Unidirectional planar monopole ultra- Recently, efforts have been made to make the planar monopole UWB

wideband antenna using wrench-shaped antenna unidirectional [4–6]. However, these methods involve either
placing a large reflector at some distance behind the antenna which
feeding structure makes the antenna extremely bulky and impractical [4, 5], or using
modifications in the ground plane of the antenna [6]. There is a
M.S. Ellis, Zhiqin Zhao, Jiangniu Wu, Z. Nie and
paucity of methods to achieve this goal.
Qing-Huo Liu

A unidirectional planar monopole ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna is 0 3.6

presented. To realise unidirectional radiation, a new feed structure is 0 330 30 6
implemented without modifications in the ground plane or the mono- –10
pole. By using a wrench-shaped feeding structure, unidirectional radi-
ation of the planar monopole antenna can be realised, especially at high –20 300 60
frequencies. The antenna is built on a 20 × 30 mm FR4 substrate to –30
cover a frequency bandwidth from 3.1 to over 14 GHz for a voltage
–40
standing wave ratio ≤2. 270 90
–40

Introduction: Ultra-wideband (UWB) systems have attracted a great –30

amount of attention owing to its wide operating bandwidth. Among the –20 240 120
many UWB antennas available, the planar monopole UWB antenna [1– –10
3] has gained a lot of recognition owing to its small size, flat structure 210 150
0
and ease of integration with other microwave circuit components. 180
0 8.4
Ws
0 330 30 12
14
–10
y –20 300 60
r
–30
x –40
270 90
Ls

Lf Wf
–40
Lt
–30
s
t
L
Lg
–20 240 120
g
–10
0 210 150
a
180
a
0 3.6
0 330 30 6
–10
–20 300 60

b –30
–40
Fig. 1 Geometry of proposed antenna 270 90
–40
a Proposed antenna and dimensions
b Fabricated prototype with feed structure resembling a wrench –30
–20 240 120
10 100
–10
8
0 210 150
6 80
180
4
efficiency, %

2 60 0 8.4
gain, dBi

0
0 330 30 12
14
–2 40 –10
–4 measured gain –20 300 60
–6 measured efficieny 20
–8 –30
–10 0
4 6 8 10 12 14
–40
270 90
frequency, GHz
a
–40
0
–30
–10 –20 240 120

–10
return loss, dB

–20
0 210 150
180
–30
measured b
simulated
–40
Fig. 3 Measured radiation patterns of proposed antenna
–50 a E-plane at 3.6, 6, 8.4, 12 and 14 GHz
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 b H-plane at 3.6, 6, 8.4, 12 and 14 GHz
frequency, GHz
b
In this Letter, a new technique is discussed to achieve unidirectional
Fig. 2 Measured results of proposed antenna radiation in planar monopole antennas. Here, a wrench-shaped feeding
a Peak gain and efficiency structure is introduced to this effect. From the theory of characteristic
b Return loss modes [7], the wrench feed-line structure will introduce vertical currents

ELECTRONICS LETTERS 24th April 2014 Vol. 50 No. 9 pp. 654–655

in the structure and reduce horizontal currents at high frequencies. Using
this phenomenon, directivity in radiation, especially at high frequencies,
can be achieved.
UWB antenna design: The proposed antenna is shown in Fig. 1. The
monopole and feeding structure is etched on the top part of the substrate
and the ground plane at the back. The antenna is etched on an FR4 sub-
strate with a relative permittivity of 4.4 and a thickness of 1.6 mm. The
optimised dimensions of the antenna are given as follows: Ls = 30 mm,
Ws = 20 mm, r = 7.2 mm, Li = 4.5 mm, Wf = 5.1 mm, Lt = 1.2 mm, L =
11.5 mm, Lg = 11 mm, g = 5 mm, s = 2.5 mm and t = 5.2 mm. The
antenna is printed on the xoy-axis as shown in Fig. 1a.
Results and discussion: The proposed antenna is fabricated as shown in
Fig. 1a. The fabricated antenna is measured with an E8363 PNA
network analyser and a SATIMO measurement system. The measured
peak gain and measured efficiency, and the return loss are shown in
Figs. 2a and b, respectively. Discrepancies between the simulated and
the measured results are possibly due to the attached SMA connector
and fabrication imperfections. That notwithstanding, the simulated and
measured results agree well. An average peak gain and an average effi-
ciency of 4 dBi and 70%, respectively, are obtained. The measured
return loss shows an impedance bandwidth of 3.1–14 GHz for a
voltage standing wave ratio ≤2.
E-plane (xoy, θ = −90) and H-plane (yoz, ϕ = 90) radiation patterns
are shown in Fig. 3. It can be seen that the E-plane radiation patterns
in Fig. 3a show unidirectional radiation patterns with an F/B ratio
≥10 dB at 8.4, 12 and 14 GHz. Slight shifts in end-fire direction are
noticed at different frequencies. The H-plane radiations are shown in
Fig. 3b. Unidirectional radiation patterns at 8.4, 12 and 14 GHz are
also achieved with some degree of shift in end-fire direction at a fre-
quency of 8.4 GHz. It can be noted that the lower frequency radiation
patterns below 8 GHz still assume the conventional quasi-omnidirec-
tional and onmidirectional radiation patterns in the E- and H-planes,
respectively.
Conclusion: A unidirectional planar monopole UWB antenna is intro-
duced. Experimental results have shown that the proposed monopole
antenna can realise unidirectional radiation patterns by using a wrench-
shaped feeding structure. This proposed technique will be very useful to
implement planar monopoles as directional antennas without adding
reflectors, which make the antenna size bulky and impractical, and
also solve the problem of ground plane modification, which can affect
ELECTRONICS LETTERS 24th April 2014 Vol. 50 No. 9 pp. 654–655
the impedance bandwidth and radiation properties. Future research
will focus on improving the directivity across the entire bandwidth
using this technique.
Acknowledgments: This work was supported in part by the National
Natural Science Foundation of China by grants (61171044 and
61231001), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central
Universities of China (ZYGX2012YB010 and ZYGX2012Z005).
© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2014
31 January 2014
doi: 10.1049/el.2014.0298
One or more of the Figures in this Letter are available in colour online.
M.S. Ellis, Zhiqin Zhao, Jiangniu Wu and Z. Nie (School of Electronic
Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
(UESTC), Chengdu 611731, People’s Republic of China)
E-mail: zqzhao@uestc.edu.cn
Qing-Huo Liu (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA)
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