Realizing UWB Antenna Array with Dual and Wide Rejection Bands Using Metamaterial and Electromagnetic Bandgaps Techniques

This research article describes a technique for realizing wideband dual notched functionality in an ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna array based on metamaterial and electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) techniques. For comparison purposes, a reference antenna array was initially designed comprising hexagonal patches that are interconnected to each other. The array was fabricated on standard FR-4 substrate with thickness of 0.8 mm. The reference antenna exhibited an average gain of 1.5 dBi across 5.25-10.1 GHz. To improve the array's impedance bandwidth for application in UWB systems metamaterial (MTM) characteristics were applied it. This involved embedding hexagonal slots in patch and shorting the patch to the ground-plane with metallic via. This essentially transformed the antenna to a composite right/left-handed structure that behaved like series left-handed capacitance and shunt left-handed inductance. The proposed MTM antenna array now operated over a much wider frequency range (2-12 GHz) with average gain of 5 dBi. Notched band functionality was incorporated in the proposed array to eliminate unwanted interference signals from other wireless communications systems that coexist inside the UWB spectrum. This was achieved by introducing electromagnetic bandgap in the array by etching circular slots on the ground-plane that are aligned underneath each patch and interconnecting microstrip-line in the array. The proposed techniques had no effect on the dimensions of the antenna array (20 mm x 20 mm x 0.87 mm). The results presented confirm dual-band rejection at the wireless local area network (WLAN) band (5.15-5.825 GHz) and X-band satellite downlink communication band (7.10-7.76 GHz). Compared to other dual notched band designs previously published the footprint of the proposed technique is smaller and its rejection notches completely cover the bandwidth of interfering signals.