Synthesis and Design of Four Pole Ultra-Wide Band (UWB)

Bandpass Filter (BPF) Employing Multi-Mode Resonators (MMR)

Sohail Khalid , Wong Peng Wen and Lee Yen Cheong

Department

of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Universiti Technologi PETRONAS

Bandar Seri Iskandar, 31750 Tronoh, Malaysia
Department of Fundamental and Applied Science Universiti Technologi PETRONAS
Bandar Seri Iskandar, 31750 Tronoh, Malaysia

Abstract A complete synthesis and design of fourth order

UWB BPF has been presented in this paper. Based on MMR,
equivalent circuit is used to derive transfer function which
is then used to extract the filtering function. For optimal
solution, mathematical formulation is used to calculate characteristic impedance of filter in order to have chebyshev type
frequency response. To validate the synthesis a prototype
is designed and fabricated. Experimental results show good
agreement with proposed synthesis.
Index Terms Ultra-wideband, Bandpass filter.

I. I NTRODUCTION
Ultra-wideband technology is the primary candidate for
the development of many modern transmission systems
such as military and commercial radar systems, gadgets
used in wireless personal area networks (WPANs), medical
imaging and industrial sensing. In 2002, Federal Communication Commission (FCC) authorized the unlicensed
use of UWB systems (Band Width: 3.1 GHz10.6 GHz)
for private use [1]. It resulted in rapid growth of academic and industrial research for commercial UWB radio
system. UWB bandpass filter is the key component in
UWB systems. In recent years, several techniques such as
MMR, hybrid microstrip/coplaner-waveguide (CPW) and
cascaded high-/low-pass filters technique are proposed to
design UWB bandpass filters [2]-[4]. However, the previous work done in UWB BPF is mainly focused on fullwave electromagnetic (EM) simulators and optimization
tools. Secondly, conventional filter theory is based on the
narrowband assumption and hence cannot be used in UWB
filter design. These constraints have raised the need of
exact synthesis theory for UWB bandpass filters.
In this paper, synthesis based design of UWB BPF using
MMR is developed to provide optimum solution, numerical efficiency and physical insight of filter. A generalized
fourth-order filtering function is extracted from an equivalent circuit of a filter. The filtering function has frequency
dependent term in the denominator, which interferes with
generalized fourth-order chebyshev polynomial. Proposed
synthesis provides a method to approximate filtering function as a quasi-chebyshev function and compute optimal
parameter values for maximum selectivity and equal-ripple
frequency response. To validate proposed synthesis, BPF

Fig. 1.

Schematic of MMR UWB BPF and its equivalent circuit.

prototype of 3.2 GHz bandwidth with centre frequency

6.85 GHz is fabricated using RT/Duroid 5880. Experimental result well correlates with FCC spectrum mask for
UWB filters.
II. T HEORY OF F ILTER S YNTHESIS
The basic MMR filter configuration with its equivalent
circuit model is shown in Fig. 1. The filter consists of
multi-mode resonator in the middle and a parallel coupled
line on each end of MMR of length g /4. Here, zo is
the characteristic impedance of middle section whereas,
zoe and zod are the even and odd-mode characteristic
impedances of parallel coupled line. Due to symmetrical
network, an even-odd mode analysis is adopted to derive
overall transfer function. A total of four transmission poles
have been achieved. The first two resonant modes are
derived from MMR while the two additional resonant
modes are introduced by parallel coupled lines. The transfer function of MMR filter can be expressed as follows:
2

|S21 ()| =

1
,
1 + T 2 ()

(1)

where is the electrical length of the filter and related to

filter frequency by = 2 ffc , where fc is the center
frequency. Due to unitary condition [5] the reflection

response is given as
2

|S11 ()| =

T 2 ()
.
1 + T 2 ()

(2)

The filtering function, T () extracted from (1), given by

T () =

A cos4 () + B cos2 () + C
,
sin()

(3)

[(zcl + zod )2 1](zo + zcl + zod )2

,
2 zcl 2 zo
n

(4)

[2 (zcl + zod )2 ]zo 2 + (1 2zcl 2 )(zcl + zod )2

o n
o1
+2(1 zcl 2 )(zcl + zod )zo 2 zcl 2 zo
, (5)

zcl 4 zo 2
.
(6)
2 zcl 2 zo
It is require that zo , zcl , zod > 0. The filtering function
has frequency dependent term in the denominator which
will distort the equal ripple characteristic of the chebyshev
polynomial. This effect can be nullified by restructuring
the filtering function as shown in the following section.
C

A. Restructure the Filtering Function

In order to synthesize the filtering function for optimum
solution, the ripple factor is extracted by normalizing the
filtering function in the following form:
T()
,
T () 

T (Norm )

(7)

where

,

T (Norm )
B
=
,
A
C
=
.
A
The ripple factor  is related to the return loss by
p
 = 10LR /10 1 .
A =

(9)
(10)
(11)

(12)

From 8, the value of the parameters A, B and C can be

obtained by requiring the transfer function
2

1


T()
1 + 2 
T(

Norm

H = 1 + T 2 () .

2 ,


)

(13)

to obey the following conditions: four transmission poles

obtained in the passband (for finest selectivity), UWB

(14)

By Chain rule and using (7), the derivative of reflection

coefficient (2) is
22 T()
1
dT()
d
|S11 ()|2 = 2

.
(15)
d
H
d
T2 (Norm )
The vanishing of H 1 corresponds to the reflection poles
at = 0 and , and the vanishing of T() corresponds to
the reflection zeros which are located at


q
p
1
2 2 2 4 , (16)
z(,) = arccos
2
where the sign notation stated above is understood. In
order to ensure the existence of four zeros in the transfer
function, It is require that
<0

and > 0 ,

(17)

and satisfy the inequalities

2 4
+ +1

where Norm is the normalizing electrical length and the

normalization factor is taken as
cos4 () + cos2 () +
T() =
,
(8)
sin ()

|S21 ()| =

B. Finding and
In order to generate the filter coefficients for equal ripple
response, let the denominator of (2) equal to H,

where,
A =

bandwidth (5.25-8.45 GHz), equal ripple (approximating

chebyshev frequency response), controlled ripple level by
ripple factor . This is related to using the first derivatives
to find the relative maxima and minima of the transfer
function.

> 0,

(18)

>

(19)

0.

Since (0, ), we identify the location of the reflection

zeros in the order from left to right: (+,+) , (+,) , (,) ,
(,+) . The ripple peak frequencies are found by solving
dT()
[3 cos4 + ( 4) cos2 (2 + )] cos
=
.
d
sin2
(20)
Equation (20) has a simple root which is located at
(c)
pk = 2 (corresponding to center peak). By the standard
quadratic formula,
s
!
r
4 2 2 +
4
(,)
pk
= arccos

.
+
6
6
3
(21)
(,+)
It can be shown that cos(pk ) > 1 for all and in the
domain defined by (17)(19). Thus, the ripple peaks corresponding to these solutions do not exist and are omitted.
(+,)
(,)
The remaining roots, pk
and pk
correspond to the
first and third ripple peak in the passband, respectively.
The equal-ripple can be forced in place by matching
the filtering function at cut-off frequency with the first
and second peak, i.e.,
(+,)
T(L ) = T(pk ) = T( 2 ) .

(22)

Fig. 3.

Fabricated Prototype (filter length = 2.3 cm).

5
0
-5

-15
-20
-25

Fig. 2. Frequency Response of |S21 ()|2 and |S11 ()|2 using synthesized characteristic impedances.

|S

11

& |S

21

dB

-10

-30
S

-35

-40

where L is the angular of the lower cut-off frequency.

From these simultaneous equations (22), we obtain

BW
3
1 2
4
4 [sin( 2 ) + 3 ] 3 ,
2 BW
BW
1
4 cos ( 2 )[1 sin( 2

(23)
)] ,

2)

=,

C = .

21

21

11

Measured
Measured
Simulated
Simulated

-50
2

10

11

Frequency GHz

(24)

where BW is the bandwidth. In this particular case, the

normalizing factor is equal to , and from (9) and (11) C
is equal to  i.e.,
T(Norm =

-45

11

(25)
(26)

Fig. 2 shows the ideal frequency response of 7.5 GHz and

3.2 GHz bandwidth using (23) and (24) with return loss
of 20 dB.
III. D ESIGN OF M ICROSTRIP P ROTOTYPE
This section presents physical realization of proposed
synthesis using microstrip line on a substrate (r =
2.2, tan = 0.0009 and height h = 787m). The fullwave simulator HFSS [6] is used to simulate frequency
response. A prototype of 3.2 GHz at 20 dB return loss
is fabricated. In order to design UWB BPF with passband
5.25 to 8.45 GHz, the values = 0.1298 and = 0.0021
are obtained. The ripple factor for 20 dB return loss is
 = 0.1005, and using (9)(11), we find that A = 46.9367,
B = 6.0920 and C = 0.1005. The characteristic
impedances are evaluated using (4)(6) yield zo = 0.8563,
zoe = 3.6419 and zoo = 1.6960. Hence the parameter
values labeled in Fig. 1 are determined: l1 = 7507.56m,
w1 = 434.62m, l2 = 6156.076m, w2 = 3785.95325m
and s = 369.905875m. Simulated and measured results

Fig. 4. Frequency Response of |S21 ()|2 and |S11 ()|2 using Simulation and Measurement.

are shown in Fig. 4. The return loss of 17.5 dB is achieved

with approximately equalized ripple level.
IV. C ONCLUSION
A synthesis theory is proposed using MMR to fully
understand the design procedure. Mathematical formulation has been done to achieve characteristic impedances
of UWB filter. Fabricated prototype shows excellent agreement with theory, and can further be extended to generalize
higher order UWB BPFs.
R EFERENCES
[1] FCC, Revision of part 15 of the commissions rules regarding ultrawideband transmission system, FCC, Washington, D.C., Tech. Rep.
ET-Docket 98-153 FCC02-48, Apr. 2002.
[2] L. Zhu, S. Sun, and W. Menzel, Ultra-wideband (UWB) bandpass
filter using multiple-mode resonator, IEEE Microwave Wireless
Compon.Lett., vol. 15, no. 11, pp. 796-798, Nov. 2005.
[3] H. Wang, L. Zhu, and W. Menzel, Ultra-wideband (UWB) bandpass filter with hybrid microstrip/CPW structure, IEEE Microwave
Wireless Compon.Lett., vol. 15, no. 12, pp. 844-846, Dec. 2005.
[4] C. L. Hsu, F. C. Hsu, and J. T. Kuo, Microstrip bandpass filter for
ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless communications, in IEEE MTT-S
Int. Microwave Symp. Dig., 2005, pp. 679-682.
[5] I. C. Hunter, Theory and Design of Microwave Filters. London, UK:
IEE, 2001, pp. 38-43.
[6] High Frequency Structural Simulator. Ansoft Corp., Pittsburgh, USA.