Differential, Shorted Dipole Antenna for European UWB Applications

We present an UWB miniature differential antenna that fits into the size of a USB card. The miniaturization of this printed half disc dipole antenna is realized by a shorting strip that connects its two arms. The antenna has a surface of 17times17,75 mm². It is matched with a return loss better than -10 dB to 100 Omega between 4 GHz and 5 GHz which covers the new allocated band for the UWB communication systems in Europe. The antenna was measured with an original measurement technique that allows the characterization of a differential antenna without using balancing circuitry.