170 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.

10, 2011

Design of a Band-Notched UWB Monopole Antenna

by Means of an EBG Structure
Mohammad Yazdi and Nader Komjani

Abstract—In this letter, a new compact ultrawideband circular the ground plane or in the feed systems [5]–[7]. In the latter,
monopole antenna with an acceptable band-rejection character- the complex band-notch structure makes it difficult to design
istic is investigated. This rejection band is created by means of and manufacture such a structure. As an example, one can
an electromagnetic band-gap (EBG) structure. The EBG structure
that is used here is a mushroom-like structure. An equivalent cir- refer to [6]. A good rejection is achieved using 52 vias with a
cuit model is employed to investigate the stopband characteristic two-layer structure at the expense of an increase in the cost and
of the EBG. The operation frequency band is 3.1–10.6 GHz with the complexity.
a rejection band of 0.7 GHz around 5.5 GHz. Accurate and high Recently, electromagnetic band-gap (EBG) structures have
rejection is achieved. The proposed model is implemented, and the been introduced, and various types of these structures have been
measured results are in good agreement with simulated ones.
implemented in different applications such as reduction of mu-
Index Terms—Band rejection, electromagnetic band-gap (EBG) tual coupling between two planar antennas, eliminating spurious
structure, ultrawideband (UWB) antenna. responses of a filter [8]. Since an EBG structure has a filtering
behavior, it can be used in the design of UWB antennas with a
stopband characteristic. In that paper, a simple EBG structure is
I. INTRODUCTION
used to create a stopband in a common UWB antenna.
The paper begins by designing a simple compact UWB planar
ECENTLY, there has been increasing interest in the monopole antenna. Then, an EBG structure is used to create the
R use of ultrawideband (UWB) systems because of their
low power consumption, low cost, capability of high data
intended stopband (5.15–5.85 GHz). The mushroom-like EBG
structure is used here to achieve this goal.
rate, low interference, and precise positioning. These sys- Keeping our goal in mind, the UWB antenna and the EBG
tems utilize the frequency band of 3.1–10.6 GHz, which structure is implemented together. An equivalent circuit model
was allocated to the UWB systems by the Federal Commu- of the mushroom-like EBG introduced in [8] is used here. In
nications Commission (FCC) in 2002. On the other hand, this letter, a parametric study on this structure has been made
there are narrowband systems that operate in this frequency to investigate the effects of the EBG physical parameters on the
interval (3.1–10.6 GHz). For example, the frequency ranges band-gap behavior of the proposed antenna. The frequency do-
of 5.15–5.85 and 3.3–3.7 GHz are occupied by WLAN and main results have been achieved by means of simulations and
WiMAX systems, respectively. Therefore, UWB devices must measurements. The proposed antenna has been simulated by
prevent interference with these narrowband systems. Using a the use of Computer Simulation Technology (CST) Microwave
UWB antenna with a band-reject characteristic, this problem Studio. The optimized antenna has been fabricated and tested on
could be solved. Furthermore, in order to have high- and RT/Duroid 4003. Good agreement is observed between the sim-
low-frequency components with minimal distortion, a UWB ulated and the measured results. The antenna impedance band-
antenna with small size and flat group delay is desired for these width is between 3.1–10.6 GHz (for VSWR ) with a con-
systems [1]. stant gain at this range. Radiation patterns of the antenna are
Different techniques have been introduced in the litera- approximately omni directional.
ture [2]–[7] to achieve a rejection band of 5–6 GHz in planar Finally, a time-domain analysis is presented. The time-do-
UWB antennas. We can classify them into two main categories. main behavior of the proposed antenna seems to be appreciable
The first category is based on creating a perturbation in the ra- in the regard of its correlation factor.
diating element [2]–[4]. In these methods, the radiation pattern II. DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION
and the time-domain behavior of the antenna may be affected
by the perturbation of the radiating element. The second one A. UWB Antenna
is prefiltering the signals by applying a filter structure into The configuration of the proposed antenna is depicted in
Fig. 1(a). A circular monopole microstrip antenna with a
Manuscript received December 08, 2010; accepted January 28, 2011. Date defected ground plane is known as a common UWB planar an-
of publication February 17, 2011; date of current version March 14, 2011. This tenna structure [9]. This antenna is a primary unit in the design
work was supported in part by the Iran Telecommunication Research Center.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Iran Uni- of a UWB antenna, and the attached EBG is the secondary part
versity of Science & Technology, Tehran 97716, Iran (e-mail: m_yazdi@elec. that is used to achieve the desired filtering behavior. The an-
iust.ac.ir; n_komjani@iust.ac.ir). tenna is fabricated on RT/Duroid 4003 substrate with a relative
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this letter are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. permittivity of 3.38 and a thickness of 1/32 in. The width of a
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2011.2116150 50- microstrip feed line on this substrate is 1.8 mm.

1536-1225/$26.00 © 2011 IEEE

YAZDI AND KOMJANI: DESIGN OF BAND-NOTCHED UWB MONOPOLE ANTENNA BY MEANS OF EBG STRUCTURE 171

Fig. 1. (a) Geometry of the proposed UWB antenna with EBG. (b) Unit cells
of EBG. (c) Equivalent circuit of the EBG.

Other parameters are as follows: mm, mm,

mm, mm, mm, and mm.
An EBG structure is used in the vicinity of the feed line to
obtain a stop-band characteristic in the desired frequency band.
This is explained with details in Section II-B.

B. EBG Structure
Mushroom-like EBG, a simple type of EBG, has been studied
before in [8], and there has been indication that it can provide a
band-gap characteristic. This characteristic can be used to tackle
the effect caused by the frequency interference from WLAN
W = 8:5
g = 1:7
Fig. 2. (a) Dispersion diagram of the primary EBG design ( mm and
systems. As shown in Fig. 1(b), an EBG consists of metallic
W = 8:2 g = 0:4
mm). The band-gap is from 5.29 to 5.65 GHz. (b) Dispersion diagram
patches and short pins named vias that connect patches into the of the primary EBG design ( mm and mm). The band-gap is
ground plane. The operation of EBGs could be such as an from 5.66 to 6.38 GHz.
filter array [Fig. 1(c)]. The inductor is a result of the currents
flowing through the vias, and the capacitor is due to the gap
The dispersion Brillouin diagram of the initial EBG is calcu-
effect between the adjacent patches. They can be approximated
lated and depicted in Fig. 2(a). The band-gap region defined as
by the following expressions [8]:
a frequency band where no mode is propagated can be obtained
from this diagram. A band-gap is seen from 5.29 to 5.65 GHz,
(1)
which agrees with the results of (3) and (4).
(2) There are two ways to employ the EBG to the proposed an-
tenna. The first way is to use a two-layer structure where the
EBG is located on the first layer and the antenna is in the second
where and are the substrate height and the dielectric con-
one. The second way, which is easier to implement and is also
stant, and and are the width and the gap of the EBG, re-
cheaper to design, is to use the EBG near the feed line. In the
spectively. Based on [8] for the band-gap frequency, we have
latter, the amount of coupling can be varied by changing the dis-
tance between the feed line and the EBG. Furthermore, in this
(3)
state, the center frequency of the band-gap may change a little
with the predicted one.
(4) To have a compact antenna, it is desired to fit the EBG to the
original antenna. In Section II-C, a parametric study is presented
where is the free-space impedance. Suppose that a to find out how the stopband region of the EBG changes with the
central band-gap frequency of 5.5 GHz is desired from the pro- EBG parameters.
posed EBG structure. As the selected substrate has a determined , , , and are the key parameters of the proposed
height and a specific dielectric constant, the width ( ) and the EBG structure.
gap dimension ( ) of the EBG cells could be found from (1)–(3) The amount of coupling between the EBG and the proposed
as follows: antenna depends on the distance between the feed line and the
EBG structure ( ). The variation of simulated VSWR with
mm mm different spacing is shown in Fig. 3(a). As can be seen, as the
EBG nears the feed line, coupling is increased and stronger re-
Then, (4) gives the bandwidth frequency as jection is achieved.
The stopband can be adjusted by changing the gap distance
MHz between EBG cells. As shown in Fig. 3(b), by decreasing the
172 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 10, 2011

Fig. 4. Measured and simulated VSWR of the proposed antenna.

Fig. 3. Effect of varying EBG parameters on stopband. (a) Distance between

the feed line and the EBG (oset ). (b) Gap between the EBG cells (g ).

gap , the center frequency of the corresponding notched band

will become smaller. Inasmuch as decreasing gap increases the
capacitance [(2)], the band-gap moved to the lower frequencies.
It can be verified by simulation that the larger and the
larger , smaller gap center frequency can be achieved.
With this knowledge, the EBG parameters can be tuned so
that the notch band of the antenna is located between 5–6 GHz
without increasing the dimensions of the original antenna. The
optimized parameters are the following: mm,
mm, mm. Fig. 5. (a) Simulated surface current distribution at the frequency of 5.5 GHz.
The dispersion Brillouin diagram of the optimized EBG is (b) Real and imaginary part of the proposed antenna. (c) Conceptual model for
the EBG.
calculated and depicted in Fig. 2(b). Although the stopband of
the antenna is from 5–6 GHz, the band-gap of the EBG from
dispersion diagram is between 5.66 to 6.38 GHz. It may be due leading the real part of the impedance toward zero, the EBG
to this fact that the dispersion Brrillouin diagram is calculated causes a rejection band like a series resonator that couples
for the infinite EBG cells and does not consider coupling of the to the antenna in parallel [Fig. 5(c)].
EBG on the feed line. Fig. 6 presents measured radiation patterns of the proposed
antenna with and without the EBG in the E-plane and H-plane
C. Measured and Simulated Results at two frequencies around the bandstop region.
Measured and simulated VSWR of the proposed antenna are As can be seen in these figures, the antenna has an omnidi-
shown in Fig. 4. It can be seen that the EBG structure produces rectional pattern in H-plane and a bidirectional one in E-plane.
the desired band notch. As indicated in Fig. 4, the lower and It is important to note that the EBG structure has a negligible
upper frequencies of the band notch are 5.15 and 5.95 GHz, re- coupling effect on the radiating element, therefore the antenna
spectively, which satisfies the FCC requirements. The simula- radiation patterns are not affected.
tions succeed to predict the antenna behavior.
The surface current in the gap center frequency is shown in III. TIME-DOMAIN ANALYSIS
Fig. 5(a). As can be seen, the EBG couples to the feed line, and The time-domain behavior is one of the most important char-
short circuit to the ground is created through the vias. It can acteristics of UWB antennas. It is essential that the antennas
be also understood from the antenna impedance [Fig. 5(b)]. By have minimum distortion in both transmitting and receiving
YAZDI AND KOMJANI: DESIGN OF BAND-NOTCHED UWB MONOPOLE ANTENNA BY MEANS OF EBG STRUCTURE 173

TABLE I
FIDELITY FACTOR OF THE ANTENNA

IV. CONCLUSION
A new approach to create a stopband in UWB antennas has
been presented. Using the band-gap characteristic of the mush-
room-like EBG structure on a simple UWB antenna, the pro-
posed stopband for the UWB antenna can be achieved. Imple-
menting the EBG structure in the vicinity of the feed line does
not perturb the behavior of the radiating element, and this is
the main advantage of the proposed method. The desired stop-
band can be achieved by adjusting the EBG physical parameters.
The fabricated UWB antenna has a notch band at 5.5 GHz with
0.7 GHz bandwidth. It is observed that this method has negli-
Fig. 6. Measured radiation pattern of the proposed antenna without the EBG gible effects on the radiation pattern of the antenna.
(dashed line) and with the EBG (solid line).

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