A Time Domain Study of CPW-Fed Disk

Monopole for UWB Applications

L.Guo, J.Liang, Student Member, IEEE, C.G.Parini, Member, IEEE, X.Chen, Member, IEEE

Department of Electronic Engineering, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London, E1
4NS, UK
here in order to obtain the measured received pulse. To study
Abstract—In this paper, a time domain investigation of more in detail the time domain behavior of the antenna, various
coplanar waveguide (CPW) fed disk monopole is presented. First, measurements for different antenna pair orientations were also
a brief description of antenna geometry and its frequency domain performed. It has been demonstrated that the CPW-Fed disk
behavior are illustrated. And then an elaborate time domain study
of the antenna is emphatically addressed. It has been shown that
monopole exhibits a good performance in both frequency and
the CPW-Fed disk monopole demonstrates a good performance in time domain. The simulations were obtained using CST
both frequency and time domain. Microwave Studio TM [4], which is based on a time domain
Finite Integration Technique for electromagnetic computation.
Index Terms—antenna transient analysis; planar disk
monopole; UWB antennas.
II. ANTENNA CONFIGURATION AND FREQUENCY DOMAIN
BEHAVIOR
I. INTRODUCTION
The CPW-Fed disk monopole investigated in this paper has a
Ultra-Wideband (UWB) technology has attracted more and single layer-metallic structure, as shown in Fig. 1. A circular
more attention from both academia and industry due to its disk monopole with a radius of r=12.5mm and a 50 Ω-CPW are
amazing advantages in recent years [1]. As it is the case in printed on the same side of a dielectric substrate. More
conventional wireless communication systems, an antenna also structural details about this antenna can be found in a previous
plays a very crucial role in UWB systems. However, there are paper [5]. Fig. 2 illustrates the simulated and the measured
more challenges in designing a UWB antenna than a narrow return loss curves. As can be seen, CPW-Fed disk monopole
band one [2]. For the narrow band case, it is approximated that can yield a satisfactory ultra wide –10dB bandwidth in both
an antenna has the same performance over the entire bandwidth simulation and measurement.
and the basic parameters, such as gain and return loss, vary
little across the operational band. In contrast, UWB systems
often employ extremely short pulses to deliver information. In
other words, enormous bandwidth has been occupied. Thus the
antenna can’t be treated as a “spot filter” anymore but a
“band-pass filter”. In this case, the antenna parameters will
have to be treated as functions of frequency. Furthermore, a
successful transmission and reception of UWB signals entails
minimization of ringing, spreading and distortion of the pulses
in the time domain [3]. Therefore, it is indispensable and
important to study the antenna’s characteristics in the time
domain.
50Ω
In this paper, a planar CPW-Fed disk monopole is
investigated both numerically and experimentally. First, the
configuration and frequency domain behavior of the antenna
εr
are described. And detailed transient characteristics of the Fig. 1. Geometry of the CPW-Fed disk monopole
antenna are studied next. A convolution approach is proposed

0-7803-9433-X/05/$20.00 ©2005 IEEE. APMC2005 Proceedings

 0 0
Measured Simulated a=30ps
-5 a=45ps

Normalized power spectral density

-10 -5 a=80ps

-15
Return Loss, dB

-20 -10
-25
-30
-15
-35
-40
-20
-45
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Frequency, GHz
-25
Fig. 2. Simulated and measured return loss 0 5 10 15 20
Frequenc y (GHz)
Fig. 4. PDS of first-order Rayleigh pulse with different a

III. TIME DOMAIN BEHAVIOR OF CPW-FED DISK MONOPOLE From the figure above, it is clearly shown that the first-order
Rayleigh pulses with different a will lead to different signal’s
A. System set-up
–10dB bandwidth, as summarized in Table .1. Apparently, the
In this paper, two identical CPW-Fed disk monopoles pulse with a=45ps is closest matched with UWB band, so it will
comprise the antenna pair. The antenna pair is vertically placed, be selected as the input pulse for measurements in this study.
the distance between them is set to 1200 mm, and three
orientations will be investigated, namely face-to-face, Table. 1. –10dB Bandwidth of Input signals
side-by-side and side-to-face orientations, as shown in Fig. 3.
Lower End Upper End Bandwidth
a (ps)
(GHz) (GHz) (GHz)

30 1.5 16.6 15.1

45 1.0 11.1 10.1

80 0.55 6.2 5.65

Fig.3. Three antenna pair orientations

B. Source pulse C. Radiated power spectral density

In this study, the first-order Rayleigh pulse is chosen as the
input signal which has the form of equation (1).
2t
f (t) = − 2 e
a can fully meet the emission limit mask. For a=30ps, the
where, the pulse parameter a stands for the characteristic
time. Large a corresponds to wide waveform in the time
domain but narrow bandwidth in frequency domain. The power
density spectrums (PDS) of first-order Rayleigh pulses with
different a are depicted in Fig .4.
According to FCC regulations, emission limits should also
be taken into account. The spectra of radiated pulses should
compliant with the regulation to avoid possible interference
between UWB and other existing systems. Fig .5 plots the FCC
t
− ( ) 2 indoor emission mask and radiated PDS of first-order Rayleigh
a
(1)
pulses. It is manifest that none of the first-order Rayleigh pulses
emission level is higher than the mask both below 3.1 GHz and
above 10.6 GHz. For a=45ps and a=80ps cases, the mask can
be met at higher frequency range but its lower end can’t be
satisfied. However, the input signal and the antenna can be
optimally co-designed to meet the mask, which will be reported
in a future publication.
 -40

From the figures above, it is noticed that the magnitude of

-60
transfer function (TF) undergoes a null at 9 GHz, and the phase
Power Spectral Density, dBm/Mhz

of TF is non-linear within the 0.5-0.8 GHz and 8.9-9.1 GHz

-80
frequency bands. These will definitely cause distortion of the
input signal. The measured received pulse is obtained by
-100
applying the aforementioned convolution approach. A
-120
comparison between simulated and measured results is plotted
FCC emission mask (Indoor)
in Fig .7. As can be seen from the figure, good agreement
-140 a=30ps between the simulated and measured received pulses is
a=45ps
a=80ps
observed, and a limited ringing effect is seen. Therefore, the
-160 CPW-Fed disk monopole demonstrates a good performance in
0 5 10 15
Frequenc y (GHz) time domain.
Fig. 5. Radiated PDS of first-order Rayleigh pulses
1
Measured
D. Measured received pulse Simulated
0.5
The antenna system can be modeled as a linear, time
invariant system, so the received signal can be calculated by

Normalized signal level

convolving the input pulse and impulse response of the antenna 0
system. In this study, the transfer function over the 1200 mm
path (magnitude together with phase) was measured using a HP -0.5
8720ES network analyzer, and it is firstly transformed to the
time domain by performing the Inverse Fourier Transform. It is
-1
then convolved with the input pulse, and the measured UWB
pulse is consequently obtained. Fig .6 displays the measured
magnitude and phase of the transfer function for face-to-face -1.5
4 4.5 5 5.5 6 6.5 7
orientation. Time (ns)
Fig. 7. Simulated and measured received pulse (a=45ps)
-40
Apart from face-to-face orientation, side-to-face and
-50 side-by-side orientations were also investigated. Fig .8
illustrates the measured received signal for different antenna
M agnitude (dB)

-60
pair orientations. It is evident that the received pulses are
-70
almost identical, which indicates the omni-directional radiation
-80 property of CPW-Fed disk monopole.
-90
1
Fac e-to-Fac e
-100 0.8 Side-by -Side
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
0.6 Side-to-Fac e
Frequency (GHz)
Normalized signal level

0.4

200 0.2

0
100 -0.2
Phase (degree)

-0.4
0
-0.6

-0.8
-100
-1
4 4.5 5 5.5 6 6.5 7
Time (ns)
-200
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 Fig. 8. Measured received signal (a=45ps) for different antenna orientations
Frequency (GHz)
Fig. 6. Measured magnitude and phase of transfer function
 IV. CONCLUSION
This paper has investigated the time domain characteristics
of CPW-Fed disk monopole. A convolution approach has been
proposed to obtain the measured received pulses. It is shown
that the CPW-Fed disk monopole exhibits a good performance
in both frequency and time domain and demonstrates its
suitability for UWB applications.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank John Dupuy for his help on
the antenna fabrications. The authors also would like to
acknowledge Computer Simulation Technology (CST),
Germany, for the complimentary license of the Microwave
StudioTM package.

REFERENCES
[1] Liuqing Yang, Giannakis, G.B: “Ultra-wideband communications: an
idea whose time has come”, IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, vol.21,
no.6, pp26-54, 2004.
[2] Yazdandoost, K.Y, Kohno, R: “Ultra wideband antenna”, IEEE
Communication Magazine, vol.42, no.6, pp29-32, 2004.
[3] Johnna Powell, Anantha Chandrakasan: “ Spiral Slot Patch Antenna and
Circular Disk Monopole Antenna for 3.1-10.6 GHz Ultra Wideband
Communication”, ISAP 2004, Sendai, Japan, August 2004.
[4] CST-Microwave Studio, User’s Manual, 4, 2002.
[5] J.Liang, L.Guo, C.C.Chiau, X.Chen and C.G.Parini: “Study of CPW-Fed
circular disk monopole antenna”, IEE Proceedings Microwaves,
Antennas & Propagation, 2005. Accepted for publication.