P1 -7
A Microstrip Bandpass Filter Using Asymmetrical Stepped-
Impedance Resonators for a Wide Upper Stopband Performance
P. AKKARAEKTHALIN, J.JANTREE, T. MAJAENG AND S. CHAIMOOL
Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering King Mongkut's Institute of Technology
North Bangkok, Pibulsongkram Rd., Bangsue, Bangkok 10800, Thailand Phone: +662-9132500
Ext.8519, Fax: +662-5857350, E-mail:
Abstract-This paper proposed a new asymmetrical
microstip stepped-impedance resonator (SIR) used for
constructing a narrow band bandpass filter. With the
proposed resonator, a desired bandpass response has been
realized and a bandstop characteristic in the upper stopband
has been obtained resulting in high spurious suppression. The
size of the resonator is also reduced approximately 16 %
when comparing with a conventional SIR. A bandpass filter
using a microstrip stepped-impedance line periodically loaded
with the proposed SIRs has been designed at the operating
frequency of 2 GHz with a bandwidth of 60 MHz. The
proposed filter has a low insertion loss with a wide upper
stopband characteristic that the spurious suppression of
better than 20 dB has been measured for a frequency range
up to 7.6 GHz.
I. INTRODUCTION
Microstrip bandpass filters are now finding a wide range
of applications in wireless communication systems. The
filter characteristics of low insertion losses, high
selectivity, narrow bandwidth and compact size are always
required. In selecting resonator types, filter structures must
also be considered carefully. Traditionally, parallel-
coupled lines and hairpin structures are widely used in
microwave filter circuits [1]. In order to enhance filter
performances, cross-coupled filters which can realize
elliptic or quasi-elliptic responses, have been proposed in
[2-4]. Nevertheless most planar bandpass filters
implemented with half-wave length resonators have
inherently harmonic spurious frequencies. These spurious
responses are essentially needed to be rejected, therefore, a
cascaded lowpass or bandstop filter has been used to
suppress them [5], but size and insertion loss are
necessarily increased. Many other proposed filters use
stepped-impedance resonators (SIRs) to improve the upper
stopband performances [6-7].However, the proposed SIR
filters with parallel or cross-coupled structures provide
spurious frequency shifts, but their levels are still high.
Slow-wave wideband bandpass filters using microstrip line
periodically loaded with SIRs have been proposed,
however, the less attenuation in the upper stopband of
these filters are obtained [8].
1-4244-0445-2/07/$20.00 2007 IEEE 141
:
Lbl
WJ1|
Ga Il Lb2
W,2
(a) (b)
Fig. 1 (a) A conventional SIR and (b) the proposed asymmetrical
SIR.
In this paper, a bandpass filter using microstrip line
periodically loaded with new asymmetrical SIRs for a high
upper stopband performance has been reported. The
proposed filter structure is simple and compact due to it
avoids any additional lowpass or bandstop filter.
II. ASYMMETRICAL STEPPED-IMPEDANCE
RESONATOR
Fig. 1 (a) and (b) show structures of a conventional
resonator and the proposed asymmetrical SIR, respectively.
The resonance responses of these resonators are evaluated
by using the full-wave simulator, IE3D [9]. The resonators
are designed on GML 1000 substrate, which has a given
relative dielectric constant of 3.2, thickness of 0.762 mm
and loss tangent of 0.004. The asymmetrical SIR has been
optimized to resonate around 2 GHz. The resonator
dimensions include Gal = Gbl = 0.508 mm, Wal = Wbl =
3.048 mm, Wa2 = Wb2 = 0.889 mm, Lai = Lbl =13.055 mm,
La2 = Lb2 = 6.604 mm, La3 = Lb3 = 2.667 mm, La4 = 2.159
mm, and Lb4 = 1.270 mm. The simulated results of
resonance responses are given in Fig.2. These resonance
responses are obtained from both structures of the
conventional SIR and the proposed SIR with the same
sizes. It can be noticed that the proposed resonator has a
resonance frequency of 2.035 GHz, lower than 2.277 GHz
of the conventional one. This means the proposed
asymmetrical SIR can be made smaller than the
conventional structure when they resonate at the same
switched accordingly. This results in simple manufacturing are radiating apertures with in-phase excitation. The
process. resultant magnetic current densities MX on both apertures
This paper introduces PASE using dual-feed switched- have opposite direction radiating electric field as an array
beam patch antennas. A principle of a dual-feed switched- antenna. The array radiates bidirectional pattern having
beam patch antenna is reviewed and the architecture of the maximum at y directions with vertical polarization.
PASE handset adaptive antenna will be introduced and Similarly, when the antenna is fed at (O,y,O), electric
analyzed in this paper. field distribution is the TM200 mode (uniform distribution
x y
along y direction and two half cycles along x direction) as
ZA / radiating aperture
shown in Fig.2 (b). The resultant magnetic current densities
probe 2 Y My on the apertures have opposite direction that radiate
y -x bidirectional pattern with maximum at x directions.
non-radiatimg ap The objective of this work is to develop a handset
adaptive antenna for operation at the frequency of 5.8 GHz.
x~~~~~~~~ y It will be fabricated on a substrate with height of 0.25 mm,
probe1WI. .
I non-radiating aper,rture er of 10.2 and loss tangent of 0.0013. Antenna width is 15.5
radiaingyaertur mm can be obtained by using the above principle and
radiating aperture simulated by IE3D simulator. It was found that the feed
(a)
position has significant effect on radiation pattern. The
beam is wide when the feed position is close to the center
x y
of the antenna. It becomes narrow as the feed distance from
ZA / non-radiating aperture the center of the antenna is increased. It turns out to be
probe 2 Y narrow with sidelobe when the distance is further increased
y -x
h
[4]. It is observed that xf is equal to 4 mm to provide the
_x~~~~~~~~ > ~~~~~~~~~Az
radiating apertui
satisfactory radiation pattern as illustrated in Fig.3.
probe I
W radiating aperture
Az
_y x

non-radiating aperture

(b)
Fig.2. Mode distribution of a dual-feed switched-beam patch
antenna
(a) Fed at probe 1 (TMO20 mode)
(b) Fed at probe 2 (TM200 mode)

II. A DUAL-FEED SWITCHED-BEAM PATCH . .fedat xf = 4mm

ANTENNA fed atyf = 4mm

A dual-feed switched-beam patch antenna is a square Fig.3. Radiation patterns of a dual-feed switched-beam patch
patch with length of each side w. The patch height is h with antenna
dielectric constant of the substrate of e,. The patch is
located on xy plane and is fed by a probe located either at
(x,O,0) or (O,yf,O) as shown in Fig. l(a). The pattern can be III. A PHASED ARRAY OF DUAL-FEED SWITCHED-BEAM
switched by a single pole double throw (SPDT) RF switch PATCH ANTENNA
located on the bottom side of the antenna (see Fig.1 (b)). The architecture of the proposed adaptive antenna system
When the antenna is fed by a probe at (xfO,O), there will be is shown in Fig.4. The design of the antenna is based upon
waves propagating to y directions. The antenna length (w) circular array principle. Beam-switching of the antenna can
along the y axis is one wavelength in dielectric substrate be achieved by utilizing four one-bit phase shifters offering
(id). Therefore, electric fields Ez on the apertures at y are a cost-effective system. Following the derivation in [1],
in phase. The corresponding electric field distribution is the phase shift value of each one-bit phase shifter depends on
TM020 mode (uniform distribution along x direction and two an array radius. To switch the main beam to direction O0 =
half cycles along y direction) as shown in Fig.2 (a). The 450, 0,= 450 phase shift values (oc) of the phase shifters for
apertures at x are non-radiating apertures since electric different array radius are shown in Table I.
field on each aperture is cancelled out. The apertures at y

138
 antenna. Twelve beams covering the service area of 360
were selected for CMA initialization. Then, the beam with
maximum received power is recursively adjusted in
accordance with CMA.
The array radius of the antenna should be appropriately
designed to obtain directional pattern with low backlobe.
Fig.5 shows radiation patterns of the array when the main
beam is designed to direct to 80 = 450, 0, = 45direction.
Elements no. 1, 2, 3 and 4 have maximum of the patterns in
y, y, x and x directions. Clearly, the array radius of 0.3A,
provides the lowest back lobe. It should be noted that
smaller radius cannot be used due to element dimension
will be overlapped. Hence, the antenna dimension is
46.5x46.5 mm2. Table II shows radiation patterns of the
antenna when phase shifters are selected to point main
beam coarsely in four quadrants, then element patterns are
selected to finely control the patterns in each quadrant. This
enables the initialization close to the desired signal of the
CMA so that fast convergence can be accomplished.
Results in [5] show that this initialization scheme provides
convergence speed four times faster than the same scheme
using omnidirectional pattern antennas.

150

Fig.4. Architecture of PASE handset adaptive antenna

180------------

Table I Phase shift values

of switched-beam elements for different ra 2100
ra CC1 CC2 CC3 CC4
0.3Ao -540 540 540 -540 240
270
'300

O.4Ao -720 720 720 -720 ..

.

.
0. 3,.,
0. 4A.
15.5--
20.7--
0.5A0 -900 900 900 -900 0. 5A. 2 5.8--

Fig.5. Radiation patterns of PASE for different radius

The control signal of phase excitation for four one-bit
phase shifters can be generated by signal processor. A
received power of each individual beam obtained from
beam-switching element is measured. This received power
estimation can be accomplished by a power detector. The
decision to the maximum received power is performed in a
signal processor. The beam with maximum received power
will be selected as the initial beam for CMA. The
excitation was initially employed for switching of the main
beam into four quadrants. The number of switched-beams
of a phased array antenna can be increased by switching
feeding probes to reduce angle space between incoming
signals and the initial main beam direction. This antenna
can generate more patterns by means of a few additional
hardware. It can mitigate the effect of wide beamwidth
encountered in the flat four beam compact phased array
IV. CONCLUSION
PASE was proposed to initialize CMA to improve
convergence property using conventional switched-beam
single patch antenna. To implement on a handset, array
configuration and feeding network must be simple. A dual-
feed switched-beam patch antenna has proved to be
suitable for this application. This paper proposed PASE
employing dual-feed switched-beam patch antennas for
operation at the frequency of 5.8 GHz. The antenna system
consists of four dual-feed switched-beam patch antennas
that are designed on a 10.2 dielectric constant substrate.
The array element width is 15.5 mm and the array radius is
15.5 mm. The dimension of this antenna is 46.5x46.5 mm2.
Experimental result of this antenna will be illustrated in the
future work.

139
[1] P.

~0 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work was supported by the Thailand Research Fund
under contract No. RTA4880002.

Ngamjanyaporn,
REFERENCES
C. Phongcharoenpanich,
Akkaraekthalin and M. Krairiksh, "Signal-to-Interference
Ratio Improvement by Using a Phased Array Antenna of
Switched-Beam Elements," IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag,
vol. 53, no. 5, May 2005, pp.'819-1828.
[2] P. Ngamjanyaporn and M. Krairiksh: "Switched-beam single
P.

patch antenna," Electron. Lett., vol. 38, no. 1, Jan 2002, pp.
7-8.

Lxx
yyxx
270

yyyy
[3] A. Boonpoonga, P. Sirisuk and M. Krairiksh, "A Switched-
beam Element Phased Array Antenna for CMA
Initialization," in Proc. 36th European Micro. Conf:,
Manchester, Sep 2006, pp. 772-775.
[4] J. Tagapanij, C. Phongcharoenpanich and M. Krairiksh, "A
Dual-Feed Switched-Beam Patch Antenna for a Phased
Array of Switched-Beam Elements," accepted for
presentation in APMC 2006.
[5] A.Boonpoonga, P. Sirisuk, C. Phongcharoenpanich and M.
Krairiksh, "Beam-switching-Assisted CMA Initialization for
Handset Adaptive Antenna," accepted for presentation in
Radio and Wireless Symposium (RWS) 2007.

Table II Antenna patterns of the switched-beam elements phased array antenna

-54, 540, 54, and -540

Phase shift values cl, cc2, cc3 andOC4
540, -54, 540, and 540

270

yxyx
yyyy

xxxx
lxx
540, -54, -54, and 540

21
9420

yyxx

) yyyxxx3
540, 540, -540, and

24030

xxY
yxyx
yyyy
-540

140
frequency. To compare their sizes at the same resonance
frequency, the conventional resonator has the size of
-1C
15.570 x 6.604 mm2 while the size of asymmetrical SIR is mi -15
13.055 x 6.604 mm2. We can see that the size of the X -20
proposed asymmetrical SIR is 16.15% smaller than the ;= -25
conventional one. et -305 I

-35
The proposed asymmetrical SIR has an inherent -40 -
Even Mode

- - Odd Mode
bandpass characteristic with the fundamental resonance 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

frequency around 2 GHz. However, when the resonator has Frequency (GHz)
been loaded on a microstrip line, different frequency
Fig.4 Frequency responses (S21) of the asymmetrical parallel
responses could be realized, depending on connected
coupled-line with odd- and even-mode excitations.
location on the resonator. Fig.3 shows two resonator
configurations, A and B, which their connected locations
are opposite, when the distance L is set to be 9.144 mm.
The frequency responses have been evaluated by using the
IE3D program as results shown. We can notice that both
resonators A and B have the same fundamental frequency
but different higher order transmission zeros. This
characteristic can improve the upper stopband performance
of the bandpass filter when both resonators A and B have Fig.5 Layout of the proposed filter.
been applied to a microstrip line due to it cannot build up
the significant spurious responses.
The resonator has been then further studied for odd- and
even mode characteristics. The loading capacitors of the
resonator performing as an asymmetrical parallel coupled-
line have been exited in the odd- and even-modes. The
IE3D has been employed to evaluate the characteristics of
the asymmetrical coupled-line.

0-
Fig.6 Photograph of the proposed filter.
-10.
Fig.4 demonstrates the simulated frequency responses
- -20
I :
I.
(S21) which it can be seen that the asymmetrical parallel

= -30.
coupled-line has notch responses. The notches of the odd-
and even-modes are appeared around 4.5 GHz and 9.0
-40. Proposed GHz, respectively. These odd- and even-mode responses
---- Conventional will certainly affect the resonator characteristic, resulting in
-DU-i
1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 forming of bandstop responses at the notch frequencies,
Frequency (GHz)
therefore, spurious responses in the upper stopband must
Fig.2 S1I of the conventional resonator compared with the be suppressed.
proposed resonator.
III. FILTER IMPLEMENTATION AND RESULTS
0- To demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed
-10- asymmetrical SIR, we have designed a bandpass filter
using the structure in [8]. The filter consists of a microstrip
'O -20-
W line periodically loaded with the proposed asymmetrical
F. -30-
" . . 1- L_ SIRs as shown in Fig.5. The microstrip line has been
a .. Reoao A
CZ
.; -40- Reoao B intentionally designed to be a stepped-impedance structure,
performing a lowpass characteristic with a cutoff frequency
-1)) Freque.cy approximately 4 GHz, which can increase attenuation level
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Frequency (GHz) of the upper stopband. In order to obtain multi-
transmission zeros in the upper stopband, two loaded
Fig.3 Frequency responses (S21) of the proposed asymmetrical resonators on the left are connected to the microstrip line
SIRs with different feed locations. with the same as resonator A configuration, while the next
two resonators are the same as resonator B configuration.

142
A substrate of GML 1000 with relative dielectric of 3.2,
thickness of 0.762 mm and loss tangent of 0.004 has been
utilized. The full-wave simulator IE3D has been used to
finally determine the characteristics of the filter at a center
frequency of 2 GHz and a narrow bandwidth of 60 MHz
(FBW = 3%). The sizes of the designed asymmetrical SIR
have been previously obtained from the last section. Other
key dimensions of the proposed filter shown in Fig.5
include WI = 1.826 mm, W2 = 0.508 mm, LI = 6.096 mm,
L2 =9.144 mm, L3 12.014 mm, L4 = 4.699 mm, L5 =
7.26 mm, and L6 9.512 mm. A photograph of the
fabricated filter is shown in Fig.6. Fig.7 demonstrates
comparisons between measured and simulated
performances of the proposed filter. We can see that the
passband insertion loss is approximately 3 dB at the center
frequency of 2.05 GHz, which is mainly due to the
substrate loss. The return loss is greater than 10 dB within
passband. The two attenuation poles exhibit high rejection
levels which are approximately 55.5 dB at 1.80 GHz and
2.37 GHz, respectively. Fig.8 shows a wide frequency span
of simulated and measured performances of the proposed
filter, as we can notice that the spurious suppression is
superior when comparing with the conventional filter of
the same structure. This filter exhibits a wide upper
stopband with a rejection better than 20 dB up to about 7.6
GHz. We can see multi-transmission zeros on the upper
stopband correspond to the transmission zeros and notches
of the proposed asymmetrical SIRs as discussed. This
superior spurious suppression is also additionally caused
by the designed stepped-impedance microstrip line with a
lowpass characteristic.
-80
211
~-50-20 1. 1. . I. . . . .
-60 __
-70--70 ~~~~~Simulation
~~--- Measurement
-80
1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2.0 2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 3.0
Frequency (GHz)
Fig.7 Simulated and measured S-parameters of the proposed
filter.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
A new bandpass filter using a microstrip line
periodically loaded with the proposed asymmetrical SIRs
has been demonstrated. The size of the proposed resonators
has been reduced for 16%, comparing with the
-
conventional SIR structure. The filter not only has a
compact size of resonators, but also provides an improved
upper stopband characteristic. The measured filter
responses agree very well with simulated expectations. The
filter structure may be applied for several communication
systems, when superior spurious suppression is necessarily
required.
I 3 4 5 6 7
Frequency (GHz)
Fig.8 Simulated and measured S-parameters of the proposed filter
at a wide frequency range.
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. . responses suppression," IEEE Microwave and Wireless
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143