IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.

11, 2012

365

Dual-Band Uniplanar CPW-Fed Monopole/EBG Combination With Bandwidth Enhancement

Mara Elena de Cos, Member, IEEE, and Fernando Las-Heras, Senior Member, IEEE
AbstractA novel low-prole uniplanar dual band coplanar waveguide (CPW)-fed monopole antenna/electromagnetic band-gap (EBG) combination, exhibiting bandwidth enhancement, is presented. Prototypes of the monopole antenna alone and combined with the EBG in the same layer are manufactured using laser micromachining. The characterization results of the manufactured prototypes in terms of return loss and radiation pattern measurements in an anechoic chamber are shown for comparison. Index TermsCoplanar waveguide (CPW)-fed, dual-band antenna, electromagnetic band-gap (EBG), low-prole antenna, printed monopole antenna.

I. INTRODUCTION IRELESS communication systems demand antennas with a simple structure, dual- or multiband capabilities, and reduced cost. To increase the information transfer, the future systems will require much wider bandwidth. Planar monopole antennas are proper for these systems due to their simple structure, omnidirectional radiation characteristic, low prole, and light weight. Coplanar waveguide (CPW)-fed antennas [1], [2] exhibit wide bandwidth having a single metallic layer and are easy to fabricate and integrate with active devices or monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs). In this letter, we propose a novel, very low-thickness, uniplanar dual-band CPW-fed monopole/electromagnetic band-gap (EBG) combination exhibiting considerable bandwidth enhancement in the lower frequency band together with radiation efciency improvement in both frequency bands. First, a conventional CPW-fed monopole antenna for dual-band operation around 2.4 and 5.8 GHz is designed. Then, the ground plane shape is modied, becoming trapezoidal to enhance bandwidth in both frequency bands. A dual EBG is designed at frequencies close to the CPW-fed monopole antenna ones in order to couple each other, leading to wider bandwidth. Finally, both the CPW-fed monopole antenna and the EBG are combined in a uniplanar design. Prototypes of the CPW-fed monopole antennas alone and combined with the
Manuscript received February 06, 2012; revised March 11, 2012; accepted March 24, 2012. Date of publication April 03, 2012; date of current version April 16, 2012. This work was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacin of Spain /FEDER under Projects TEC2011-24492 (iScat) and CONSOLIDER-INGENIO CSD2008-00068 (TERASENSE) and the Gobierno del Principado de Asturias (PCTI)/FEDER-FSE under Project PC10-06 (FLEXANT). The authors are with the Electrical Engineering Department, University of Oviedo. 33203 Gijn (e-mail: medecos@tsc.uniovi.es; asheras@tsc.uniovi. es). Color versions of one or more of the gures in this letter are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Digital Object Identier 10.1109/LAWP.2012.2192493

Fig. 1. Simulated return loss of CPW-fed monopole antenna versus ground plane dimension . Top view of CPW-fed monopole antenna geometry.

EBG are manufactured and characterized in terms of return loss and radiation patterns for comparison. II. DUAL-BAND ANTENNA DESIGN Fig. 1 shows the geometry of the proposed CPW-fed monopole antenna for dual-band operation. There is no metallization on the backside. The antenna is excited by the 50 CPW line with strip width and gap between the strip and the ground plane, and it is printed on ARLON 25N dielectric substrate with mm (30 mil) thickness, relative dielectric permittivity, and less than 0.0025 loss tangent. The two ground planes are placed symmetrically on each side of the CPW line, each with dimensions , , and . The printed monopole length determines the lower resonance frequency, and so it is adjusted to be approximately at 2.4 GHz, while its width affects the antenna resistance at that frequency. For the proposed antenna, the capability of impedance matching at both operating frequencies using a single CPW feed line is remarkable. The second resonance corresponds to . From Fig. 2(a), it can be concluded that the gap width has a signicant effect on the return loss at the higher resonance frequency, and so on the impedance matching performance for the upper frequency band, whereas the lower frequency band remains insensitive to the gap variation. Referring to Fig. 2(b), it is observed that ground plane width has also a large impact on the higher resonance frequency and upper-band impedance bandwidth, while the lower resonance frequency and lower-band bandwidth almost remain unchanged, varying only the minimum return loss value. Ansofts HFSS [8] is used to optimize design parameters for dual-band operation at the desired frequencies. The antennas bandwidth is rst improved by varying and so modifying the

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IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 11, 2012

Fig. 3. Surface currents distribution at resonance frequencies for the CPW-fed monopoles with (left) rectangular and (right) trapezoidal ground plane.

Fig. 4. Simulated band-gap for a 4 4 unit-cell EBG. Suspended strip simulation setup. Geometry and dimensions for the EBG unit cell.

Fig. 2. Return loss of CPW-fed monopole antenna versus (a) gap ( ) and (b) ) dimensions. ground plane width (

TABLE I DIMENSIONS OF CPW-FED MONOPOLE ANTENNAS

685 to 700 MHz for the upper frequency band when varying from 0 to 6 mm. From surface current distribution shown in Fig. 3, it can be seen that the upper part of the trapezoidal ground plane contributes to radiation. Hence, it can be said that the triangle added to the rectangular ground plane to become trapezoidal (by varying from 0 to 6 mm) has three functions: rst, increase the ground plane size; second is a radiating element; and third is a component to constitute the distributed matching network with the monopole, which results in the wideband compared to the conventional rectangular ground plane. III. DUAL-BAND EBG DESIGN

TABLE II SIMULATED FREQUENCY BANDS OF CPW-FED MONOPOLE ANTENNAS

ground plane shape from rectangular mm to trapezoidal mm as shown in Fig. 1. The selected antenna dimensions are the ones in Table I. From return loss simulation results shown in Fig. 1 and Table II, it can be seen that bandwidth increases approximately from 325 to 365 MHz for the lower frequency band and from

EBG surfaces are two-dimensional periodic lattices patterned on a conductor-backed dielectric surface having one or multiple frequency band-gaps in which no substrate mode can exist [3][5]. The unit cell of an EBG implements a distributed network with one or more resonant frequencies. The band-gap can be determined by using the suspended strip method [6] obtaining the frequency bands with 10 dB over the periodic through a metallic strip suspended structure. Taking as reference the unit-cell geometry presented in [7], a dual-band EBG design is accomplished by surrounding the aforementioned geometry by a rectangular frame (see Fig. 4). A 4 4 unit-cell EBG is simulated using Ansofts HFSS, reducing the electromagnetic problem size through perfect magnetic conductor (PMC) boundary condition in one wall of the simulation setup as shown in Fig. 4. The unit-cell dimensions are adjusted so that the periodic structure resonates at frequencies near the

DE COS AND LAS-HERAS: DUAL-BAND UNIPLANAR CPW-FED MONOPOLE/EBG COMBINATION WITH BANDWIDTH ENHANCEMENT

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Fig. 5. Simulated versus measurement for return loss of CPW-fed monopole trapezoidal/EBG combination.

ones of the CPW-fed monopole antenna with trapezoidal ground plane. The aim is to broaden the antenna bandwidth by coupling the resonances of both structures. In addition, surface waves along the -plane are forbidden from forming due to the EBG periodicity in that plane. This improves operational bandwidth and directivity and, even more importantly, improves radiation efciency of the antenna. From simulation results in Fig. 4, the structure exhibits EBG behavior from 1.85 to 2 GHz and also at 2.2 GHz, dening the lower band-gap close to the antenna bandwidth but without overlapping it, whereas the upper band-gap goes from 5.9 to 6 GHz and from 6.2 to 6.3 GHz totally included in the upper antenna bandwidth. A third band-gap from 3.9 to 4.1 GHz also appears. IV. CPW-FED MONOPOLE ANTENNA AND EBG COMBINATION The dual-band EBG is arranged around the CPW-fed monopole antenna with trapezoidal ground plane leading to a uniplanar CPW-fed monopole/EBG combination with dimensions mm ( at 2.45 GHz). The lower frequency band exhibits 400-MHz bandwidth in simulation (see Fig. 5), improving the one of the CPW-fed monopole antenna with trapezoidal ground plane, whereas for the upper band the bandwidth is 600 MHz, which means a slight reduction compared to the CPW-fed monopole antenna with trapezoidal ground plane. V. CHARACTERIZATION RESULTS Prototypes of the CPW-fed monopole antennas alone and surrounded by the designed dual-band EBG are manufactured using laser micromachining. The results of measured return loss for the manufactured prototypes are depicted in Fig. 6 and detailed in Table III. Lower band is progressively broadened from 246 (10.17%) to 391 MHz (17.67%) by using trapezoidal ground plane in combination with an EBG that resonates at frequencies close to the antenna ones, whereas the upper band becomes wider with the trapezoidal ground plane but is almost preserved with the EBG as band-gap frequencies are included in the upper antenna band. The frequency shift between simulation and measurements is mainly due to manufacturing tolerances. This effect is stronger

Fig. 6. Manufactured prototypes: (a) CPW-fed monopole; (b) CPW-fed monopole with trapezoidal ground plane; and (c) CPW-fed monopole trapezoidal/EBG combination. Return loss measurements for the prototypes.

TABLE III MEASURED BANDWIDTHS OF CPW-FED MONOPOLE ANTENNAS

TABLE IV MEASURED GAIN, DIRECTIVITY, AND RADIATION EFFICIENCY

for the higher frequency band as the upper resonance is more inuenced by the gap size , which is more sensitive to manufacturing tolerances due to underetching or overetching during the laser micromachining process. Regarding radiation properties, the measured gain, directivity, and radiation efciency at 2.45 and 5.8 GHz are shown in Table IV, all of them being enhanced for the CPW-fed monopole trapezoidal with EBG. The trapezoidal ground plane alone slightly reduces the directivity, almost preserving the gain, leading to an enhancement in radiation efciency. Finally, Figs. 7 and 8 depict the measured radiation patterns for E-plane and H-plane cuts at 2.45 and 5.8 GHz. For E-plane cuts the copolar component corresponds to , . However, for whereas the cross-polar one corresponds to H-plane cuts , the copolar component corresponds to , and the cross-polar one corresponds to . As expected, H-plane tends to be omnidirectional, whereas E-plane shows the

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IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 11, 2012

Fig. 7. Measured radiation pattern cuts for CPW-fed monopole antennas at 2.5 GHz (normalized, in dB): (left) E-plane and (right) H-plane; copolarization (CP) and cross polarization (XP).

Fig. 8. Measured radiation pattern cuts for CPW-fed monopole antennas at 5.8 GHz (normalized, in dB): (left) E-plane and (right) H-plane; copolarization (CP) and cross-polarization (XP).

REFERENCES typical monopole-like pattern at 2.45 GHz and is more dipolelike at 5.8 GHz. VI. CONCLUSION The design of a novel dual-band CPW-fed monopole/EBG combination has been presented. The characterization of the manufactured prototypes shows that it is possible to increase considerably the bandwidth of a CPW-fed monopole while improving its radiation characteristics (especially radiation efciency) by using trapezoidal ground plane in combination with an EBG at close resonant frequencies. The prototype with an at 2.45 GHz), and it is EBG has very low thickness ( uniplanar and low-cost, which makes it proper for dual-band wireless communication systems. By varying the EBG unit-cell dimensions, the designer can change its resonance frequencies, situating them so that they do or do not overlap the CPW-fed monopole ones to increase or preserve the bandwidth while improving its radiation properties.
[1] T. H. Kim and D. C. Park, CPW-fed compact monopole antenna for dual-band WLAN applications, Electron. Lett., vol. 41, no. 6, pp. 292293, Mar. 2005. [2] M. Mantash, A.-C. Tarot, S. Collardey, and K. Mahdjoubi, Dual-band CPW-fed G-antenna using an EBG structure, in Proc. LAPC, 2010, pp. 453456. [3] D. Sievenpiper, L. Zhang, R. F. J. Broas, N. G. Alexopolous, and E. Yablonovitch, High-impedance electromagnetic surfaces with a forbidden frequency band, IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., vol. 47, no. 11, pp. 20592074, Nov. 1999. [4] F. R. Yang, K. P. Ma, Y. Qian, and T. Itoh, A uniplanar compact photonic-bandgap (UC-PBG) structure and its applications for microwave circuit, IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., vol. 47, no. 8, pp. 15091514, Aug. 1999. [5] G. Goussetis, A. P. Feresidis, and J. C. Vardaxoglou, Tailoring the AMC and EBG characteristics of periodic metallic arrays printed on grounded dielectric substrate, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 54, no. 1, pp. 8289, Jan. 2006. [6] A. Aminian, F. Yang, and Y. Rahmat-Samii, In-phase reection and EM wave suppression characteristics of electromagnetic band-gap ground planes, in IEEE AP-S Dig., Jun. 2003, vol. 4, pp. 430433. [7] M. E. de Cos, Y. lvarez, R. C. Hadarig, and F. Las-Heras, Novel SHF band uniplanar articial magnetic conductor, IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 9, pp. 4447, 2010. [8] Ansoft HFSS. ver. 13, Ansoft Corporation, Pittsburgh, PA, 2011.