A printed monopole antenna with two steps and a circular slot for UWB applications

This letter presents a printed monopole antenna with two steps and a circular slot for ultrawide band (UWB) applications. The proposed antenna is fabricated and tested. The proposed antenna has a wide frequency bandwidth of 8.4 GHz starting from 3 GHz up to 11.4 GHz for a return loss (S11) of less than -10 dB and gain flatness over the frequency range. Measured results show also that the proposed antenna features satisfactory radiation characteristics within the achieved impedance bandwidth. By introducing a simple and proper narrow slot in the radiating element, frequency-notched characteristics can be obtained and a good band-notched performance in the 5-6 GHz band can be achieved. © 2008 IEEE.