1438 PIERS Proceedings, Beijing, China, March 2327, 2009

Microstrip Slot Antenna with a Finite Ground Plane for

3.110.6 GHz Ultra Wideband Communication
Huan-Cheng Lien1 , Yung-Cheng Lee1 , Wen-Fei Lee2 , and Huei-Chiou Tsai2
1
Department of Security Management, WuFeng Institute of Technology, Taiwan
2
Department of Electrical Engineering, WuFeng Institute of Technology, Taiwan

Abstract This paper introduces an Ultra Wideband microstrip Slot Antenna conformed to
craving for the band of IEEE802.15.3a UWB (3.1 GHz 10.6 GHz) communication. In this
paper, the design for enhancing impedance bandwidth of wideband microstrip slotting antenna
with a finite ground plane is proposed and studied. With this design, a matching impedance
bandwidth (SWR 2) about of more than 146% was achieved; as a result, the bandwidth can
be located at the wireless communications from 2.3 GHz to 12 GHz. The variations of gain are
changing from 0.2 to 6.98 dBi. In addition, the design has been a planar profile and it can easily
be integrated in small mobile units; besides, it also can be in the laptops or various remote-sensing
devices etc..

1. INTRODUCTION
In the communication systems, to develop small size, lightweight, low profile, broad bandwidth, and
proper polarization are fundamental demands in the antenna design for the miniaturization of the
communication equipment. Microstrip antennas have many desirable features, such as low profile,
lightweight, and are usually fabricated by a photolithographic etching process or a mechanical
milling process of these kinds antennas, making the construction relatively easy and inexpensive.
These features make microstrip antennas are one of the most widely used types of antennas in
the microwave frequency range, and they are often useful for many applications in the satellite
communication and mobile communication systems. However, the major drawback of these kinds
of antennas inherently has limited impedance bandwidth (VSWR? 2), if the narrow bandwidth
of the microstrip antenna can be widened, then it can serve as a dual antenna for second- and
third-generations of mobile communications systems. Therefore, developing broadband techniques
to enhance the bandwidths of the microstrip antennas is very important.
Recently, most of the research on microstrip antennas focused on methods to increase their
bandwidth. Slot antennas exhibit wider bandwidth, lower dispersion and lower radiation loss than
microstrip antennas, and when feeding by a coplanar waveguide they also provide an easy means of
the parallel and series connection of active and passive elements that are required for improving the
impedance matching and gain [1]. The U-slot antenna, which achieves a relatively broad bandwidth
without a parasitic patch, has been reported [2]. A lot of slot antennas for enhancing impedance
bandwidth have been investigated [35].
A broader bandwidth, obtained using an improved feeding method, has also been reported [6].
It is very important to choose a suitable feeding circuit since it controls the antenna performance in
terms of bandwidth. A bandwidth of 10 GHz ultra wide bands square planar metal-plate monopole
antennas has been proposed propos ing in a 3D geometric configuration [7]. However, this 3D
geometry designs needs more space, which is not suitable for mobile terminals, where the space is
very limited.
The recent allocation of the 3.110.6 GHz frequency spectrums by the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) for Ultra Wideband (UWB) radio applications has had presented challenges for
the antenna designers. For many UWB wireless communications, the successful transmission and
reception of UWB pulses, sufficient impedance matching, the characteristics of the antenna with
omni directional radiation pattern, high radiation efficiency, and easy manufacturing are required.
In this paper, a novel design of microstrip slot antenna with a finite ground plane for the desired
band of IEEE802.15.3a UWB (3.1 GHz 10.6 GHz) is studied. This design of the proposed antenna
is different from that of the other slot antennas with a tuning stub to enhance impedance band-
width [812], and successfully implemented and the simulated results show reasonable agreement
with the measured results. From experimental results, the proposed antenna shows that geome-
tries can a significant increase in the impedance bandwidth obviously and, with respect to 10-dB
impedance, the widest band obtained was 95%. Radiation patterns and gains are also examined.
Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium, Beijing, China, March 2327, 2009 1439

2. DESIGN AND REALIZATION

The configuration of the ultra wideband microstrip slot patch antenna is shown in Fig. 1. The
antenna has compact dimensions of 30.5 35.3 mm2 , which consists of wide-slot ground plane with
the same four small corners, fork-like U-type radiating element, a 50 O microstrip feed line, a small
parasitical ground plane and a finite ground plane. Where the fork-like U-type radiating element
and the 50 O microstrip feed line is coplanar with place in the back of the wide-slot ground plane,
and printed on the substrate FR4 of thickness 1.6 mm and relative permittivity 4.4.

Z
W1
Small parasitical ground plane

ab Feed line U-type radiator

h
L2 L1
Z Wide-slot ground plane
t
W2
SMA connector
X
X
(a) Wide-slot ground plane (b) Cross section

Figure 1: Configurations of the ultra wideband microstrip slot antenna with a small parasitical ground plane.

The internal and external wide-slot ground plane has dimensions of L1 (L 2) wide, W1 (W 2)
long, respectively. The dimension of the small corner is Xa by Y b. The fork-like U-type radiating
element is divided into three parts., These dimensions are `1 by w1 , `2 by w2 , and `3 by w3 ,
respectively. The small parasitical ground plane finite ground plane has dimensions of x wide y
long, and the thickness of d, that is suspended at h mm under the fork-like U-type radiating element,
and connected to the 50 ohms SMA connector. By properly adjusting the dimensions of the small
parasitical ground plane finite ground plane, the radiator element, and the spacing h of between
the small parasitical finite ground planes relative to the radiating element, a better impedance
matching can be achieved. The design optimized parameters of all the components are listed in the
Table 1. A photograph of the fabricated rectangular patch antenna is shown in Fig. 2.

Table 1: The relative parameters of the proposed antenna (Unit: mm).

1 U-type radiating element c = 0.9, d = 10, e = 10.4, f = 1.1

2 Rectangular microstrip feed line 3 4.12
L2 = 23.9, W2 = 30.5
3 Wide-slot ground plane
L1 = 35.3, W1 = 42.8
4 small parasitical ground plane x = 16, y = 8, thickness = 0.35
5 SMA connector 50 ohm
6 small corner a = 2.5, b = 3.2
FR4 Dielectric substrate r1 = 4.4, tan = 0.022
RO Dielectric substrate r2 = 3.38, tan = 0.0025

3. MEASUREMENTS AND DISCUSSION

The design was also analyzed using Zeland Softwares IE3D simulation package. According to
the above-mentioned design optimized parameters of all the components are listed in the Table 1,
the performance of impedance bandwidth is improved for y is between 8 mm 9 mm. Using an
HP8720D vector network analyzer, the return loss curves of both simulated and measured with
the finite ground plane proposed antenna is obtained at 2 12 GHz, as depicted in Fig. 3. The
comparison between the measurements and software predictions are very close. The difference
between the two graphs is also due to the fact that the proposed antenna was built on a finite
1440 PIERS Proceedings, Beijing, China, March 2327, 2009

U-type radiator cd

e f

Y
X
Z
Top view

Figure 2: Configuration top view of the wideband Figure 3: Measured and simulated return loss for
slot antenna with a small parasitical ground plane. the proposed antenna.

finite ground plane (102 mm 76.2 mm) and the parasitical ground plane, while the computations
assume an infinite ground plane. For the 10 dB return loss, the measured maximum impedance
bandwidth of the proposed antenna is from 2.3 GHz to 12 GHz, corresponding to an impedance
bandwidth of 136.6 percent centered at on 7.1 GHz. Here, the impact of the finite finite ground
plane is more pronounced. Therefore, the proposed antenna has good impedance bandwidth for
the band of IEEE802.15.3a.
The radiation patterns of the proposed antennas with a finite ground plane are measured. Fig. 4
plot the measured radiation E-plane patterns patterned at on 3.1 GHz for the proposed antenna.
From the measured test results, the finite ground plane does not dominate the radiation power
patterns. Fig. 5 shows the measured gain versus the frequency. Within the operating frequency
band, the gain of the proposed antenna is 0.04 dBi to 6.98 dBi for the antenna with finite ground
plane.

dBi

Frequency (GHz)

Figure 4: The experimental E-plane patterns of pro- Figure 5: Measured and simulated gains versus fre-
posed antenna. quency.
Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium, Beijing, China, March 2327, 2009 1441

4. CONCLUSIONS
A new ultra-wideband antenna has been proposed for UWB applications. This The proposed
antenna is uses employing a fork-like U-type radiating element structure with a finite ground
plane and wide-slot ground plane for bandwidth enhancement. The simulated results conducted
by the Zeland Softwares IE3D simulation package show reasonable agreement with the measured
results. The obtained results show an impedance bandwidth of more than 137% covering the whole
IEEE802.15.3a defined UWB frequency band. Acceptable radiation characteristics at on the 3.1,
5.1, and 10.6 GHz, and the measureding antenna gain is 0.04 dBi to 6.98 dBi cover the 2 12 GHz
operation frequency ranges that makes this class of antennas a good candidate for a variety of the
communication applications. Except for the enhancement of impedance bandwidth, the effects of
the ground plane to the power patterns and peak gain value are small.
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