Ultra-wideband antipodal slot antenna with improved radiation performance

A novel antipodal wide-slot antenna for ultra-wideband (UWB) applications is proposed and studied in detail. The antenna is fed by a microstrip line terminated with a rectangular tuning patch. An antipodal structure is employed to improve the radiation performances. The return losses, surface E-field, current distribution, radiation patterns and gains of the antenna are numerically and experimentally investigated. Results show that the proposed antipodal antenna has an impedance bandwidth from 0.79 to 4.0 GHz, which is about 5:1. Compared with conventional rectangular wide-slot antenna, more stable radiation pattern with lower cross-polarisation level and flatter gain variation over a 3:1 bandwidth can be obtained. Thus, the proposed antenna should be more suitable for future UWB-multiple-input multiple-output applications using polarisation diversity than conventional UWB rectangular slot antennas.