Babinet´s principle applied to ultra-wideband antennas for high isolation

The application of Babinet´s principle to the ultra-wideband (UWB) differential planar printed antenna is presented. This electromagnetic technique is applied to a classical monopole UWB antenna, and can also be applied to most types of printed antennas. It permits grouping on the same substrate of two antennas close to each other, operating in the same frequency band and with high isolation. In the final prototype, the antenna is co-designed with a transmitter/receiver pulse chip and optimised to operate in the Federal Communications Commission frequency band with a return loss <;-6 dB. The overall dimensions of the differential antenna are 56 × 30 mm².