2009 Fifth International Conference on Wireless and Mobile Communications

Dual Band-Notch CPW-Ground-Fed UWB Antenna By Fractal Binary Tree Slot

A. Falahati and M. Naghshvarian-Jahromi R. M. Edwards

Department of Electrical Engineering Department of Electrical Engineering
Iran University of Science and Technology Loughborough University of Technology
Narmak, Tehran, Iran Loughborough, UK
[email protected], [email protected] [email protected]

Abstract—In this paper, a compact dual band-notch UWB to be less than 16 × 22 mm2. The 4.95-6.05 GHz band ref to
antenna with CPW-Ground-fed is presented. It is desired to VSWR<2 can be eliminated where the maximum VSWR in
achieve band notch antenna by etching a narrowband dual 5.6 GHz is equal to 12.08. The advantage of using fractal
resonance fractal binary tree in the radiation element of the slots besides the desired peak at 5.6 GHz produces a second
conventional UWB antenna. This antenna is capable of resonance at 10.2 GHz. This remains within the bandwidth
reducing the interference at the WLAN bands by eliminating of the UWB communication systems (i.e. 3.1-10.6 GHz).
the 4.95-6.05 GHz band. The proposed antenna has compact Even near upper frequency band, H-plane patterns remain
size of 16 × 22mm2 including the ground plane. This miniature Omni-directional. Antenna gain in WLAN bands can also be
size delivers a good radiation patterns with mono-polar suppressed. Hence, with these modifications the desirable
characteristics. In this proposed antenna design, the gain is spatial-independent band-stop characteristics can be
suppressed very well in the desired WLAN bands. The
achieved.
maximum suppression is in 5.61 GHz that is 13.25 dB less than
the gain of normal antenna. II. RELATED WORKS
Keywords: Fractal Binary Tree, Dual band Notch, UWB In [2-5] some multiple UWB band notch antennas are
introduced. The [2] offers a new solution to develop high
I. INTRODUCTION performance UWB antennas with multiple frequency
The need for high data rates wireless communication notches. Instead of integrating the band notched element
becomes more and more urgent and various solutions have with the radiating element, the filter function part of the
been suggested. UWB (Ultra-Wide Band) techniques have antenna in our design is combined with the feed line, which
been paid the most attention for many advantages, such as employs a half mode substrate integrated waveguide cavity
higher data rates, immunity to multi-path cancellation, to create multiple stop-bands.
increase of communication operational security and low In [3], they present a U-shaped aperture ultra-wideband
interference to legacy systems [1]. Antennas are the antenna with dual band-notched characteristics. The antenna
particularly challenging aspect of UWB technology. consists of a circular exciting stub on the front side and a U-
However, the UWB communication systems use the 3.1– shaped aperture on the back ground plane. The extended
10.6 GHz frequency band, which includes the IEEE802.11a band-notched characteristics are realized by attaching a slot
frequency band (5.15–5.825 GHz). This UWB and a parasitic strip to the antenna to suppress the potential
communication system may generate interference with interference. The parasitic strip on the bottom layer deals
IEEE802.11a and HIPERLAN systems. To overcome with the lower notched band while the C-shaped slot inserted
electromagnetic interference between UWB system and in the circular exciting stub aims at the higher one. Details of
WLAN systems, various UWB antennas with multi notch the antenna design and measured results are given below. A
function have been developed for UWB communication conceptual circuit model, which is based on the measured
systems [2–10]. The advantage of using the proposed fractal impedance of the proposed antenna, is shown to enable
slots is the desired peak at 5.6 GHz besides a second discussion of the dual band-notched characteristics.
resonance which occurs at 10 GHz. [4] investigates new configuration of multiband/ultra-
In this paper, the fractal binary tree with four iterations wide-band (UWB) antenna The antenna is a V-shaped patch
with 120 deg branch splitting angles and 1.0 arm to stem is with unequal arms coupled electromagnetically to single feed
employed. This fractal shape is subtracted from the original isosceles triangular PIFA thorough two unequal slots. The
radiation element of UWB antenna that does not have band six multiband operations are achieved due to the different
notch. Furthermore, simulation and measurement results lengths and widths of the V-shaped patch as well as the two
including return losses, input impedance, radiation patterns, coupling slots. Two more modes can be added by loading the
gain variations and time domain analysis as well as branch triangular planar inverted F-antenna (PIFA) with V-shaped
angle variations are presented and discussed. the radiation slot.
element current distribution is changed by etching the fractal In [5], compact printed ultra-wideband monopole antenna
binary tree slot into the original element. Here, it is desired with dual band-notched characteristics is proposed. By
to design the dimensions of antenna including ground plane adjusting the size of the CSRR inserted in the radiating
patch, we can easily obtain dual stopbands. This design uses

978-0-7695-3750-4/09 $26.00 © 2009 IEEE 385

DOI 10.1109/ICWMC.2009.71
Authorized licensed use limited to: ShanghaiTech University. Downloaded on February 07,2025 at 02:52:03 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
a single CSRR instead of two and likewise realizes the dual
band-notched characteristics.
III. FRACTAL BINARY TREE
Here, the approach taken for the generation of trees is
somewhat different from conventional fractal shapes. One
starts with a “stem” and allows one of its ends to branch off
in two directions. In the next stage of iteration, each of these
branches is allowed to branch out again, and this process can
be continued infinitely as shown in Fig. 1 [11]. In contrast to
a ternary tree studied in [13], this is termed a “binary tree”.
The primary objective of studying this geometry in [11] is to
verify the hypothesis developed about the relation between
antenna resonance characteristics and the fractal dimension Figure 3. 3rd iterated binary trees with different length ratios for
of the geometry. In [12], two generalizations were attempted arm to stem [11].
to the basic geometry in the binary tree monopole. The
angular splitting can vary the separation between the
branches at every iteration stage and the relative lengths of
the branch can vary in one stage relative to the next [12].
This scheme is portrayed in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3. It may be
recalled that in both cases a recursive algorithm can generate
the geometry after the first branching is made [12].
As we know, fractals are implemented as a function of
design, iterations or angle. In this contribution our fractal is
simulated (CST MICROWAVE STUDIO) as a function of
angle which can be observed in Fig. 4 considering branch
angle variation depicted in Fig. 2. It can be observed that 60o 120o 180o
branch angle of 2θ=120 degree produces the best case of
response for dual band notch.

Figure 4. Fractals as a function of angle

IV. ANTENNA DESIGN

Figure 1. Various iterations of fractal binary tree [11]
The designed antenna geometry is shown in Fig. 5. This
antenna is constructed on Rogers RO4003 substrate with
thickness ~1.5mm and relative dielectric constant of
ε r =3.38 which has a dimension of 16 × 22mm2 (i.e.
wsub × lsub). The width of this fractal binary tree slot (w5) is
13 mm which is lower than λ/4 at 5.5 GHz. The length of
base branch l3 and the location of the slot, d2 and d3, were
then tuned by the commercial software Ansoft HFSS [14] as
1.8mm, 2.1mm and 1.2mm respectively. The remaining
parameters are found as following values:
Figure 2. 3rd iterated fractal binary tree with different branching
d1 =1.8 mm, l 1 = 5.3 mm, l2 = l4 = 5.3 mm, w1 = 14 mm, w2
angles [11]
=7.9 mm, w3 = 2.4 mm, w4= 6 mm and S1 = 0.2 mm.

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 Figure 5. Geometrical parameters of proposed antenna

V. ANTENNA RESULTS
The antennas with and without the resonance binary
tree slot is designed on the same substrate that are presented
in pervious section. The simulated reflection coefficients are Figure 7. Picture of fabricated antennas
plotted and compared in Fig. 6 for both antennas. A picture
of fabricated antennas is shown in Fig. 7 and Fig. 8 shows
the comparison between measurement and simulation
results.

Figure 8. S11 Magnitude in dB

Fig. 9 shows the simulated input resistance (top plot)

and reactance (bottom plot) of the proposed and
conventional antennas in Ansoft HFSS. Input impedance of
Figure 6. S11 Magnitude in dB proposed antenna shows a very high input resistance (Real
part) and reactance (Imaginary part) occurring near the
Actually, other authors [2-10] using “non-fractal” desired notched frequency band.
shapes have already achieved similar results. The advantage The simulated radiation plots in Ansoft HFSS is shown
of using fractal slot besides the desired peak at 5.6 GHz in Fig. 10 correspond to operating bands at 3.5, 6.5 and
produces a second resonance at 10.2 GHz. However, this 9.5GHz for antenna with notch shown from left to right
remains within the bandwidth of the UWB communication respectively. The top row shows the E-plane radiation while
systems (i.e., 3.1-10.6 GHz). However, it is thus possible to the bottom row shows the H-plane radiation.
control the second resonant frequency, e.g., by means of the
fractal geometry with further optimization and
manufacturing aspects.

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 Figure 11. Peak gain in dBi, for proposed (continues line) and
reference antennas (dash line)

Figure 9. Input resistance (top) and reactance (bottom) in Ansoft

HFSS (a) (b)

The radiation plots display very well the mono-polar Figure 12. A pair of the proposed transmitting and receiving
antennas operating in free space (a) antenna without notch (b)
mode and the cross-polarization is at least 10 dB lower than
antenna with notch.
the co-polarization in all frequencies. The H-plane patterns
are rather uniform over the frequency band of interest. In
addition, except for the patterns at the stop-band, the
radiation patterns are also found to be very consistent with
those of the antenna without the resonance slot.

Figure 13. The proposed antennas input signal.

VI. TIME DOMAIN ANTENNA ANALYSIS

As shown in previous section, the proposed antenna has
very wide bandwidth. However, having a wide band
Figure 10. Radiation patterns for antenna with notch. (Continuous frequency domain response does not necessarily ensure that
line) co-polarization and (dash line) cross-polarization (Ansoft the antenna behaves well in the time domain as well. This
HFSS) means that, the antenna does not widen a time-domain
narrow pulse. Some multi resonant wide-band antennas such
The antennas peak gain (dBi) in CST MICROWAVE as log-periodic antennas, due to multiple reflections and
STUDIO is depicted in Fig. 11. It reveals that the peak gain large discontinuities within their structures widen narrow
is very stable over the frequency band of interest. In pulses in time domain [15]. Recalling Fig. 8, the
addition, the required gain suppression can be as high as dependence of radiation patterns on frequency clearly
13.25dB at the center frequency (5.5 GHz) of the stop-band. reveals that the antennas do not have a flat transfer function.
This means that by adding the band-notched structure to the Therefore, in order to ensure the usefulness of proposed
non-radiating part of the antenna, the undesired spatial- antenna for time domain applications, the time domain
dependent band-stop properties can be eliminated. responses of antennas must also be examined. Therefore, the

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communication link between two identical proposed
antennas in free space are studied (Fig. 10). The distance
between the transmitting and receiving antennas is assumed
to be 10 cm. The proposed antennas are assumed to be
excited by the UWB signal to examine the time domain
response of the proposed antennas. The input signals are the
Gaussian pulse and its fifth derivative. The signal, along
with its Fourier transform is shown in Figs. 11 and 14
respectively. Simulation analysis of the antenna is done by
means of a Finite Integration Technique (FIT), using the
commercial software CST Microwave studio.
Figure 16. Fourier Transform amplitude of input signal.

Figure 14. The signal at the terminals of the proposed pair of

antennas without any notch. Figure 17. Fourier transform amplitude of output signal at the
terminals proposed antennas.

Table I. The correlation factor for proposed antennas

Correlation Coefficient
Type of antenna (ρ )
Antenna without notch 0.95642
Antenna with fractal binary
0.9016
notch

VII. CONCLUSION
Figure 15. The signal at the terminals of the proposed pair of In this paper, a compact CPW-Ground-Fed Fractal-
antennas with notches. Binary-Tree slot antenna with band-notched has been
proposed and demonstrated for UWB radios. By etching a
The Tx/Rx antennas are assumed to have the same
dual band notched resonance slot with four iterations fractal
orientations. The signal at the receiving antenna 50 Ω binary tree shape to the non-radiating part of the antenna,
output terminals are shown in Figs. 12, 13, with their the interference to other occupied frequency bands can be
Fourier transforms for the case of the two identical proposed reduced. In addition, the newly proposed configurations
antennas is shown Fig. 15 when employed in free space. have proved to be capable of providing favorable spatial-
independent band-notched. The advantage of using fractal
To determine the correlation coefficient between signal slots besides the desired peak at 5.6 GHz produces a second
at the terminals of the receiving antenna s2 (t ) and the resonance at 10.2 GHz. This remains within the bandwidth
input signal s1 (t ) , the following relation can be utilized: of the UWB communication systems (i.e. 3.1-10.6 GHz).
However, it is possible to control the second resonant
  frequency, e.g., by means of the fractal geometry with

ρ = max  ∫ s (t ) s (t − τ )dt  (1)
1 2 further optimization and manufacturing aspects.
τ In this proposed method, dual band notch antenna can
 ∫ s (t )dt ∫ s (t )dt 
2 2
 1 2 be designed by a single slot, while in a conventional method
where τ is a delay which is varied to make the numerator with multiband notch antenna more than one slot is
in (1) a maximum [16, 17]. The values of the correlation required.
coefficients obtained for each of the mentioned antennas are
summarized in Table I. These values confirms the

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This dual band-notch fractal binary tree slot transition can
be implemented in a variety of applications that can open a
new research field for a fractal shapes antennas.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank DCCS Lab at IUST (Iran
University of Science and Technology) and C4MCR Lab at
Loughborough University (UK) for their invaluable
assistance and funding for this research which is a part of
UWB project.
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