Single-Elem

ment Reeconfigurable Planarr Ultra Wideba

W and
Anteenna fo
or Cogn
nitive Radio
R Frront Ennd
Tam
mer Aboufoul Akram
m Alomainyy
School of Ele
ectronic Engineering and School of Electtronic Enginee
ering and
Commputer Sciencce Comp puter Science
Queen Maryry University of
o London Queen Mary University of London
Mile End Road, Lon ndon d Road, Londo
Mile End on
E1 4NS S, United Kinggdom E1 4NS, United Kingdom
+4447769323946 6 2078823324
+442
ta302@
@eecs.qmul..ac.uk akkram.aloma
ainy@eecs.qmul.ac
.uk

A
ABSTRACT
T Anoother type of recconfigurable anttennas that targeeted the CR
A simple UW WB microstrip p monopole antenna withh operaation is the UWB B antennas with reconfigurable band notch.
reconfigurable multi band
d function is presented. Severral designs off UWB antennna with bandd rejection
R
Reconfigurability y is achieved by b using multipple switches too charaacteristics have been
b successfullyy implemented [7-9].
c
control the lenngth of differeent printed stuubs. Reflectionn Theree are several methods in which antennaas can be
c
coefficient, radiiation patterns and gain meeasurements aree reconnfigured. The moost common devveloped techniquues focus on
p
presented to verify the simulation
ns. Finally the tootal efficiency off switchhing mechanism ms by using switcches such as MEEMS or PIN
thhe antenna is characterized
c an
nd it is comparred to the totall diodees. Other techniqques such as thee incorporation of varactors
e
efficiency of the original UWB antenna.
a or chhanging the antenna
a geomettry by some mechanical
adjustments have been utilized to get g around manny problems
C
Categories a Subjectt Descriptorrs
and facedd in using switches and their biassing.
C.2.1 [Compu
C uter-Communiccation Networrks]: Networkk
In the proposed anntenna configuraability is achievved by using
A
Architecture andd Design – Wireleess Communicattion
differrent stubs of diffferent lengths. These microstriip stubs can
G
General Terrms be coonnected to the monopole
m microostrip feedline and
a multiple
M
Measurement, Peerformance, Dessign, Theory switchhes can change the
t length of thee stubs.
The proposed antennna is flexible inn terms of the avvailability of
K
Keywords differrent reconfigurattion bands and the
t antenna is compact
c and
UWB Monopolee Antenna, Recon
U nfigurable Multii Band Antenna, simplle and most impportantly, radiattion patterns rem main almost
C
Cognitive Radio Antenna, UWB Antenna Efficieency unchaanged when wee change betweeen the UWB opperation and
the reeconfigurable moode.
1 INTROD
1. DUCTION Inn Section 2, the Antenna designn is presented. In
I Section 3
Cognitive radio can dynamicallly adapt itself and always bee
C we show
s the compparison betweenn simulated andd measured
a
aware of the varying con nditions of thhe surroundingg t reconfiguration affected
resultts. In Section 4 we show how the
e
environment throough interacting and learning too reach better sett the effficiency of the antenna.
a
o system param
of meters and achiev ve reliable commmunications withh
h
highly efficient utilization
u of the spectrum resourrces [1].
For the coggnitive radio scanning
s and communication,
reconfigurable anntennas can be used
u which will lead to simplifyy
thhe RF front endd design [2]. Onne of the approoaches to deployy
reconfigurable anntennas in Cogn nitive Radio RFF front end is too
u an UWB anntenna for senssing the spectruum and anotherr
use
reconfigurable naarrow band anteenna for communnication purposee
[3-4]. Another appproach is to usse one antenna for
f both sensingg
a communication by reconfigu
and uring the UWB antenna to workk
innto multiple prredefined frequen
ncy bands [5-6]..

Permission to makke digital or hard copies

P c of all or parrt of this work for
p
personal or classrooom use is granted without fee proovided that copies
a not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that
are Figure 1. Geeometry of the proposed
p anten
nna.
c
copies bear this nootice and the full citation on the firrst page. To copy
o
otherwise, or repuublish, to post on servers or to reddistribute to lists,
r
requires prior speciific permission and/or a fee.
C
CogArt ‘11, Octobber 26–29, 2011, Barcelona,
B Spain
C
Copyright © 20111 ACM ISBN 978--1-4503-0912-7/111/10... $10.00"
2. ANTENNA DESIGN are off, the antenna is functioning as an UWB antenna (3.1-10
The original UWB antenna was proposed in [10-11]. The GHz), in this case the antenna is used to scan the whole UWB
proposed reconfigurable monopole antenna is illustrated in spectrum to check for any spectrum holes (e.g. sensing mode).
Figure 1 and the detailed sizes are presented in Table I.
Switches (1, 1') connect stub a to the antenna microstrip feed
line. Switches (2, 3, 4, 2', 3', 4') Control the length of stub b,
while switches (5, 6, 7, 5', 6', 7') control the length of stub c.

Table 1. Dimensions of the proposed reconfigurable antenna

Dimension (mm)
Substrate width (W) 42
Substrate length (L) 50
Circular disk radius ( r ) 10
Stubs and feed line widths (W’) 2.6
Stub a triangular end width (W’’) 6.5
Partial ground length (L’) 20
Length of gap between the circular 0.33
disk and ground plane (g) Figure 3. Simulated (dotted red line) and measured (solid
Length of ground notch (h) 1 blue line) return loss curves when all switches are off.

3.2 Reconfigurable Antenna Operation

Figure 2. Geometry of the proposed antenna.

A prototype antenna was fabricated to verify the

performance. Figure 2 shows the proposed prototype antenna.
The RF Switches used in this prototype are realized as metal
pads with dimensions 2 mm× 2.6 mm. Although this model is
ideal, it gives a good approximation for the real commercial pin
diode switches. The RF switches can also be realized by means
of either GaAs FETs or MEMS technology. Having multiple
switches gives too many reconfigurable cases but in this article
we are going to investigate reconfiguration at four frequency sub
bands: band I: 2.2-2.6 GHz, band II: 3.2-4.4 GHz, band III: 4.4-
5.4 GHz and finally band IV: 6.5-7.5 GHz.
Figure 4. Simulated return loss curves when antenna is
reconfigured at: I) 2.4 GHz, II) 3.2-4.4GHz, III) 4.4-5.4 GHz,
IV) 6.5-7.5GHz
The simulated and measured return loss curves for the
reconfigurable UWB are shown in Figure 4 and Figure 5
respectively. Table 2 shows the corresponding switch states for
each of the reconfigurable frequency bands.

3. SIMULATION AND MEASURMENT

RESULTS

3.1 UWB Operation

CST 2011 Microwave studio was used for simulations and
performance optimizations. Figure 3 shows the simulated and
measured return loss curves for the UWB antenna when all stubs
are disconnected from the antenna feed line. When all switches
 Figure 5. Measured return loss curves when antenna is
reconfigured at: I) 2.4 GHz, II) 3.2-4.4 GHz, III) 4.4-5.4
GHz, IV) 6.5-7.5 GHz.

Table 2. Switches states for Reconfiguration frequency

bands Figure 7. Simulated (solid red line) and measured (dotted
blue line) normalised E-plane and H-plane radiation
Reconfigured frequency ‘ON’ switches patterns, when antenna is configured at: (a) 2.4 GHz in band
bands I (b) 3.3 GHz in band II.
I 5, 5’
II 5, 5’, 6’, 7’
III All on
IV 2, 2’, 3, 3’ 3.4 Radiation Patterns and Gain
The radiation patterns have been simulated and also
3.3 Surface Current measured inside an anechoic chamber. The measured and the
The simulated current distributions of the reconfigured UWB simulated normalized radiation patterns at 2.4 GHz in frequency
circular disk monopole antenna are presented in Figure 6. Figure band I and 3.3 GHz in frequency band II, are plotted in Figure 7.
6(a) shows the surface current at 7 GHz which is in the Figure 8 shows the measured and the simulated normalized
reconfiguration frequency band number IV. Figure 6(b) presents radiation patterns at 5 GHz in frequency band III and 7 GHz in
the current distribution near 3 GHz which is an out of band frequency band IV.
frequency. At 3 GHz (an out of band frequency) the stubs are The measured H-plane patterns are omnidirectional and they
perturbing the surface current and the current is significantly are very close to those obtained in the simulation.
reduced along the radiating edges of the disk. The simulated E-plane pattern is a doughnut shape like a
traditional monopole. There are some distortions on the
measured curves, these ripples are caused by the feed connector
and the coaxial cable used in the measurement.

When we go up in frequency, the E-plane radiation patterns

become more directional and the back lobes become smaller.
This is because the partial ground is getting electrically bigger
compared to the wavelength.

Table 3 summarizes a comparison of the realized peak gain

between the UWB case and the reconfigured cases. The
reconfigured cases show slight increase in peak gain compared
to the UWB at the same frequencies.

Figure 6. Simulated current distribution of the Reconfigured

UWB antenna, band IV at (a) 7 GHz. (b) 3 GHz.
 Where is the net total power applied to the antenna input
terminal, is the fraction of reflected power at the antenna input
and is antenna input reflection coefficient.

The experimental setup used to measure the antenna

efficiency is shown in Figure 9. A modified wheeler cap
method, as proposed in [13-14], was used to measure the total
efficiency of the UWB and the reconfigured antenna. The
Wheeler cap used is a cylindrical metallic cap with a radius of 8
cm and the height of the cylinder is 12.5 cm.

Figure 8. Simulated (solid red line) and measured (dotted

blue line) normalised E-plane and H-plane radiation
patterns, when antenna is configured at: (a) 5 GHz in band
III (b) 7 GHz in band IV.

Table 3. Simulated and Measured Realized Gain

Frequency Gain(dBi)
(GHz) UWB Reconfigurable UWB
Simulated Measured Simulated Measured Figure 9. Antenna radiation efficiency measurement setup
2.4 Band(I) 1.6 1.25 2.1 2.7 using a cylindrical Wideband Wheeler cap probed by an
3.3 Band(II) 2.7 2.5 2.8 3.1 Agilent network analyser (the cap is completely closed when
5 Band(III) 2.1 2.5 2.2 3.5 taking measurements).
7 Band(IV) 4.1 4.4 4.5 5.1

Figure 10 depicts the measured values of the total efficiency

4. ANTENNA EFFICIENCY
Radiation efficiency is the ratio of input power that ends up
as radiated power to the net power accepted by the antenna and
it can be written in the following form [12]:
(1)
Where is radiated power and is the power
accepted at the input port of the antenna.
Usually we are interested in the total efficiency by including
the impedance mismatch factor, so the total efficiency will be
the ratio of the total power radiated from the antenna to the total
net power applied at the antenna input terminal, so the total
efficiency can be written as follows:
when the antenna is operating in the UWB mode and when the
antenna is configured to band I and band II. Table 4 shows the
comparison between the simulated and measured values of the
total efficiency for both the UWB antenna and the
reconfigurable antenna at 4 different frequency bands.
When the antenna was reconfigured from UWB to work into
multiple frequency band sections, the total efficiency has
improved by (15% - 20%) compared to the UWB case, and
therefore the radiated power will also increase by almost the
same amount compared to the UWB antenna radiated power.

(2)

1 ρ 1 | | (3)
 6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors are grateful to Mr John Dupuy of the school of
Electronic Engineering and Computer science, QMUL for his
help in the fabrication of the antenna.

7. REFERENCES
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Modified wheeler cap method was used to measure the radiation
and total efficiency of the antenna. The total efficiency was
good in the reconfigured frequency sub bands, and it was poor in
the out of band frequencies which highlights the filtering role of
the reconfiguration process that eases the burden on the RF front
end digital signal processing unit.