UWB, or Ultra-Wide Band technology offers many advantages, especially in terms of very high data transmission rates which are well beyond those possible with currently deployed technologies such as 802.11a, b, g, WiMax and the like. Ultra-wide band systems transmit and receive ultrashort electromagnetic pulses having limited effective radiated power. The system performance is determined primarily by the characteristics of the radiators that have to conform to stringent frequency and time domain requirements in the entire operating band. These requirements are namely, a nondispersive phase center; constant radiation and impedance over the frequency range with no excitation of higher order modes.
In my research, I have proposed various antenna topologies suitable for UWB systems and have characterized them both in the frequency and time domains. For good time domain performance, resonances in the antenna within the operating band as well as the physical size of the antenna has to be minimum; the former condition will minimize internal reflections in the antenna geometry while the latter will make sure that there are no changes in the phase center of the antenna.