Dual band-reject UWB antenna with sharp rejection of narrow and closely-spaced bands

An ultrawideband (UWB) antenna that rejects extremely sharply the two narrow and closely-spaced U.S. WLAN 802.11a bands is presented. The antenna is designed on a single surface (it is uniplanar) and uses only linear sections for easy scaling and fine-tuning. Distributed-element and lumped-element equivalent circuit models of this dual band-reject UWB antenna are presented and used to support the explanation of the physical principles of operation of the dual band-rejection mechanism thoroughly. The circuits are evaluated by comparing with the response of the presented UWB antenna that has very high selectivity and achieves dual-frequency rejection of the WLAN 5.25 GHz and 5.775 GHz bands, while it receives signal from the intermediate band between 5.35-5.725 GHz. The rejection is achieved using double open-circuited stubs, which is uncommon and are chosen based on their narrowband performance. The antenna was fabricated on a single side of a thin, flexible, LCP substrate. The measured achieved rejection is the best reported for a dual-band reject antenna with so closely-spaced rejected bands. The measured group delay of the antenna validates its suitability for UWB links. Such antennas improve both UWB and WLAN communication links at practically zero cost.