AbstractA novel U‐shaped monopole antenna suitable for ultrawideband (UWB) application is presented and investigated in this article. The antenna is developed from printed circular disc monopole antenna, and the current distribution evident that the proposed antenna has a similar current. Three steps in ground plane is designed and adjusted to obtain UWB impedance matching. Experimental results show that the proposed antenna meets the requirement of wide working bandwidth of 3.1–10.6 GHz with VSWR < 2. Study of transfer function (magnitude of S21/group delay) and time domain characteristic (waveform/fidelity) indicate a good UWB application behavior for the antenna. The proposed antenna has a compact size, good radiation characteristics, ultra wide bandwidth, and good time‐domain behaviors to satisfy the requirement of the current wireless communications systems. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 54:1532–1537, 2012; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.26840