UWB Antennas

• Requirements of UWB antennas for our applications

– Broadband
– Small size
– Omni-directional
• Antennas meeting the above specifications do exist,
e.g. loop antennas are very good candidates. Large
Current Radiator(LCR) is one of them.
• Use EM simulator to characterize the antennas
• How about the interface?
– Deem the antenna as a filter and then co-design
antenna and circuits
 Simulation in EM simulator XFDTD
• Define the geometry & source Æ Run!
• Derive input voltage/current, input impedance,
near/far zone transient fields, s-parameters,
animation of the currents/fields/power flow, etc..
 Modeling UWB Antennas

• Derive input impedance by simulations

• Voltage-drive antenna will be capacitor-dominant while
current-drive antenna will be inductor-dominant
6cm Dipole Antenna
Input Impedance Dipole Antenna

Zant
Rrad
 Dipole/Monopole Antenna Model
• Compare the far-zone E-fields and the voltage across the
radiation resistors of 4cm and 10cm dipole antennas
• Stimulated by a pulse with 50ohm source resistance
4cm Dipole Antenna 10cm Dipole Antenna
1 1
XFTD Far-Field XFTD Far-Field
dl dl
ei 0.5 ei 0.5
F- F-
E 0 E 0
d d
e e
zli zli
a
mr
o
-0.5

-1
XFDTD mr
a -0.5
XFDTD
o -1
N N
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000

1 1
S P ICE S P ICE
ge ge
at 0.5 at 0.5
l l
o o
V 0 V 0
d d
e e
zli -0.5 zli -0.5
mr
o
a
-1
SPICE mr
o
a
-1
SPICE
N N
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000

1 1

0.5 0.5
e e
d d
ut 0 ut 0
i i
gn gn
M
a -0.5

-1
Aligned M
a -0.5
-1
Aligned
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000

Time S tep Time S tep

 Flexible Antenna Driver
• Put the antenna circuit model into circuit simulator
to design the driver
• H-bridge configuration
• Put them in parallel to make the driver flexible

EP2
EP1 Antenna Model
EP0 EP0
EN2
EN1
EN0 EN0
 Driver Circuit Schematic
• Inverter chain sharpens the edge of the input signal
• Pre-driver NAND/NOR circuits skew the signals
– Enable/Disable the driver
– Avoid short-circuit current
– Make the pulse radiated more balanced

Input Signal Antenna Model

Driver Enable

Section Enable
 Driver Circuit Simulation
Input Signal
• 1ns rise/fall-time input 1.5

pulse ) 1
V(

• Gaussian-derivative- V
ge
at
l
o 0.5

shape waveform of the up

t
nI

radiated E-field
0

0 5 10 15

• Imperfection of the Radiated E-Field

0.04
waveforms due to
) 0.02
nonlinearity of the driver m/
V(
dl

and coupling between

ei 0
F-
E
d

internal nodes
et
ai -0.02
d
a
R
-0.04
0 5 10 15
1nS Time (ns )
 Antenna/LNA Co-design
• Impedance of the Rx antenna seen by LNA is the
same as that of the Tx antenna
• Optimize LNA by putting the antenna model in front
• Usually voltage-drive RX antennas prefer large ZLNA
and current-drive antennas prefer small ZLNA

ZANT Z LNA

~ LNA
 Example: Monopole Rx Antennas
• 2cm monopole antenna with different loading
• Larger ZLNA gives higher LNA input voltage
• Mismatch due to scattering and near-zone field
• The relative magnitudes are close
1 1

0.8
50KΩ 0.8
50KΩ
0.6 0.6

0.4 0.4

0.2 0.2
) )
V( V(
e 0 e 0
d d
ut ut
i i
ng ng
a -0.2 a -0.2
M M

-0.4 -0.4

-0.6
50Ω -0.6
50Ω
-0.8 -0.8

-1
XFDTD -1
SPICE
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Time (nS ) Time (nS )