Biconical antennas for intrinsic characterization of the UWB channel

The characterization of the UWB channel´s own behaviour ´without antennas´ requires a huge amount of measurement and processing work, which should be greatly and efficiently reduced with the help of low angular distortion antennas. Obviously, the usual specifications for UWB channel measurements, like particularly good matching, omnidirectionality and a large frequency-independent horizontal main lobe, have to be respected. Two UWB bicone antennas designed with respect to these specifications and operating over two different bands have been designed and tested. Characterization tools in the time domain (TD) were used to analyze the distortion introduced by these antennas, and both antennas were found to be slightly distorting when comparing the radiated waveform to the excitation one, on the one hand, and, more interestingly, when comparing the radiated waveforms in different directions, on the other hand.