| The number of wireless communication applications continue to increase steadily, leading to competition for currently allocated frequency bands. Capacity issues in form of data rate and latency have always been a bottleneck for broadband wireless-communication usage. New communication systems like ultra-wideband (UWB) require larger bandwidth than what is normally utilized with traditional antenna techniques. The interest for compact consumer electronics is growing in the meantime, creating a demand on efficient and low profile antennas which can be integrated on a printed circuit board. The main objective of this thesis is to study, design, analyze and implement UWB low profile microstrip patch antenna that satisfy UWB technology requirements. Some methods to extend the bandwidth and other antenna parameters associated with wideband usages are studied. Several techniques are used for optimal UWB bandwidth performance of the UWB microstrip patch antenna. The performance parameters such as VSWR, Gain and radiation pattern of the UWB microstrip patch antenna is extensively investigated with simulations using FEKO. A set of simple design guidelines is proposed to provide approximate rules that result in optimum "first-pass" designs of probe-fed, miniaturized, low profile, microstrip UWB antennas using different bandwidth-enhancement techniques to satisfy UWB bandwidth that require minimal tuning. |
