Fractal based ultra-wideband antenna development for wireless personal area communication applications

Abstract This paper presents a bandwidth enhanced, compact planar ultra-wideband antenna design for wireless personal area communication (WPAN) applications. The proposed antenna has fractal based geometry and is constructed using several iterations of a pentagon slot inside a circular metallic structure. The partial ground plane of the basic radiator is tapered, defected and a U slit is etched out from the microstrip feed to improve the −10 dB |S11| bandwidth. The proposed fractal based antenna has an impedance bandwidth from 2.9 GHz to 15 GHz with low profile configuration and is fabricated on FR4 substrate with dimensions of 32 mm × 32 mm × 1.6 mm. To authenticate the designed prototype, the antenna is fabricated and tested for impedance and radiation characteristics. The designed antenna has stable radiation characteristics in the operating band. Furthermore, the antenna is validated for its applicability in WPAN, by calculating fidelity factor through time domain analysis along with the transmission coefficient and group delay measurements.