A Hexagon Slotted Circular Monopole UWB Antenna for Cognitive Radio Applications

Abstract

The paper emphasizes on Ultra Wide Band (UWB) technology, which gained popularity since nineteenth century. This technology is still proliferating to new branches of research due to its key features like secure, reliable, low power consumption and high speed data transfer over smaller distances. The paper presents a hexagon slotted circular monopole UWB antenna of dimensions 27mm×20mm×1.6mm printed on a FR4 substrate. It achieves less than 10dB return loss performance in the frequencies starting from 2.36GHz to 12.69GHz that covers the FCC unlicensed UWB band 3.1GHz to 10.6GHz. The maximum efficiency of proposed antenna is 97% at 3.1GHz and maximum peak gain is 3dBi at 7.18GHz. This antenna is simulated with HFSS EM simulation tool. The fabricated prototype is tested using VNA. The measured and simulated return loss characteristics have good agreement. This antenna is a good design for spectrum sensing applications in cognitive radio and RF energy harvesting in 4G, LTE, Wi-Fi, Wi-MAX and 5G bands.