An Experimental Study of the Printed-Circuit Elliptic Dipole Antenna with 1.5-16 GHz Bandwidth

Printed-circuit board (PCB) elliptic antennas with useful bandwidth exceeding 10:1 ratio are suitable for wideband radar, wireless ultra wideband (UWB) and other wireless communication applications. We present wideband PCB elliptic dipole antennas which are capable of achieving the bandwidth requirements for all the applications. A set of elliptic dipole antennas with varying eccentricities have been fabricated for demonstration. We find one specific size (specific eccentricity) dipole that can yield an impressive 1.5-16 bandwidth exceeding the currently available. A couple of elliptic dipole antennas suitable for UWB application have been presented. We have measured swept frequency response, impedance and radiation patterns of all dipoles. An empirical formula is given for calculating the starting resonant frequency within the operating band. The calculated values are found in good agreement with measured results.