Pair of grounded L strips loaded broadband

circularly polarised square slot antenna with L

l y2
enhanced axial ratio bandwidth l2
Wt
W2
W3
l y1 lx2

M. Midya✉, S. Bhattacharjee and M. Mitra G Sw lt lx1

St
Broadband circularly polarised square slot antenna excited by a Pl
coplanar waveguide feed with enhanced axial ratio bandwidth Pw l3
(ARBW) is proposed, designed and experimentally studied. Larger
than 21% 3 dB ARBW can be attained by using asymmetric feed
and implementing a T-shaped grounded stub from the left side of the Wf
square slot in orthogonal direction towards the slot centre. To further h
enhance the 3 dB ARBW of the proposed slot antenna, a pair of
equal grounded L-shaped strips with different sizes is embedded at Fig. 1 Configuration and photograph of designed antenna (G = 40, L = 28,
the top right corner of the square slot. Small L-shaped grounded Wf = 3, lt = 14, l2 = 10.75, l3 = 2.5, St = 4, Sw = 4.5, Pw = 3.8, Pl = 16,
strip plays an important role for merging two closely spaced multi- Wt = 2, W2 = 1, W3 = 1.5, lx1 = 11, lx2 = 4.5, ly1 = 11, and ly2 = 4.5)
resonant modes, generated by the combined effect of asymmetric (unit: millimetres)
feed with T-shaped grounded stub and with large L-shaped strip.
Overall size of the proposed antenna is 40 × 40 × 1.6 mm3. Measured
value shows that the impedance bandwidth and 3 dB ARBW of
the designed antenna are 73.39% (5.02–10.84 GHz) and 58.08%
(5.07–9.22 GHz), respectively. Good agreement is achieved between
simulated and measured results.

Ant.1 Ant.2 Ant.3 Ant.4 Ant.5

Introduction: The progress of wireless communication has urged the
demand for advance facilities like eliminating the need of alignment Fig. 2 Improvement procedures of designed CPSSA
between transmitting and receiving antennas, minimum multipath
interferences and less Faraday rotation effect with wide impedance 0
bandwidth (IBW) in a single antenna. Circularly polarised wideband Ant.1 Ant.2 Ant.3 Ant.4
antenna is the best choice to enhance the quality of the service as it is
|S11|, dB

able to provide all of the aforementioned facilities [1, 2]. Single layer –10
coplanar waveguide (CPW) fed circularly polarised square slot
antenna (CPSSA) has good merits of large IBW, low profile, light
weight and this antenna can be easily integrated with active devices. –20
Hence, the researcher’s attention has been increased to design a broad-
band circularly polarised antenna using this technology [3–6]. Recently, 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
various types of effective ways are reported to improve the circularly frequency, GHz
polarised (CP) bandwidth of the slot antennas, some of them are
stated as follows: incorporating a T-shape metallic strip in rectangular 6
direction of the CPW-feed line from the ground plane [1], implementing
axial ratio, dB

a pair of inverted-L grounded strips in two opposite corners of the square 4

slot [2], adding a pair of grounded strips into the asymmetric CPW-fed
square slot antenna [3], embedding a rectangular metal patch in a 2 Ant.2
square-shaped slot with the grounded metal strip from the right edge Ant.3
Ant.4
of the slot and modifying asymmetric T-shaped feed line [4], introdu- 0
cing a symmetric T-shaped strip from CPW feed line and a nesting-L 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
slot structure in the ground plane [5], embedding two or three different frequency, GHz
sized inverted-L strips around the corners of the square slot [6, 7].
In this Letter, a novel circularly polarised CPW-fed square slot Fig. 3 Return loss (S11) and AR for Ant. 1–Ant. 4
antenna configuration is proposed, without increasing the size and
complexity of the aforementioned CP structures. The proposed simple
0
slot antenna provides >58% axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW). In this
design, a T-shaped grounded stub is included from the left side of Ant.5 (simu.) Ant.5 (meas.)
–5
the square slot in the orthogonal direction of the CPW feed line.
|S11|, dB

Additionally, a large L-shaped strip is incorporated at the top right

corner of the square slot. Two resonant paths have been created by –10
the antenna and consequently two resonant modes are generated at
different frequency. Merging these resonant modes, a broad band CP –15
antenna is proposed here. The proposed antenna structure is too
simple to suit for integration in various wireless systems. The antenna –20
structure is presented with acceptable occupied volume suitable for 4 6 8 10 12
small form factor devices for wideband applications. frequency, GHz

Antenna design: The final configuration and prototype of the AR simulated AR measured gain measured
axial ratio (dB), gain, dBic

designed CPSSA are displayed in Fig. 1. The proposed structure is 8

etched on a low-cost FR4-epoxy substrate with a dielectric constant of
6
4.4, tan δ = 0.024 and compact dimensions of 40 × 40 × 1.6 (h) mm3.
The antenna is composed of asymmetric feed line, T-shaped grounded 4
stub in the orthogonal direction of the feed line and two different
sized grounded L strips at the top right corner of the square slot. It is 2
observed that the consecutive grounded L strips are more responsible 0
for widening the ARBW. The evolution of the designed antenna 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
structure is shown in Fig. 2 using five different steps. Comparison of frequency, GHz
the simulated return loss and axial ratio (AR) performances between
Ant. 1 and Ant. 4 using ANSYS HFSS (version 14) is shown in Fig. 3. Fig. 4 Return loss, AR and gain for fabricated antenna

ELECTRONICS LETTERS 26th July 2018 Vol. 54 No. 15 pp. 917–918

 1350911x, 2018, 15, Downloaded from https://ietresearch.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1049/el.2018.1096, Wiley Online Library on [07/06/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
respectively, with 0.3 mm gap from the both side ground plane. When
the symmetric feed line is modified to be asymmetric in Ant. 2, two
near de-generative modes are created with equal amplitude and phase-
quadrature which leads to the CP operation. With the addition of the
orthogonally placed T-shaped grounded stub in Ant. 3, resonating fre-
quency of the antenna decreases and CP bandwidth is quite enhanced.
In Ant. 4, large grounded L (lx1, ly1) is connected in the square slot,
this leads to another CP mode at higher frequency. After the inclusion
of smaller L in Ant. 5, the lower and upper CP band is merged and it
provides significantly enhanced ARBW from 5.07 to 9.22 GHz for an
AR ≤ 3 dB, shown in Fig. 4. Within this frequency range, the gain is
close to the maximum value of 4.22 dBic as shown in Fig. 4.
Fig. 5 shows the surface current density of the suggested antenna at
four different time instances: ω(t) = 0°, 90°, 180° and 270°. As the
time phase increases, the surface current rotates in clockwise direction
with the same amplitude and perpendicular to each other with 90°
phase difference, viewed from Z > 0 (bore sight) direction. Hence, it is
observed that the antenna can radiate bidirectional CP wave, left-handed
CP (LHCP) wave in +Z direction and right-handed CP (RHCP) in the
−Z direction.
Fig. 6 shows LHCP–RHCP radiation patterns at 6 and 8 GHz. These
patterns (at XZ and YZ planes) show reasonable agreement between
very low low medium high very high simulated and studied results.

Fig. 5 Surface current density over proposed antenna at 7 GHz with phase of Conclusion: A new approach of CPW-fed broadband CPSSA using
0°, 90°, 180° and 270° stub loading and corner L techniques has been proposed in this Letter.
The inclusion of two different sized consecutive L-shaped grounded
0 0
strips at top right corner of the stub loading square slot can significantly
10 330 30 10 330 30 enhance the 3 dB ARBW. Measured results show that the IBW is
0 0 73.39% and ARBW is 58.08%. The antenna structure is suitable for
–10 60 –10 60 small form factor devices used in broadband applications.
–20 –20
–30 –30
–40 90 –40 90 © The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2018
Submitted: 12 April 2018 E-first: 19 June 2018
doi: 10.1049/el.2018.1096
240 120 240 120
One or more of the Figures in this Letter are available in colour online.
210 150 210 150 M. Midya, S. Bhattacharjee and M. Mitra (Department of Electronics
180 180 and Tele-Communication Engineering, Indian Institute of Engineering
a Science and Technology, Shibpur, Howrah 711103, West Bengal, India)
0 0
10 330 30 10 330 30 ✉ E-mail: letsmanas@gmail.com
0 0
–10 60 –10 60 References
–20 –20
–30 –30
1 Sze, J.Y., Wong, K.L., and Huang, C.-C.: ‘Coplanar waveguide-fed
–40 90 –40 90 square slot antenna for broadband circularly polarized radiation’,
Trans. Antennas Propag., 2003, 51, (8), pp. 2141–2144
2 Sze, J.Y., and Chang, C.C.: ‘Circularly polarized square slot antenna with
240 120 240 120 a pair of inverted-L grounded strips’, Antennas Wirel. Propag. Lett.,
2008, 7, pp. 149–151
210 150 210 150 3 Sze, J.Y., Wang, J.C., and Chang, C.C.: ‘Axial-ratio bandwidth
180 180 enhancement of asymmetric-CPW-fed circularly-polarized square
b slot antenna’, Electron. Lett., 2008, 44, (18), pp. 1048–1049,
XY-plane YZ-plane pp. 485–486
4 Pan, S.P., Sze, J.Y, and Tu, P.J.: ‘Circularly polarized square slot antenna
………. LHCP (simu.) __________ LHCP (meas.) with a largely enhanced axial-ratio bandwidth’, Antennas Wirel. Propag.
………. RHCP (simu.) __________ RHCP (meas.) Lett., 2012, 11, pp. 969–972
5 Li, G., Zhai, H., Li, L., et al.: ‘A nesting-L slot antenna with enhanced
Fig. 6 Radiation patterns of designed antenna circularly polarized bandwidth and radiation’, Antennas Wirel. Propag.
a 6 GHz Lett., 2014, 13, pp. 225–228
b 8 GHz 6 Pourahmadazar, J., Ghobadi, C., Nourinia, J., et al.: ‘Broadband
CPW-Fed circularly polarized square slot antenna with inverted-L
strips for UWB applications’, Antennas Wirel. Propag. Lett., 2011, 10,
Antenna performance and analysis: Ant. 1, where square slot is fed by pp. 369–372
a symmetric T-shaped feed line, behaves as a linearly polarised antenna. 7 Felegari, N., Nourinia, J., Ghobadi, C., et al.: ‘Broadband CPW-Fed
Maximum matching is obtained at fundamental resonant mode of the circularly polarized square slot antenna with three inverted-L-shape
square slot. Length and width of the feed line are 7.3 and 3 mm, grounded strips’, Antennas Wirel. Propag. Lett., 2011, 10, pp. 274–277

ELECTRONICS LETTERS 26th July 2018 Vol. 54 No. 15 pp. 917–918