UWB Staircase-Profile Printed Monopole Design

In printed monopoles, the current distribution along the lower monopole sheet and upper groundplane edges can be made analogous to a transmission line distribution by an appropriate antenna feed design. Accordingly, the VSWR < 2 impedance bandwidth upper frequency limit can be estimated for staircase-profile printed 2D ultrawideband (UWB) monopoles. Following this guideline, three tailored-bandwidth prototypes are designed, implemented and measured. They retain their length and width while multiplying their upper frequency (4.87, 8.7, and 15.15 GHz) by the number of monopole profile steps (1, 2, and 3). The deviation is found mainly below 13% in relation to the reference formula. The concept of angular range based on pattern stability factor (PSF) is introduced to compare the solid angle of UWB pattern stability operation when increasing the bandwidth. The angular range degradation versus impedance bandwidth improvement shows all the possible performance levels of the antennas. Thus, the design of UWB printed monopoles is approached from both points of view, i.e., impedance bandwidth and pattern stability.