UWB Planar Conical Horn-Shaped Self-Complementary Bow-Tie Antenna

An ultra-wideband (UWB) self-complementary planar bow-tie antenna (SCPBTA) is proposed. The antenna consists of a printed conical horn-shaped (CHS) radiator and a counterpart CHS slot etched on a rectangular ground plane. The printed CHS radiator is connected directly to the 50Ω microstrip line by bending the end portion of the feed line. As a result, the antenna has a simple structure which does not require impedance matching networks. The antenna with a compact size of 32×38×1.2 mm3 can cover UWB spectrum from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz. The simulation time- and frequency-domain results obtained from HFSS simulator package are verified by experimental measurements. Measured results for the reflection coefficient, far-field radiation patterns, radiation efficiency, gain, and group delay of the designed antenna over the UWB spectrum are presented and discussed. Measured data show good concordance with the numerical results. Also, the fidelity factor is calculated in both E- and H-plane by using CST Microwave Studio. The obtained results in both time- and frequency-domain indicate that the proposed SCPBTA is a good option for most practical UWB applications.