6th International Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering

ICECE 2010, 18-20 December 2010, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Printed Circular Ring Antenna for UWB

Application
Rezaul Azim#1, Mohammad Tariqul Islam*2, Norbahiah Misran#3
#
Department Electrical, Electronic and Systems Engineering
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
1
rezaulazim@yahoo.com, 2bahiah@vlsi.eng.ukm.my
*
Institute of Space Science (ANGKASA)
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia.
3
titareq@yahoo.com

Abstract— A printed circular ring antenna for UWB printed circuit board (PCB) is a good option for many
application is proposed in this paper. The antenna structure is applications because it can be easily embedded into wireless
composed of a circular ring patch and a partial ground plane. devices or integrated with other microwave-integrated
The proposed antenna has a total size of 39 × 40 mm2. The circuits. However, the antenna design for UWB applications
measurement shows that the antenna has an impedance faces many challenges.
bandwidth (VSWR≤ 2) of 9.54 GHz (2.54 to 12.08 GHz). A A low profile and embeddable unidirectional antenna is
nearly stable bidirectional radiation pattern with low cross required for certain UWB communication, imaging,
polarization makes the proposed antenna suitable for being used localization, and radar applications. The lower and upper
in wireless communication system. Details of the proposed UWB spectrums are 3.1–4.8 GHz (43%) and 6.0–10.6 GHz
compact planar antenna design are presented and discussed. (55%), respectively. The existing broadband directional
antennas, such as the Vivaldi, log-periodic, cavity-backed,
Keywords— Microstrip line, Monopole Antenna, Partial ground
waveguide, horn, and dish antennas, cover the entire 3.1–10.6
GHz band (109%). However, they are electrically large, and
plane, Planar antenna, Ultrawideband (UWB) antenna.
have a high profile in the direction of wave propagation.
Omni- and bi-directional antennas, such as the planar
I. INTRODUCTION monopoles [14], [15], disc cone [16], and slot antennas [17],
have a low gain and back radiation pattern, therefore they are
Ultra-wideband (UWB) communication systems have not suitable for sectorial or unidirectional communication.
recently attract a great attention in the wireless world Also, it is a challenge to maintain a stable radiation pattern
because of their advantages, like high speed data rate, across the whole frequency band, since the radiation aperture
extremely low spectral power density, precision, high is frequency dependent.
precision ranging, low complexity and low cost since the In this paper, a microstrip-fed antenna for the UWB
Federal Communications Commission(FCC) allocated 3.1 to applications that achieves a physically compact planar profile,
10.6 GHz unlicensed band for UWB communication[1]. sufficient impedance bandwidth and highly stable bi-
UWB also have wide applications in short range and high directional radiation pattern is proposed. The planar antenna
speed wireless systems, such as ground penetrating radars, consists of a circular ring shaped radiating patch and partial
medical imaging system, high data rate wireless local area ground plane with a slot on the top edge to cause a wide
networks (WLAN), communication systems for military and bandwidth from 3 to 10.6 GHz for UWB application. The
short pulse radars for automotive even or robotics. The antenna structure is flat, and its design is simple and can be
antenna is one of the crucial components which determine the easily constructed with a very low cost.
performance of UWB system. The UWB antennas proposed
in the open literature mainly focus on the slot and monopole II. ANTENNA DESIGN
antenna [2-5]. Printed wide slot antennas have an attractive
property of providing a wide operating bandwidth, especially
As a key element in UWB systems, the motivation of
antenna design is to design a small and simple antenna that
for those having a modified tuning stub, such as the fork-like
introduces low distortions with large bandwidth. The
stub [6–8], the rectangular stub [9], and the circular stub [10]
configuration of the proposed antenna is shown in Fig.1,
inside the wide slot. Broadband planar monopole antennas
which consists of a circular patch, a partial ground plane and
have received considerable attention owing to their attractive
a rectangular slot on the ground plane. The antenna, which
merits, such as ultrawide frequency band, good radiation
has a compact dimension of 39 × 40 mm2, is printed in the
properties, simple structure and ease of fabrication. The
front of a FR4 PCB substrate of thickness 1.6 mm and
typical shapes of these antennas are half-disc [11], circle,
relative permittivity 4.6. The dimension of partial ground
ellipse [12], and rectangle [13].
plane which is printed in the back side of the substrate is
One of the popular UWB antenna types requires a
chosen to be 39 × 20mm2 in this study. The dimension of the
perpendicular ground plane, which resulted in increased
slot is ws × ls and 12.5 mm away from the left edge of the
antenna size and difficult to integration with microwave-
ground plane. The bottom of the square patch is connected by
integrated circuits. Compared with the three dimensional type
of antenna, flat type UWB antenna printed onto a piece of

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 3

W 2

Gain(dBi)
0
r r
r -1
R R R
L -2
g 2 4 6 8 10 12
Frequency(GHz)
Fig. 3 Gain of the proposed antenna
lf
lf
80
wf 70

Efficiency(%)
60
Fig.1 Geometry of the proposed antenna 50
40
a microstrip line, which is fed by a 50Ω coaxial probe from 30
the side of the antenna. The microstrip line was etched on the 20
10
same side of the substrate as the radiator. The antenna has the
0
following parameters: R = 10 mm, r = 2 mm, lf = 20.5 mm
2 4 6 8 10 12
and wf = 2.6 mm. The geometric parameters of this structure
can be adjusted to tune the return loss and bandwidth over Frequency(GHz)
wide range of frequency. The circular ring radiator is capable Fig. 4 Radiation efficiency of the proposed antenna
of supporting multiple resonant modes providing a wider
impedance bandwidth. The slot on the partial ground plane The radiation efficiency of the proposed antenna is shown
has an effect on matching as the gap between the radiating in Fig. 4. The antenna has a maximum of 75 % radiation
element and ground plane is increased. As a result the efficiency. The low gain and low radiation efficiency of the
bandwidth is increased and the size of the ground plane is proposed antenna might be due to the high losses in FR4
reduced. substrates and small ground plane.
0
III. RESULT AND DISCUSSION 0

The proposed antenna has been optimized and analyzed -10

using full-wave electromagnetic simulator Zeland IE3D [17].
The antenna was subsequently prototyped for experimental -20

verification. The return losses were measured using an -30

Agilent E8362C PNA series network analyzer. Fig. 2 shows
the measured and simulated return loss. The plot shows that 270 -40 90

the proposed antenna has an impedance bandwidth 2.54 to

12.08 GHz, which is equivalent to 130.51%. The discrepancy
between simulation and measurement is mostly due to the
small ground plane and substrate. It is also may be due to the
effect of the feeding cable, which is used in the
measurements but not considered in simulation as the antenna
180
is small.
(a) E- Plane
Fig. 3 shows the gain of the proposed. It can be seen from
0
the plot that the antenna has a maximum gain of 2.14 dBi at 0
3.2 GHz with an average of 0.61 dBi.
-10

0 -20
Simulated Measured
-30
-10
Return loss(dB)

270 -40 90
-20

-30

-40
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 180

Frequency(GHz) (b) H-Plane

Fig. 2 Measured and simulated return loss of the Return loss of the Fig. 5 Radiation pattern of the proposed antenna at 3 GHz.
proposed antenna [ Co polarization, Cross polarization]

362
 the partial ground plane not only improves the impedance
0 matching in high frequency band but also the radiation
0
characteristics at high frequencies. The proposed antenna has
-10 simple structure and can be easily fabricated with a very low
manufacturing cost. The proposed antenna achieved an
-20 impedance bandwidth of 9.54 GHz (from 2.54 to 12.08 GHz),
-30
which is equivalent to 130.51 %. The nearly stable
bidirectional radiation pattern with low cross polarization and
270 -40 90 flat gain makes the proposed antenna suitable for being used
in wireless commutation system.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the MOSTI Secretariat,
Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation of Malaysia,
Science Grant no.: 01-01-02-SF0608 and the Institute of
180
Space Science (ANGKASA), Universiti Kebangsaan
Malaysia for sponsoring this works.
(a) E- Plane
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