Compact elliptical UWB antenna for underwater wireless communications

Alhawari, A. R. H., Majeed, S. F., Saeidi, T., Mumtaz, S., Alghamdi, H., Hindi, A. T., Almawgani, A. H. M., Imran, M. A. and Abbasi, Q. H. (2021) Compact elliptical UWB antenna for underwater wireless communications. Micromachines, 12(4), 411. (doi: 10.3390/mi12040411)

Abstract

The increasing needs of free licensed frequency bands like Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM), Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), and 5G for underwater communications required more bandwidth (BW) with higher data transferring rate. Microwaves produce a higher transferring rate of data, and their associated devices are smaller in comparison with sonar and ultrasonic. Thus, transceivers should have broad BW to cover more of a frequency band, especially from ultra-wideband (UWB) systems, which show potential outcomes. However, previous designs of similar work for underwater communications were very complicated, uneasy to fabricate, and large. Therefore, to overcome these shortcomings, a novel compact elliptical UWB antenna is designed to resonate from 1.3 to 7.2 GHz. It is invented from a polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) layer with a dielectric constant of 2.55 mm and a thickness of 0.8 mm. The proposed antenna shows higher gain and radiation efficiency and stability throughout the working band when compared to recent similarly reported designs, even at a smaller size. The characteristics of the functioning antenna are investigated through fluid mediums of fresh-water, seawater, distilled water, and Debye model water. Later, its channel capacity, bit rate error, and data rate are evaluated. The results demonstrated that the antenna offers compact, easier fabrication with better UWB characteristics for underwater 5G communications.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: The project was funded by Najran University, research grant number NU/ESCI/17/033.
• Keywords: UWB antennas, 5G band, underwater communications, channel capacity, bit rate error.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Abbasi, Professor Qammer and Imran, Professor Muhammad
• Authors: Alhawari, A. R. H., Majeed, S. F., Saeidi, T., Mumtaz, S., Alghamdi, H., Hindi, A. T., Almawgani, A. H. M., Imran, M. A., and Abbasi, Q. H.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Electronics and Nanoscale Engineering; College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Systems Power and Energy
• Journal Name: Micromachines
• Publisher: MDPI
• ISSN: 2072-666X
• ISSN (Online): 2072-666X
• Published Online: 07 April 2021
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2021 The Authors
• First Published: First published in Micromachines 12(4): 411
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License