenna transfer function [17]
         
G f ¼ HTX f HRX f = 1  jS11 f j2
where S11 ( f ) is the input reflection coefficient of the
antenna. Using (2), (3) can be written as
     1    1
G f ¼ S21 f HCH f 1  jS11 f j2
which gives the measured boresight gain of the proposed
antenna as shown in Fig. 9. The measured results are also
compared with the simulated gain obtained by Ansoft
HFSS software. Good agreement is observed between the
simulated and measured results. It should be also noted
that compared to results reported in [3, 6, 7], the
boresight gain of the proposed antenna is positive in the
4 – 9.5 GHz frequency range where the UWB pulse
spectrum contains the main energy of signal. The peak
Figure 12 Virtual probes signals for single-band scheme
a xz-Plane
b yz-Plane
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gain of the proposed antenna varies between 2.15 and
4.25 dB.
3.3 Time-domain characteristics
Since the pulse source consideration and optimisation are
very important for UWB systems [27], the time-domain
performance of the proposed antenna is carefully
investigated in this section. For wireless systems using
UWB antennas, it is critical to evaluate the dispersive
behaviour for different angles between Tx and Rx antennas.
This is due to the fact that the antenna could
be low-dispersive at some limited angles, but high-
dispersive at other angles. We consider two schemes known
as single-band and multiband schemes for numerical
studies [12].
(3)
In the single-band scheme, we assume the fourth derivative
of the Gaussian function as a pulse source with the following
expression
  t 2  t 4  pffiffi 2
(4) st (t) ¼ Amax 3  6 þ eðt=s 2Þ (5)
s s
where Amax is the peak power spectral density that FCC allows.
The parameter s can be opted in order to satisfy the FCC
spectral mask. With Amax ¼ 1.27 V/m and s ¼ 50 ps, the
pulse signal and its normalised Fourier transform are shown
in Fig. 10.
In order to investigate the multiband scheme, we choose a
pulse source, which is the sum of the modulated Gaussian
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Figure 13 Virtual probes signals for multiband scheme

a xz-Plane
b yz-Plane

Table 1 Fidelity factor for single-band and multiband schemes

Probe position (u) 08 308 458 608 908

single-band H-plane 0.97 0.962 0.92 0.855 0.812
E-plane 0.97 0.927 0.9 0.877 0.821
multiband H-plane 0.94 0.873 0.794 0.734 0.71
E-plane 0.94 0.863 0.838 0.828 0.82

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antenna probes is directional, the received pulse shape

depends on the location of the probes (u).

4 Parametric model of the

proposed antenna
In this section, the matrix-pencil method [20] is used to
calculate the pole/residue model of the Tx/Rx system using
the proposed antenna. The parametric model of the antenna
system transfer function is expressed as
Figure 14 Tx/Rx system for different orientations  
  S f
HSYS f ¼ 21   (8)
pulses with different carriers [13] expressed as HCH f

X
N   
2 It is noted that the transfer function of the antenna (S21)
st (t) ¼ sin 2p fc þ nDfm t  nT0 eðtnT0 =sÞ (6) depends on the signal propagation direction and the
n¼0
distance between the transmitter and receiver. As a result,
the antenna system transfer function (HSYS) should be
By choosing s ¼ 558 ps, we have T0 ¼ 2.7 ns (5s). This determined for several Tx/Rx setups with different
generates six modulated pulses with Dfm ¼ 1.25 GHz 10-dB orientations. Different Rx orientations are displayed in
bandwidth to cover the whole frequency range of interest Fig. 14. By measuring the S21( f ) parameter for different
(3.1–10.6 GHz). The carrier frequencies are opted to be directions, the directional HSYS( f ) can be achieved from
( fc ¼ 3.5 þ 1.25n) GHz where n ¼ 0, . . . , 5. Fig. 11 shows (8). The impulse response of the antenna system transfer
the modulated pulse in multiband scheme and its related function can then be calculated as
normalised spectrum. Using CST Microwave Studio software
[28], we performed the transceiver setup, which consists of an  
X
N
antenna as transmitter and nine virtual probes (co-pol) as hsys ðt Þ ¼ =1 HSYS f ¼ Rn esn t (9)
receivers. The virtual probes are located in both xz- (H-) and n¼1
yz- (E-) planes at u ¼ 08, 308, 458, 608 and 908. Note that
the probe located at u ¼ 08 is identical for the H- and
E-planes. The received probe signals for the single-band and
multiband schemes are shown in Figs. 12 and 13,
respectively. In the single-band scheme, the received pulses in
H- and E-planes show that the antenna does not impose
significant distortion on the transmitted pulse. As shown in
Figs. 13a and 13b, the received signals envelope complies
with the magnitude of the transfer functions between the
antenna and each of the probes in the multiband scheme. To
evaluate the similarity between the transmitted and received
signals more precisely, we use the fidelity factor (F) which is
defined as [29]
Ð þ1
1 st (t) sr (t  t)dt
F ¼ max qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Ð þ1   Ð   ffi (7)
t
s (t)2 dt  þ1 s (t)2 dt
1 t 1 r

where st(t) and sr(t) are the transmitted and received pulses,
respectively. The fidelity factor between virtual probe signals
and the transmitted pulse for both single-band and multiband
schemes are reported in Table 1. A fairly satisfactory fidelity
factor is observed for both schemes. In the single-band
scheme, the antenna shows a fidelity factor greater than 0.8 in
both E- and H-planes. In the multiband scheme, the fidelity
factor is greater than 0.7 and 0.8 in H- and E-planes, Figure 15 Impulse response of the proposed antenna
respectively. It should be noted that a pulse in the multiband system
scheme is more distorted compared to a pulse in the single- a At u ¼ 08
band scheme. Since the transfer function between the b Pole/Residue schematic

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where =1 is the inverse Fourier transform,

sn ¼ (an þ j2pfn) are the poles, Rn are residues, which are
obtained by using matrix-pencil method. N is the order of
the model. Here an and fn are damping coefficients and
frequencies, respectively. The frequency domain model can
then be obtained as

X
N
Rn
HSYS ðvÞ ¼ (10)
n¼1
j v  sn

By performing the Tx/Rx system (Fig. 14) at three

orientations (u ¼ 08, 458, 908), the directional S21( f ) of
the proposed antenna is measured. The distance between
Tx and Rx is d ¼ 20 cm for each u. Using (8), HSYS( f )
of the proposed antenna is then obtained at different
orientations. Consequently, the impulse response of
system transfer function is achieved by taking the inverse
Fourier transform. The pole/residue model of the
antenna system is then calculated using the matrix-pencil
method.

Fig. 15a shows the impulse response of the antenna system

when u ¼ 08. The measured result is obtained from the
measured S21( f ) shown in Fig. 8b. It is found that N ¼ 22
provides an accurate pole/residue model. The poles and
residues are reported in Table 2 and are shown
schematically in Fig. 15b. The number of samples used in
the matrix-pencil method is K ¼ 100. Following [30], the
pencil parameter L ¼ K/2 is chosen so that K/
Figure 16 Directional impulse response of the proposed
3 , L , 2K/3. More details on the matrix-pencil method
antenna system
are given in [20, 30, 31].
a Transfer function of Tx/Rx setup (S21( f )) for u ¼ 458 and 908
cases
The measured transfer function of Tx/Rx system for two b hsys(t) for u ¼ 458 and 908 cases
other orientations (u ¼ 458, 908) is shown in Fig. 16a. Since
the poles obtained for one optional orientation (here u ¼ 08)
can be used in model calculation for other orientations with a little accuracy degradation, the antenna system model for
458 and 908 orientations is calculated using the poles of
the model for u ¼ 08 as demonstrated in Fig. 16b. The
Table 2 Poles and residues (N ¼ 22) residues for these orientations are obtained from the
Pole (109) Residue (109) measured S21 . For brevity, the related residues for u ¼ 458
and 908 are not reported. It can be seen that the measured
20.617 + 16.969j 0.0372 + 0.0709j result is in very good agreement with the obtained model.
21.563 + 21.331j 0.5076 + 0.0753j As a result, the antenna system can be efficiently
characterised for other orientations using the directional
22.166 + 25.881j 0.1878 + 1.2849j pole/residue model.
22.849 + 31.184j 21.8813 + 0.3344j
24.202 + 38.260j 22.4963 + 1.7690j 5 Conclusion
23.831 + 42.207j 3.4848 + 2.4418j In this paper, a miniaturised CPW-fed antenna is presented for
UWB applications. Besides the acceptable impedance
21.071 + 70.605j 0.2373 + 0.0673j
bandwidth, the antenna shows a stable radiation pattern over
22.047 + 67.308j 20.1366 + 0.5522j the entire frequency range of interest. Extended from the
proposed antenna, a band-notched design is introduced to
22.628 + 60.943j 21.1025 + 0.0575j
reject the WLAN frequency band (5.15–5.825 GHz). It is
24.201 + 49.485j 3.7285 + 0.8484j shown that by cutting a v-shape slot on the antenna surface,
more than 10 dB gain reduction can be achieved in both E-
23.488 + 52.941j 22.1644 + 2.8005j
and H-planes at the notch-band frequencies. The sensitivity

984 IET Microw. Antennas Propag., 2009, Vol. 3, Iss. 6, pp. 974– 986
& The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2009 doi: 10.1049/iet-map.2008.0253

Authorized licensed use limited to: University Kebangsaan Malaysia. Downloaded on July 19,2010 at 09:58:16 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.

analysis is performed to evaluate the effect of some design
parameters variations on the antenna performance. The
proposed antenna and band-notched design performance is
also investigated experimentally. A good agreement is
observed between the simulation and the measurement
results. The frequency domain dispersion analysis is studied
by means of the antenna transfer function. The antenna
shows a low-dispersive behaviour with almost constant group
delay over the desired frequency range. In order to evaluate
the time-domain performance of the antenna, both the
single-band and multiband schemes are considered. The
results show that the transmitted pulse distortion is not
significant for both schemes. Considering that the proposed
antenna shows an acceptable performance over the UWB
frequency band, the Tx/Rx antenna system is characterised by
an efficient parametric model. The parametric model is
provided by a number of poles and residues after applying the
matrix-pencil method. It is shown that the antenna system
can be modelled by a set of 22 poles in all directions.
The proposed antenna characteristics such as small size,
light weight, low-manufacturing cost, sufficient bandwidth,
stable radiation pattern, and low-dispersive behaviour shows
that the proposed antenna is a very good candidate for
UWB applications.
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doi: 10.1049/iet-map.2008.0253