Experimental validation of the UWB “Eared” antenna for impulse radio applications

It is possible to find various antennas in the literature covering the UWB frequency range stretching between 3.1 GHz and 10.6 GHz, as the UWB technology has gained much popularity in the recent years. These antennas have some deficiencies. Some of these antennas are electrically large, so it is difficult to use them in array environments and some of them have acceptable time domain behaviors up to a limited frequency, only. For example, the circular slot antenna investigated in [1] has a width of more than 29 mm, corresponding to 0.64 λ at the central frequency of the UWB band (6.6 GHz), which makes it difficult to use this antenna in array environments. Similarly, a planar bell-shaped antenna investigated in [2] has the same electrically big size problem; the maximum size of the antenna is 86 mm which corresponds to 0.89 λ at 6.6 GHz.