A CPW-fed Irregular Shaped Hexagonal Patch Antenna with Elliptical Substrate for UWB Applications

Abstract

A novel design of Ultra-Wideband (UWB) antenna with irregularly shaped hexagonal patch built on the elliptical-shaped FR-4 laminate with εr = 4.3 and tanδ = 0.025 is presented. The feed mechanism utilized in the structure proposed is modified co-planar waveguide (CPW), the feeding microstrip is tapered near the connecting edge of the patch for better impedance matching. The proposed antenna is compared with the traditional rectangular substrate and found that the elliptical substrate enhances the radiation characteristics of the antenna and is capable of functioning effectively in the range of 3.1 GHz-11.7 GHz, accompanied by the total efficiency > 86% across the whole FCC allocated UWB operating band. The antenna can be used for wide range of UWB applications as it exhibits good omnidirectional characteristics with a realized peak gain of 4.178dB and an average realized gain of 3.063dB. The simulation work of the antenna is accomplished using CST Studio (v. 2014).