Basic Properties and Design Principles of UWB Antennas

• Published in: Proceedings of the IEEE Vol. 97; no. 2; pp. 372 - 385
• Main Authors: Wiesbeck, Werner, Adamiuk, Grzegorz, Sturm, Christian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.02.2009; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Antennas; Antennas and propagation; Classification; Communication systems; Design engineering; Frequency domain analysis; Frequency domains; Impedance; Radar; Radar antennas; Receiving antennas; Time domain analysis; Transfer functions; Transmitting antennas; Ultra wideband antennas; Ultra wideband technology; Ultra-wide-band (UWB); Ultrawideband; UWB antenna characterization; UWB link; UWB transfer functions
• ISSN: 0018-9219; 1558-2256
• DOI: 10.1109/JPROC.2008.2008838

Basic principles for ultra-wide-band (UWB) radiation are presented and discussed in this paper. The discussion starts with a description of the influence of antennas on UWB transmission. The parameters characterizing antennas in time and in frequency domain are specified. Since the number of possible antenna structures is nearly unlimited, the focus will be on a classification according to different radiation principles. For each of these mechanisms, the typical advantages and disadvantages are discussed, and an example antenna and its characteristics are presented. For a wireless engineer, the problem to solve is the proper design of an antenna with the desired radiation characteristics. The final outcome of this paper is that there exist numbers of UWB antennas, but not each of them is suited for any application, especially in view of radar and communication systems requirements.