Modeling the Transient Radiated and Received Pulses of Ultra-Wideband Antennas

In this paper, we propose a method for modeling the transient radiated and received pulses of ultra-wideband (UWB) planar aperture antennas. The proposed method is able to analytically model the angle-dependent pulse distortion of the antennas. The method relates the input pulse of an antenna to its transient radiated fields, and the incident transient fields to its output pulse. This method needs to estimate the antenna's aperture field distribution from time-domain antenna measurements. Using the proposed method, the received pulses from three different antennas-a ridged-horn, a dielectric loaded horn, and a Vivaldi antenna-are modeled and compared with the measured received pulses. A comparison of pulse shape, amplitude, and energy shows very good agreement. Different input pulses are also examined for the experimental evaluation of the proposed method. The method allows designers to analytically estimate the antenna effect on transmitted pulse enabling the inclusion of pulse distortion by the antenna into the ultra-wideband transceiver design.