A novel ultra-wide band antenna design using notches and stairs

This paper describes the parametric study of a novel rectangular planar ultra-wide band antenna (UWB). The proposed design exploits U and T-shaped notches with stairs at two corners on the radiating patch along with stepped microstrip feed. The stairs are also used at the corners of the partial ground plane with a rectangular notch and an electromagnetically coupled stepped rectangular strip. The proposed UWB antenna is designed and simulated using Computer Simulation Technology Microwave Studio (CST-MWS). This antenna operates in a frequency band ranging from 3.0985 to 10.666 GHz with the overall dimensions of 34 mm (L), 37.5 mm (W) and 1.7 mm (H). The VSWR is less than 2 for entire operating frequency range. The impedance bandwidth of the proposed design is nearly 7.5675 GHz. This antenna finds its applications in 5.2/5.8 GHz WLAN, 3.5/5.5 GHz WiMAX, 4 GHz C band and lower frequencies of X band. The effect of the stepped ground plane and the dimensions of U, T and rectangular shaped notches on the optimization of the return loss is parameterized and discussed in detail.