System Fidelity Factor: A New Method for Comparing UWB Antennas

Author

Quintero, G. ; Zurcher, J.-F. ; Skrivervik, A.K.

Author_Institution

Lab. of Electromagn. & Acoust. (LEMA), Ecole Polytech. Fed. de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland

Volume

59

Issue

7

fYear

2011

fDate

7/1/2011 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

2502

Lastpage

2512

Abstract

The main purpose of the System Fidelity Factor (SFF) is to incorporate frequency and time domain characteristics of an antenna system into a comparison method for ultrawideband (UWB) antennas. The SFF is an interesting tool because both simulations and measurements can be done in a simple and straight-forward manner. Simulations of a single antenna are combined into a two-antennas system analysis by means of a simple post-processing, where the transfer function of the transmitting and receiving antennas are calculated. Measurements of the SFF are done using a two port Vector Network Analyzer (VNA). The polar representation of the SFF allows an equitable comparison between antennas. The procedure to derive the SFF is described in detail in the paper. Two examples are given where the UWB performance of three antenna systems are compared. In the first example antenna systems of two identical monopoles are studied. In the second example the transmitting antenna is a Vivaldi and the receiving antenna a monopole.

Keywords

frequency-domain analysis; monopole antennas; network analysers; receiving antennas; time-domain analysis; transmitting antennas; ultra wideband antennas; SFF; UWB antennas; UWB performance; VNA; Vivaldi; antenna systems; comparison method; frequency domain characteristics; identical monopoles; polar representation; port vector network analyzer; receiving antennas; simple post-processing; single antenna; system fidelity factor; time domain characteristics; transfer function; transmitting antenna; two-antennas system analysis; ultrawideband antennas; Antenna measurements; Delay; Receiving antennas; Transfer functions; Transmitting antennas; Ultra wideband antennas; Fidelity factor; planar circular monopole; ultra wideband (UWB) antenna;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Antennas and Propagation, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-926X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TAP.2011.2152322

Filename

5765468