IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.
4, 2005
A Varactor-Tuned Active-Integrated Antenna
Using Slot Antenna
Dong-Hyuk Choi and Seong-Ook Park, Member, IEEE
Abstract—A varactor-tuned active antenna which consists of
a series feedback voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) and a well
matched slot antenna is proposed. The fabricated antenna shows
stable oscillation at 5.8 GHz band, and the frequency varied from
5.73 to 5.97 GHz, with less than 1.28 dB of amplitude deviation
over the frequency range. Since the fabricated active antenna is
a simple structure where the operating frequency can be easily
tuned through the varactor diode, it may be used as an element in
phase-shifterless beam scanning systems. In addition, a capacitor
for dc blocking is not necessary due to isolation between the active
and radiating element.
Index Terms—Microstrip, slot antenna, varactor-tuned active
antenna.
I. INTRODUCTION
A CTIVE-INTEGRATED antennas (AIAs), which are
implemented by combining microwave oscillators and
radiation elements, have received much attention due to their
low weight, compact size, low cost, and adaptability in array
antenna systems. In particular, single-layered AIAs that use
parallel feedback, where the antenna is placed in the feedback
path of an amplifier circuit, have been proposed [1]–[3]. In this
case, since the antenna plays the role of a frequency selector
and radiating element, the multimode problem can be easily
solved. However, a drawback of this topology with microstrip
line feed for active antennas is their direct dc-bias contact
on the patch. The usual solution is to use extra capacitors in
the RF path or multilayer structures such as aperture coupled
patches. High-quality lumped RF capacitors are expensive and
difficult to model in the design process of the active antenna.
Multilayered antenna structures where the oscillator antenna
consists of a radiating element placed on the top substrate and
an active element on the bottom substrate may be undesirable
for many active antenna applications due to the drawbacks,
such as the difficulty to match active devices and the cost of the
multilayer implementation [4], [5]. In this paper, we proposed
a varactor-tuned active integrated antenna using a T-shaped
microstrip-line-fed slot antenna which has a wide bandwidth
[6]. Since the oscillator antenna consists of a ground which
has a rectangular slot on one side and an active circuit on the
other side of the substrate, the proposed active antenna does not
Manuscript received November 29, 2004; revised April 18, 2005.
The authors are with the School of Engineering, Information, and
Communications University, Daejeon, Korea (e-mail: dhchoi@icu.ac.kr;
sopark@icu.ac.kr)
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2005.850799
1536-1225/$20.00 © 2005 IEEE
Authorized licensed use limited to: Indian Institute of Technology Palakkad. Downloaded on October 08,2022 at 07:38:48 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
191
require chip capacitors for blocking the dc current in the RF
path and it is easy to fabricate.
II. VCO ANTENNA DESIGN
The proposed voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) antenna
configuration is shown in Fig. 1. The VCO antenna contains
an electromagnetically coupled slot antenna which is fed by a
T-shaped microstrip line for the radiating element, an active de-
vice for generating the negative resistance, and a resonator that
uses a microstip line loaded with the varactor diode. The cir-
cuit was fabricated on a Duroid 5880 substrate with a thickness
of 0.508 mm and a relative dielectric constant ( ) of 2.2. At
the operating frequency of 5.8 GHz, the designed length and
width of the slot antenna are 19.4 and 5.42 mm, with a T-shaped
microstrip feeding line of 14.6 mm. In order to achieve oscil-
lation, we obtained the maximum negative resistance using a
well-tuned open stub connected to a source port of the transistor;
further, we adjusted the length of the microstrip-resonator to ac-
count for the frequency shift caused by the varactor diode. For
achieving the maximum output power, the antenna port was op-
timized using a bent open stub. The bias condition for the os-
cillator with an ATF-13 786 GaAs MESFET was
and with drain current ( ) of 50 mA, and the
oscillator was driven using a self-biasing technique.
III. RESULT
The VCO antenna was designed using a slot antenna which
has 20% of impedance bandwidth (2:1 VSWR) at the center
frequency of 5.8 GHz. Fig. 2 shows the radiated output power
from the fabricated VCO antenna, at an inverse bias voltage of
the varactor diode of 5.5 V, measured in an anechoic chamber.
The measured output power using an Agilent E4440A spectrum
analyzer and a double-ridged horn antenna ( )
as a reference antenna at a distance of 2 m was approximately
. The effective isotropic radiated power corre-
sponding to the above value was 16.29 dBm [7]. The total
RF power divided by the input dc power yielded a dc-to-RF
efficiency of 24.6%. The VCO was observed to tune from
5.73 to 5.97 GHz with approximately 1.28 dB of amplitude
variation and had a gain of 19.2 MHz/V, as shown in Fig. 3.
The phase noise was measured to be and
, at 10 kHz and 100 kHz offset for the oscilla-
tion frequency of 5.85 GHz, respectively.
The simulated and measured copolarization and cross-polar-
ization patterns for the - plane and - plane are shown
192
Fig. 1. Configuration of the proposed VCO antenna.
Fig. 2. Measured output power radiated from the proposed VCO antenna.
in Fig. 4. The simulated radiation patterns were calculated by
using the gap source technique, in the commercial electromag-
netic high-frequency structure simulator [8], in consideration
of the complete series-feedback active antenna which had the
same layout except for the active transistor. Both radiation pat-
terns were similar to those of the -directed dipole antenna. The
received cross-polarization patterns in the - plane and -
plane of the AIA were approximately and
lower than the maximum copolarization patterns, respectively.
The measured copolarization radiation patterns in the - and
Authorized licensed use limited to: Indian Institute of Technology Palakkad. Downloaded on October 08,2022 at 07:38:48 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 4, 2005
Fig. 3. Frequency and output power level in terms of control voltage.
- planes follow a trend similar to that of the simulated re-
sults. However, we found some discrepancies in the - plane
between the measured VCO antenna and simulated passive an-
tenna copolarization patterns. The likely cause of this discrep-
ancy is the parasitic electromagnetic-wave by the dc and RF cur-
rent of the VCO antenna that affects the radiation patterns in the
direction of the distributed antenna circuitry.
IV. CONCLUSION
This paper investigated a radiating VCO antenna based on a
slot antenna feeding the T-shaped microstrip line at 5.8 GHz.
Since the fabricated active antenna utilizes the electromagnetic
CHOI AND PARK: VARACTOR-TUNED ACTIVE-INTEGRATED ANTENNA USING SLOT ANTENNA 193

slot coupling effect on both layers of the single substrate, ad-

vantages include the absence of chip capacitors for dc isola-
tion, easy fabrication, and reduction of electromagnetic interfer-
ence/electromagnetic compatibility problems between the ac-
tive device and the antenna. Results show potential for this an-
tenna to be used in circuits for low-cost transmitters, phase-
shifterless active arrays, and spatial power combiners.

REFERENCES
[1] K. Chang, K. A. Hummer, and G. K. Gopalakrishnan, “Active radiating
element using FET source integrated with microstrip patch antenna,”
Electron. Lett., vol. 24, pp. 1347–1348, 1988.
[2] P. Liao and R. A. York, “A varactor-tuned patch oscillator for active
array,” IEEE Microw. Guided Wave Lett., vol. 4, no. 10, pp. 335–337,
Oct. 1994.
[3] G. F. Avitabile, S. Maci, G. B. Gentili, L. Roselli, and G. F. Manes,
“Two-port active coupled microstrip antenna,” Electron Lett., vol. 28,
pp. 2277–2279, 1992.
[4] Y. Shen, R. Fralich, C. Wu, and J. Litva, “Active radiating element using
FET source integrated with a multilayer slot coupled patch antenna,”
in Proc. IEEE Int. Symp. Antennas and Propagation Society, vol. 2,
Chicago, IL, 1992, pp. 1052–1055.
[5] W. J. Tseng and S. J. Chung, “Analysis and application of a two-port
aperture-coupled microstrip antenna,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory
Tech., vol. 46, no. 5, pp. 530–535, May 1998.
[6] M. K. Kim, Y. H. Suh, and I. M. Park, “A T-shaped microstrip-line-fed
wide slot antenna,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Symp. Antennas and Propagation
Society, vol. 3, Salt Lake City, UT, 2000, pp. 1500–1503.
[7] X. D. Wu and K. Chang, “Novel active FET circular patch antenna ar-
rays for quasioptical power combining,” IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory
Techniq., vol. 42, no. 5, pp. 766–771, May 1994.
[8] HFSS, Ansoft Corporation, Pittsburgh, PA.

Fig. 4. Radiation patterns in X-Z and Y -Z plane (—— : measured co-pol. of

VCO antenna, 010 : simulated co-pol. of passive antenna, – – – : measured
cross-pol. of VCO antenna. (a) X-Z plane. (b) Y -Z plane.

Authorized licensed use limited to: Indian Institute of Technology Palakkad. Downloaded on October 08,2022 at 07:38:48 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.