LAUSR

A reconfigurable antenna with on-demand single-band or dual-band rejection capability for ultra-wideband (UWB) applications is presented. A modified monopole structure is integrated with a U-shaped slot and an open-ended slot to realize band-rejection. The antenna operates in four modes: a full UWB (3.1–10.6 GHz) coverage antenna, a UWB antenna with a single-band WiMax or wide local area network (WLAN) rejection, and a UWB antenna with dual-band WiMax/WLAN rejection. On-demand single and dual-band rejections are implemented by controlling two slots using two PIN diodes. Thus, the adopted control technique is quite easy and requires low operating power. Details of the design process and reconfiguration mechanism are presented. The band-rejection performance is explained by return loss and surface current distribution at single-band mode. A prototype is built on a Rogers substrate and tested to validate the performances. The antenna exhibits stable radiation characteristics and almost flat gain responses across the whole band, while significantly gain reduction is achieved at the rejected bands. Therefore, this antenna is suitable for high-performance UWB systems in WiMax/WLAN dense environments with the aim to improve signal quality, system capacity, and communication efficiency.