A Compact CPW-Fed Ultra-wideband Antenna With 5
GHz/6 GHz Band-Notch Function
Jyoti R. Panda#1, Rakhesh S. Kshetrimayum #2
#
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati-781039, India
1
j.panda@iitg.ernet.in
2
krs@iitg.ernet.in
Abstract A compact planar ultrawideband (UWB) antenna
with 5/6 GHz band-notched characteristics has proposed. The
proposed antenna is a uniplanar structure and has a compact
area of 25x25 mm2, which covers the frequency band from 3.1 to
10.6 GHz ( VSWR 2 ). The antenna consists of a circular
ground plane and a circular metal patch is printed within that. A
50- coplanar waveguide (CPW) transmission line is used to feed
the printed circular metal patch. By removing a C-shaped slot
from the circular patch, band rejected property in the WLAN
band is obtained. The proposed antenna is simulated and
designed showing broadband impedance matching, consistent
radiation pattern and stable gain.
Keywords band-notched characteristic, C-shaped slot,
coplanar waveguide (CPW) fed antenna, ultrawideband (UWB)
antenna.
I. INTRODUCTION
T HE Federal Communication Commissions (FCC) ruling
for the commercial use of the ultrawideband (UWB)
spectrum in February 2002 has completely revolutionized the
field of high speed data communication, radars, imaging,
sensing, biomedical and body centric communication. The
relatively easy design and implementation of the UWB system
has become a burning topic both in telecommunication
industry as well as in the academy. Antenna which is a
important component in the UWB system attracted the
attention of the in last five years. The challenge involved in
the design of UWB antenna is enormous. The researchers laid
a greater effort to design the compact, low cost, light weight,
less fragile UWB antenna which can effectively cover the
entire UWB spectrum from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz with stable
radiation pattern and constant gain [2]-[7].
Along with the specified bandwidth for UWB, there are
some other well-known frequency bands of operation coexist
with the frequency band of UWB. Notable among them are
wireless local area network (WLAN) IEEE 802.11a and
HIPERLAN/2 WLAN operating in the 5 to 6 GHz band. In
some applications, some filters are incorporated with the
UWB antenna to suppress dispensable bands. But the use of
filters in the UWB antenna increases the complexity, weight
as well as the cost of the antenna. Hence the solution of this
978-1-4244-4859-3/09/$25.00 2009
problem is to design such an UWB antenna, which is capable
of suppressing 5-6 GHz band of frequency for the WLAN
respectively. The UWB antenna, which performs the above
task, is known as the band-notched UWB antenna. So far
many structures and design methods have been reported. The
UWB antennas with the suppressing capability at the 5-6 GHz
bands have been proposed not only to get rid off the potential
interferences but also to eliminate the necessity of an extra
band-stop filter in the antenna system [8], [9].
Numerous band-notched antennas are designed and
proposed in the last three years. J. Kim et al. proposed a 5.2
GHz ultrawideband notched antenna with slot type SRR [10].
This UWB notched antenna satisfies all the necessary
requirements including low profile, stable radiation pattern,
high radiation efficiency and constant gain. However, the
input impedance matching is not proper at the lowest
frequencies (3.1-3.8 GHz). In addition, the notched frequency
band from 5-5.3 GHz cannot effectively obstruct the whole
WLAN bands. The potential interference between the WLAN
and UWB systems cannot be reduced to the minimum. Yi
Cheng Lin et al. designed three advanced band notched (5-6
GHz) UWB rectangular antennas [11]. The aperture size is
compact and the antenna structure is simple. Stable radiation
pattern and broad impedance bandwidth are obtained, whereas
the dimension of the ground plane is a bit large. In practical,
when integrated with the printed circuit board (PCB) of
different ground plane size, the antenna might need a retuning
for the optimized dimensions. Wang Sang Lee et al.
designed and proposed broadband planar monopole antennas
with dual band-notched characteristics [12]. The technique is
appropriate for creating UWB antenna with narrowband
frequency notches or for designing multiband antennas.
However, the antenna is not suitable for integration in PCBs
or any compact systems, because the ground plane is very
large and is perpendicular to the radiating element, which
restricts its application in the compact UWB system.
Furthermore, the bandwidth of this antenna stretches from 2
GHz to 6 GHz, which cannot meet with the demands of UWB
systems.
Based on the background of the researchers above, this
paper proposes a simple and compact CPW fed planar UWB
antenna with band-notched characteristics in 5.5 GHz (5-6
GHz). The band-notched characteristics are achieved by
removing C-shaped slots from the circular radiating element
surrounded by a circular ground plane and fed by a 50-
transmission line. It is found that by tuning the total length of
the C-shaped slot to the approximately half of the guided
wavelength (g) of the desired notch frequency, a destructive
interference takes place causing the antenna nonradiating at
that frequency. The notch center frequency can be easily
tunable by changing the total length of the C-shaped slot. The
design and simulation of the proposed dual band-notched
antenna is done by the IE3D software [13]. The proposed
antenna provides a impedance bandwidth of 3.1-10.6 GHz
with VSWR 2 , except the bandwidths of 5-6 GHz for
IEEE802.11a and HIPERLAN/2 WLAN system. The constant
gain and stable radiation pattern also available.
In this paper, a compact antenna of 25x25 mm2 is proposed.
Simply by creating a C-shaped slot in the circular radiating
element, single band-notched characteristic from 5-6 GHz is
obtained.
II. ANTENNA DESIGN AND RESULTS
A. UWB Antenna Design and Results
Fig. 1. Geometry of the proposed antenna
Fig.1 shows the geometry and configuration of a UWB
antenna. The antenna (referred to as antenna 1 in this paper)
was fabricated on an h=1.6 mm FR4 epoxy substrate with the
dielectric constant r=4.4 and loss tangent tan=0.02. As
shown in the figure, a circular slot is cut on the ground plane.
Inside the circular slot, a circular radiating patch is printed on
the substrate. The circular radiator is fed by a 50- coplanar
waveguide (CPW) transmission line, which is terminated with
a sub miniature A (SMA) connector for the measurement
purpose. Since the antenna and the feeding are fabricated on
the same side of the plane, only one layer of substrate with
single-sided metallisation is used, and the manufacturing of
antenna is very easy and extremely low cost [11]. The
electromagnetic software IE3D is employed to perform the
design and optimization process. The design parameters are
W=25 mm, L=25 mm, r1= 6 mm, r2=9.7 mm, T1=2.2 mm,
T2=0.2 mm and T3=0.25 mm.
Fig.2 shows the VSWR characteristics of the antenna 1.
The VSWR graph cuts the VSWR=2 line at 2.80 GHz and
remains below the line till 10.66 GHz. This depicts that there
is good impedance matching between the CPW transmission
line and the circular radiating element in the frequency band
from 2.80 to 10.66 GHz and covers the entire UWB band (3.1-
10.6 GHz). Fig.3 represents the gain in dB verses frequency.
The gain increases with the frequency and the maximum at
5.5 GHz. The maximum gain of antenna 1 is 1.46 dBi at 5.5
GHz.
Fig. 2. VSWR vs. frequency of antenna 1.
Fig. 3. Simulated gain (dBi) vs. frequency of antenna 1.
B. Band-Notched UWB Antenna Design and Results
Along with the UWB spectrum (3.1-10.6 GHz), some
narrowband systems operate. Notable among them is IEEE
802.11a and HIPERLAN/2 WLAN system. Hence, to mitigate
the interference from the above narrowband system, band-
notch function is desirable in the UWB system.

Fig. 5. Effect of total length (L) on the VSWR of the antenna

2.

the antenna 2 for the different L. As observed, the adjustment

of the band-notched frequency can be done by varying the
Fig. 4. Geometry and configuration of antenna 2. total length (L) of the C-shaped slot. By decreasing L from 21
to 19 mm, the tip of the notched band shifted from 5.18 GHz
to 5.96 GHz. The final design parameters of the C-shaped slot
Fig.4 shows the geometry and dimension of the UWB antenna
are MM=6.8 mm, PP=3.625 mm, MM1= 3 mm and t=0.5 mm.
with band-notch characteristic from 5-6 GHz band (denoted as
Here the total length L is given by L= MM+PP+MM1.
antenna 2). By removing a C-shaped slot from the circular
radiating patch of antenna 1, a band notch function is created.
It is noteworthy that when the band-notched structure is
applied to the antenna 1, there is no redesigning work needed
for the previously taken dimensions. In general, the main aim
behind the design methodology of the notch function is to tune
the total length of the C-shaped slot approximately equal to
the half guided wavelength (g) of the desired notch
frequency, which provides the input impedance singular. At
the desired notch frequency, the current distribution is around
the C-shaped slot. Hence, a destructive interference for the
excited surface current will occur, which causes the antenna to
be non-responsive at that frequency. The input impedance
closer to the feed point, changes abruptly making large
reflections at the required notch frequency.
The expression for the length of the C-
shaped slot for a given notch frequency ( f n ) is given by Fig. 6. Simulated VSWR of antenna 2, compared to antenna 1.

g The performance of the simulated VSWR of the

L= (1) antenna 2, which provides the desired center notch frequency
2 of 5.5 GHz, is shown in the Fig.6. From the figure it is very
where clear that, the desired filtering property is achieved by
introducing a C-shaped slot. Compared to antenna 1 design,
c
g = (2)
the single band-notched UWB antenna effectively blocks out
f n eff the 5-6 GHz and still performs excellent impedance matching
at other frequencies of UWB band. The tip of the desired
where L is the total length of the C-shaped slot, eff is the notch band is exactly at 5.5 GHz at the VSWR value of 6.20,
effective dielectric constant of CPW feed-line and C is the which is the center frequency of the WLAN band. The notch
speed of light in free space. We can take (1) into consideration band stretches from 4.15 GHz to 6.15 GHz, in which whole of
for obtaining the total length of the C-shaped slot at the very the WLAN band is immersed. The antenna gain of antenna 2,
beginning of the design. Fig.5 depicts the simulated VSWR of compared to antenna 1 in the entire UWB is presented in the
Fig.7, which shows a sharp decrease in gain at 5.5 GHz.
which is the center frequency of the WLAN band and good
performances at other frequencies of the UWB band.
Fig. 7. Simulated gain (dBi) of antenna 2, compared to
antenna 1.
Fig. 8. Simulated E-plane (yz-plane) and H-plane (zx-plane)
radiation patterns of antenna 2 at (a) 4 GHz, (b) 5.5 GHz, (c) 7
GHz and (d) 9 GHz.
Fig.8 shows the E-plane (yz-plane) and H-plane (zx-plane)
radiation pattern of the antenna 2 at 4, 5.5, 7 and 9 GHz
respectively. The H-plane radiation pattern is purely omni-
directional at all the simulated frequencies. The E-plane
radiation pattern is highly directional along 00 and 1800
respectively at all the simulated frequencies. There is
absolutely no change in the shape of E-plane radiation pattern
at all the simulated frequencies. Hence the antenna 2 exhibits
stable and constant radiation pattern at all the frequencies.
III. CONCLUSION
To mitigate the potential interference between the UWB
systems and narrowband systems such as WLAN, a compact
CPW-fed planar UWB antenna with band rejection at WLAN
frequencies has been proposed. The relationship between the
total dimension of the C-shaped slot and the band rejection
operation has been presented. Stable radiation pattern and
constant gain in the UWB bands are obtained. The antenna
presented in this paper is expected to find future application in
UWB system.
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