Figure 6 Simulated and measured S-parameters and group delay of
the proposed UWB BPF. [Color figure can be viewed in the online
Figure 4 (a) Proposed UWB BPF with notched band, and (b) Simu-
lated S-parameters of the resonator in Figure 4(a) for varies dimensions
of Wnotch . [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is
available at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
in Figures 5(a) and 5(b), respectively. The fabricated UWB BPF
occupies a circuit size of 10:1839:15 mm2, approximately about
0:21k0 30:23k0 , where k0 is the free space wavelength at 6.85
GHz (center of the band from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz).
Figure 6 demonstrates the comparison between the simulated
and measured results of the proposed filter. The BPF is meas-
ured with an Agilent 8719ES vector network analyzer (from 50
MHz to 13.51 GHz). The measurements show that the fabricated
UWB BPF has a 23 dB bandwidth from 2.2 to 11.4 dB. The
insertion loss and return loss are below 1.1 dB and above 15
dB, respectively, in most of the passband from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz.
The measured group delay is flat and within 2 ns. The center
frequency of the notched band is located at 5.8 GHz, with a
bandwidth of 6.9% (from 5.59 GHz to 6.0 GHz), and the attenu-
ation is around 20.3 dB at 5.8 GHz. The measured results agree
well with the simulated ones.
Figure 5 (a) Configurations of the proposed UWB BPF with optimized
dimensions and (b) Fabricated photograph of the filter. [Color figure can be
viewed in the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
1522 MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 56, No. 7, July 2014
issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
4. CONCLUSION
A compact UWB BPF with a notched band has been proposed
and designed. Easy tunable notched band can be achieved by
adding a quarter-wavelength open stub. It has been proven that
the filter has advantages of simple structure, compact size, and
high performance. Therefore, the proposed filter can be used in
UWB wireless communication systems.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported by the National High Technology
Research and Development Program of China (863 Program)
No. 2012AA01A308 and the National Natural Science Foundation
of China (NSFC) under Project No. 61271017 and 61072017.
REFERENCES
1. Federal Communications Commission, Revision of part 15 of the
commission’s rules regarding ultra-wide band transmission systems,
Technical Report, ET-Docket 98-153, FCC02-48, Washington, DC,
April 2002.
2. R. Ghatak, P. Sarkar, P.K. Mishra, and D.R. Poddar, A compact
UWB bandpass filter with embedded SIR as band notch structure,
IEEE Microwave Wireless Compon Lett 21 (2011), 261–263.
3. Z.X. Zhang and F. Xiao, An UWB bandpss filter based on a novel
type of multi-mode resonator, IEEE Microwave Wireless Compon
Lett 22 (2012), 506–508.
4. X.H. Wu, Q.X. Chu, X.K. Tian, and X. Ouyang, Quintuple-mode
UWB bandpass filter with sharp roll-off and super-wide upper stop-
band, IEEE Microwave Wireless Compon Lett 21 (2011), 661–663.
5. H. Zhu and Q.X. Chu, Ultra-wideband bandpass filter with a notch-
band using stub-loaded ring resonator, IEEE Microwave Wireless
Compon Lett 23 (2013), 341–343.
C 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
V
MINIATURIZED DESIGNS OF CIRCU-
LARLY POLARIZED SLOT ANTENNA
Jeen-Sheen Row and Yu-De Lin
Department of Electrical Engineering, National Changhua University
of Education, Chang-Hua, Taiwan 500, ROC; Corresponding author:
jsrow@cc.ncue.edu.tw
Received 24 October 2013
ABSTRACT: Designs of reducing the overall antenna size for a circu-
larly polarized slot antenna are studied. The miniaturized design is
based on a square-ring slot antenna fed with an L-shaped coupling strip,
DOI 10.1002/mop
and it is performed by varying the slot shape and simultaneously cutting
the ground plane. Two compact prototypes are implemented and meas-
ured. For the first one prototype, both the ring slot and ground plane
have a narrow rectangular shape, and experimental results demonstrate
that it can provide monopole-like radiation as well as broadband circu-
lar polarization operation. As for the second one, its overall antenna
dimensions are further reduced to be less than 0.1 k20 , and it has a 3-
dB-axial-ratio bandwidth of about 4%. For the two prototypes, processes
of the miniaturized designs are shown, and details of the experimental
results are given along with the simulated results carried out by HFSS.
C 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 56:1522–
V
1526, 2014; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI
10.1002/mop.28379
Key words: slot antenna; circular polarization; compact antenna
1. INTRODUCTION
For long-distance point-to-point wireless communication sys-
tems, circularly polarized (CP) antennas with a bulky structure
are acceptable for achieving the requirements of high gain, low
cross polarization, and broad operation bandwidth. On the con-
trary, as a CP antenna is introduced to personal mobile devices,
a miniaturized design is an inevitable issue and it is a great
challenge for engineers. As compared to microstrip antennas,
printed slot antennas have the features of low-quality factor,
coplanar structure with ground plane, and bidirection radiation.
Consequently, a considerable number of the CP designs for the
slot antenna have been proposed [1–6], and moreover the com-
parisons among the antenna sizes of the previous deigns are
given in [5, 6]. According to the comparison results, it is indi-
cated that the design using a wide slot gives more CP operating
bandwidth than that using a ring slot, but the former has a larger
antenna size, ground plane included, than the latter. Conversely,
from a RF circuit designer’s point of view, the larger the area
occupied by the slot, the smaller the space available for circuit
components on the ground plane. Therefore, a thin slot may be
a better candidate to realize the miniaturized CP designs if a
compact antenna size is a top priority.
For a ring slot antenna with a small slot width, the slot path
forms a closed loop, and the fundamental resonant mode occurs
Figure 1 Geometry of a rectangular-ring slot antenna. [Color figure
can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]
DOI 10.1002/mop MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 56, No. 7, July 2014
Figure 2 Effects of aspect ratio on CP frequency and bandwidth
at the frequency where the corresponding wavelength in the slot
is equal to the mean circumference of the loop. It suggests that
the area occupied by the slot can be reduced using a meandering
slot path [7]. Another method for reducing the size of the ring
slot is introducing capacitive loadings [8], but the resultant CP
operating bandwidth would be considerably decreased and the
axial ratio would be very sensitive to antenna dimensions. For
obtaining a sufficient bandwidth in the miniaturized design, the
CP slot antenna can be designed at other resonant modes with a
lower quality factor. Reference [9] presented a CP L-shaped
monopole slot antenna. The slot is open-ended and it is resonant
at a quarter-wavelength resonant mode, and a 3-dB-axial-ratio
bandwidth of 23% can be reached when the size of the ground
plane is properly selected. The other advantage of the design is
that the L-shaped slot needs to be placed at the corner of the
ground plane, and therefore, more solid space is available for
electronic circuits. Details of parametric analyses for the CP
monopole slot antenna are also addressed in [9]. What seems to
be lacking, however, is the design procedure and guideline.
In this article, compact designs for a CP slot antenna are pre-
sented. The designs are based on the square-ring slot antenna
fed with an L-shaped coupling strip studied in [2], and the mini-
aturization is realized with a sequence of reducing the area
occupied by the slot and narrowing down the ground plane.
Figure 3 Design and dimensions of the reference antenna. [Color fig-
ure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]
1523
Figure 4 Process of the miniaturized design for the reference antenna. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]
During the miniaturization process, two designs which are
potentially applied into present mobile communications are
drawn. One is a broadband design with a 3-dB-axial-ratio band-
width of about 24%. The other is a considerably compact design
that has a normalized antenna area of 0.096 k20 , where k0 is the
space wavelength referred to the center frequency of the CP
bandwidth. Such a size is obviously smaller than those of the
aforementioned designs. The prototypes of the two designs are
also constructed, and obtained experimental and simulation
results are shown and discussed.
2. RECTANGULAR-RING SLOT ANTENNA AND ANALYSES
The proposed compact design begins with a rectangular-ring slot
antenna depicted in Figure 1. The ring slot, having the outer
dimensions of a 3 b, and its feed line are respectively fabri-
cated on the two faces of a square FR4 substrate of side length
80 mm, thickness 1.6 mm, and permittivity 4.4. The feed line is
composed of a 50 X microstrip line, an L-shaped coupling strip,
and an open stub of length l. For the L-shaped coupling strip,
the centerlines of the vertical and horizontal arms have the sepa-
rated distances of dx and dy away from y and x axes, respec-
tively. In addition, the widths of the slot and the coupling strip
are, respectively, fixed to be 2 and 5 mm throughout the study.
For the case of a 5 b and dx 5 dy 5 0, the slot is a square ring,
and the antenna can generate good CP radiation at the one-
wavelength resonant mode as long as l is properly determined.
Figure 5 Designs and dimensions of (a) Antenna A and (b) Antenna
B. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]
1524 MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 56, No. 7, July 2014
Details of the design procedure have been reported in [2]. Note
that, in addition to l, dx, and dy are the key parameters for tun-
ing the axial ratio of the antenna when the size of the ground
plane is narrowed down.
It is well known that under the condition that the perimeter
of a rectangle is constant, the higher the aspect ratio of the rec-
tangle is, the smaller the area occupied by the rectangle is.
Therefore, several cases with various aspect ratios, r 5 b/a, of
the rectangular-ring slot are first explored for decreasing the slot
size. Figure 2 exhibits the simulated results for the effects of
aspect ratio on CP frequency and bandwidth, where the CP
bandwidth is determined by 3-dB-axial ratio and the CP fre-
quency is defined as the center frequency of the CP bandwidth.
It has to be mentioned that for each case, the value of a 1 b is
fixed to be 48 mm, and the optimum axial ratio is obtained only
by tuning l (dx 5 dy 5 0). From Figure 2, it is clearly seen that
the CP bandwidth is raised by a factor of 3 as r is increased
from 0.33 to 2; moreover, the case of r 5 1 has a highest CP
frequency. As a consequence, the rectangular-ring slot antenna
with a larger r not only provides a wider CP bandwidth but also
has a smaller slot area. For the case of r 5 2, the whole antenna
design, including the microstrip impedance transformer with
characteristic impedance 100 X, is performed as a reference,
and the related dimensions are revealed in Figure 3.
3. MINIATURIZED DESIGNS
The reference antenna is selected to realize miniaturized
designs, and the processes are illustrated in Figure 4. The first
step is to symmetrically reduce the length of the ground plane
while the slot size is unchanged, namely 16 3 32 mm2. The cut
portions are marked with red color, as shown in Figure 4(a). In
Figure 6 Measured and simulated results for the reference antenna
DOI 10.1002/mop

Figure 7 Measured and simulated results for Antenna A
this step, the axial ratio around 2.5 GHz would be degraded
with narrowing the ground plane. By simultaneously tuning l
and dy, good CP radiation and even broadband operation can be
found. An example design (Antenna A) for the case with the
ground-plane dimensions of 30 3 80 mm2 is exhibited in Figure
5(a). For Antenna A, the required length of the open stub is 25
mm that is more than one quarter wavelength. Therefore, a
shorted stub of length 7 mm is adopted instead of the open stub,
and the position of its shorting pin is just at the edge of the
reduced ground plane. Also, the impedance matching circuit
includes two stubs, in which one is an open stub of length 11
mm and the other is a shorted stub of length 5 mm. The combi-
nation of the two stubs is equivalent to a parallel LC resonant
Figure 8 Measured and simulated results for Antenna B
Figure 9 Radiation patterns of the reference antenna and Antenna A measured at 2480 MHz. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is
available at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
DOI 10.1002/mop MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 56, No. 7, July 2014
circuit, and it serves as a double-tuning network with respect to
the antenna impedance so that the impedance bandwidth is
broadened [10].
To further miniaturize Antenna A, one half of the
rectangular-ring slot is first shorted to the ground plane, marked
with yellow color in Figure 4(b), and then the upper and left
portions of the ground plane are removed. Finally, an L-shaped
slit antenna is formed. A completed design (Antenna B) of the
CP slit antenna is presented in Figure 5(b) along with all of the
related dimensions. The impedance matching is achieved by a
microstrip line and a parallel open stub. The overall size of
Antenna B is 1288 mm2, which is one-fifth of that of the refer-
ence antenna.
4. EXPERIMENTAL AND SIMULATION RESULTS
Three prototypes for the designs of the reference antenna,
Antenna A and Antenna B are, respectively, constructed,
and their experimental and simulated results are shown in
Figures 6–8. Satisfactory agreements between them are
observed. For the reference antenna, the measured CP band-
width, centered at 2480 MHz, is about 5%. The return loss
within the CP operating frequencies is around 10 dB, and it
would be improved by narrowing the line width of the micro-
strip impedance transformer. For Antenna A, the experimental
results in Figure 7 demonstrate that its CP bandwidth is about
610 MHz (24%) with respect to the center frequency 2500
MHz; however, the impedance bandwidth referred to 10 dB
return loss is only from 2300 to 2500 MHz (8.3%). If a 6 dB
return loss is referred, then the impedancebandwidth is from
2210 to 2830 MHz, which can cover the whole CP operating
frequencies. As for the measured results of Antenna B, Figure 8
indicates that the CP bandwidth is from 2560 to 2670 MHz
(4.2%), and the bandwidth is almost the same as the 10-dB-
return-lossimpedance bandwidth.
The radiation patterns of the three prototypes are measured.
For comparisons, the results of the reference antenna and
Antenna A measured at 2480 MHz are plotted in Figure 9
together. Both the prototypes have bidirectional CP radiations,
but Antenna A has a wider main beam in x-z plane than the ref-
erence antenna. The difference in beamwidth is obviously due
to the shape of the ground plane. Because Antenna A has a
monopole-like radiation, its peak gain at 2.48 GHz is only 1
dBic, which is 1.5 dB lower than the reference antenna’s gain.
As regards Antenna B, the radiation patterns are measured at
2600 MHz, and the results are exhibited in Figure 10. Low cross
1525
 Figure 10 Radiation patterns of Antenna B measured at 2600 MHz
polarization is observed on the z axis, and the CP gain is about
0.4 dBic.
5. CONCLUSION
A process of miniaturized designs for a CP slot antenna is
described. First, it is indicated that a ring slot antenna using a
narrow rectangular slot shape has a broad CP operating band-
width. Then, the overall antenna size is reduced by gradually
cutting the ground plane. Finally, an L-shaped slit antenna is
formed. Two example designs are drawn during the miniaturiza-
tion process, and their performances are shown. According to
the experimental results, one design can give nearly omnidirec-
tional radiation with circular polarization as well as broadband
operation. The other has a considerably small antenna size and
an acceptable gain. The two designs may be suitable for the
applications of present mobile communication systems.
REFERENCES
1. T.N. Chang and J.M. Lin, Circularly polarized antenna having two
linked slot-rings, IEEE Trans Antennas Propag 59 (2011), 3057–
3060.
2. J.S. Row, The design of a square-ring slot antenna for circular polar-
ization, IEEE Trans Antennas Propag 53 (2005), 1967–1972.
3. P. Mousavi, B. Miners, and O. Basir, Wideband L-shaped circular
polarized monopole slot antenna, IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag
Lett 9 (2010), 822–825.
4. I.C. Deng, J.B. Chen, Q.X. Ke, J.R. Chang, W.F. Chang, and Y.T.
King, A circular CPW-fed slot antenna for broadband circularly
polarized radiation, Microwave Opt Technol Lett 49 (2007), 2728–
2733.
5. G. Li, H. Zhai, T. Li, L. Li, and C. Liang, CPW-fed S-shaped slot
antennas for broadband circular polarization circular polarization,
IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag Lett 12 (2013), 619–622.
6. J.Y. Sze and W.H. Chen, Axial-ratio-bandwidth enhancement of a
microstrip-line-fed circularly-polarized annular-ring slot antenna,
IEEE Trans^ Antennas Propag 59 (2011), 2450–2456.
7. Y.J. Ren, M.F. Farooqui, and K. Chang, A compact dual-frequency
rectifying antenna with high-orders harmonic-rejection, IEEE Trans
Antennas Propag 55 (2007), 2110–2113.
8. T.H. Hsieh and J.S. Row, A reconfigurable design for bandwidth
enhancement of circularly polarized slot antennas, Microwave Opt
Technol Lett 52 (2010), 1377–1380.
9. P. Mousavi, B. Miners, and O. Basir, Wideband L-shaped circular
polarized monopole slot antenna, IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag
Lett 9 (2010), 822–825.
10. Y. Huang and K. Boyle, Antenna from theory to practice, Wiely,
New York, 2008.
C 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
V sensor nodes placed at various locations where detection and
1526 MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 56, No. 7, July 2014
DESIGN OF A MEANDER DIPOLE
ANTENNA WITH DIELECTRIC LOADING
FOR A SENSOR NODE OF A WIRELESS
SENSOR NETWORK
Jung-Nam Lee,1 Ju-Derk Park,2 Kwang-Chun Lee,1 and
Jong-Kweon Park3
1
B4G Mobile Communications Research Department, Electronics
and Telecommunications Research Institute, 161, Gajeong-Dong,
Yuseong-Gu, Daejeon, Korea; Corresponding author:
jnlee77@etri.re.kr
2
IoT Convergence Research Department, Electronics and
Telecommunications Research Institute, 161, Gajeong-Dong,
Yuseong-Gu, Daejeon, Korea
3
Department of Radio Wave Engineering, Hanbat National
University, San 16-1, Dukmyung-Dong, Yuseong-Gu, Daejeon,
Korea
Received 25 October 2013
ABSTRACT: A meander dipole antenna for a sensor node of a wireless
sensor network is proposed. The proposed antenna consists of a dipole
element, the matching steps, and a circuit using lumped elements. We
compared two antennas with and without a matching circuit. The
antenna has a simple structure, high gain, and omnidirectional radiation
patterns. Details of the proposed antenna design and experimental
results are presented and discussed. V
C 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Microwave Opt Technol Lett 56:1526–1531, 2014; View this article
online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.28378
Key words: sensor node; wireless sensor network; dipole element;
matching step; matching circuit; omnidirectional pattern
1. INTRODUCTION
A wireless sensor network is a network in which the information
regarding chemical phenomena collected by several sensors
arranged in a certain area is transmitted wirelessly [1–3]. The
application of such networks has expanded from military appli-
cation (surveillance, identification, and location tracking of a
target) into the social arena (ecological investigations, and to
determine the state of a production facility and potentially dan-
gerous situations). The sensor nodes communicate with the
server node installed nearby through RF band. An operating fre-
quency of 400 MHz was chosen to avoid the much higher traffic
at 2.4 GHz and to cover a larger area. Antenna miniaturization
is one of the important works in achieving a miniaturization of
the sensor modules and the successful functionality of sensor
networks. In addition, a sensor network consists of a number of
DOI 10.1002/mop