A novel compact tapered-slot-fed antenna (TSA) with anti-spiral shape and lumped resistors is presented for ultra-wideband (UWB) applications. Unique coplanar waveguide (CPW) to coplanar strip (CPS) feeding structure and exponential slot are designed to ensure the continuous current propagation and good impedance matching. With a pair of anti-spiral-shaped structure loadings at the end of the antenna, the radiation performance in lower operating band can be enhanced obviously. The typical resistor loading technique is applied to improve the time domain characteristics and expand the bandwidth. The fabricated prototype of this proposed antenna with a size of 53 × 63.5 mm2 was measured to confirm simulated results. The proposed antenna has S11 less than -10 dB in the range of 1.2-9.8 GHz, and the group delay result is only 0.4 ns. These findings indicate the proposed antenna can be taken as a promising candidate in UWB communication field.
Keywords: anti-spiral shape; resistor-loading; tapered-slot-fed antenna (TSA); ultra-wideband (UWB).