A UWB Antenna for Impulse Radio

A UWB antenna, which is adopted from a ground penetrating radar (GPR) antenna, is proposed for impulse radio application. The antenna has dimensioning of 7 cm by 1.5 cm and is based on a modified bow-tie structure. It employs improved resistive loading for transmission of 0.2-ns monocycles with minimal ringing. The antenna radiation efficiency is enhanced by creating discontinuities in the antenna that serve as secondary sources of radiation. Numerical analysis of the antenna was performed using the FDTD method and the method of moments. It has been found that antenna ringing is adequately suppressed after less than 3 times the pulse radiation. This will set the potential limit of the data rate at more than 1 Gbit/s. Furthermore, the antenna shows a relatively flat gain and input impedance in the 3 - 10 GHz frequency range. Within this bandwidth the antenna is omni-directional and has stable radiation pattern