IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 16, NO.

4, APRIL 2006

227

A Compact Wideband Hybrid

Dielectric Resonator Antenna
Yuan Gao, Student Member, IEEE, Ban-Leong Ooi, Senior Member, IEEE, Wei-Bin Ewe, Member, IEEE, and
Alexandre P. Popov, Senior Member, IEEE

AbstractA novel wideband hybrid dielectric resonator antenna

structure comprises a rectangular dielectric resonator (DR) and
a coplanar waveguide (CPW) inductive slot is proposed. In this
configuration, the CPW inductive slot simultaneously acts as an
effective radiator and the feeding structure of the DR. Dual resonances of the two radiators are merged to extend the antennas
bandwidth. A parametric study is performed to optimize the antenna performance and a prototype for 5-GHz WLAN application
has been built and tested.
Index TermsDielectric resonator antennas (DRAs), slot antennas, wideband antennas.

I. INTRODUCTION

IELECTRIC resonator antennas (DRAs) are well known

for such merits as small size, high radiation efficiency,
and ease of excitation. However, the relative bandwidth of a
single DRA is typically below 10%, which can not meet the
increasing demand for wideband operation. Many techniques
have been proposed to improve the bandwidth of DRAs such
as stacking multiple dielectric resonators (DRs) [1][3], using
parasitic DR elements [4], and utilizing special DR geometries
[5]. However, these methods either increase the volume and the
weight of DRAs, or require additional process to reshape the
DR, thus resulting in higher fabrication cost. Recently, the multiple resonances technique that was formerly employed in designing wideband microstrip antennas has been applied in DRA
design [6]. The resonance of the feeding structure is merged
with that of the DRA. By combining these two kinds of radiators together, a compact multiband or wideband hybrid DRA
can be designed.
In this letter, a simple wideband hybrid DRA configuration is
proposed based on the multiple resonances technique. Although
the antenna structure is similar to that reported in [7], the fundamental antenna working principle is different and hence much
wider bandwidth is achieved compared with the original design
at the similar frequency band. The coplanar waveguide (CPW)
inductive slot simultaneously acts as an effective radiator and
the feeding structure of the DR. The close resonance frequencies of these two radiators are merged to achieve wideband operation by optimizing the antenna parameters. DR also works as

Manuscript received November 23, 2005; revised January 3, 2006.

Y. Gao is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 119260. He is also with the Institute
of Microelectronics, Singapore 117685 (e-mail: gaoyuan@nus.edu.sg).
B.-L. Ooi, W. B. Ewe, and A. P. Popov are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore
119260.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LMWC.2006.872101

Fig. 1. Top view and side view of the proposed antenna structure.

the dielectric loading of the CPW slot, affects the radiation patterns of the radiating inductive slot, and thus achieves consistent
radiation patterns within the working frequency band.
II. DESIGN APPROACH
The proposed wideband hybrid DRA structure is shown
in Fig. 1. This antenna consists of a rectangular DR and a
center-fed CPW inductive slot which is etched on an RT/Du6.1,
1.25 mm), with and
denote
riod substrate (
the length and the width of the substrate, respectively.
from
DR is placed above the inductive slot with an offset
the slot to the lower edge of the DR. The 50- CPW line is de2.5 mm and a
signed with the center metal strip width
0.4 mm. The rectangular DR has dimensions ,
gap width
, , and dielectric constant
, its resonance frequency can be
roughly estimated with the modified dielectric waveguide model
[8]. The center-fed CPW inductive slot has two arms of equal
length . The slot resonates at approximately one guided wavewhere
is the guided wavelength of
length 2
the slot with DR placed on it. On the other hand, the optimal
slot length for DR excitation is dependent on the resonance frequency of DR [7], thus the slot length should be optimized so
as to merge the dual resonances.
III. PARAMETRIC STUDY
To achieve optimal performance, a parametric study is
performed to investigate the characteristics of the proposed

1531-1309/$20.00 2006 IEEE

228

IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 16, NO. 4, APRIL 2006

Fig. 2. Simulated input impedance and return loss with different L .

Fig. 3. Simulated input impedance and return loss with different d.

antenna. The antenna parameters, unless otherwise stated, are

22 mm,
4.8 mm,
10.2,
fixed as
45 mm,
9.0 mm,
6.6 mm. The simulated resonance frequencies of DR and inductive slot are approximately
5.65 GHz and 5.4 GHz, respectively.
A. Slot Length
The inductive slot length
is a major design parameter of
the antenna. The simulated input impedance and return loss as
are shown in Fig. 2. Optimal DR excitation
a function of
5.2 mm. As
is varied from 5.2 to
is achieved when
7.3 mm, the slot resonance frequency shift toward lower band,
whereas the impedance matching for the DR resonance gets
deviates from the optimal coupling length. It
worse since
is noted that the higher resonance frequency also shifts as
increases, which indicates that the resonance frequency of the
DR is also affected by the feeding structure.
B. Resonator Height
DR dimensions , are fixed at 22 mm in order to fully
cover the feeding CPW line. Fig. 3 shows the simulated input
impedance and return loss with different DR height . The resonance frequency of DR increases as is decreased from 5.4 mm
to 4.2 mm. It is noted that the inductive slot resonance frequency
remains unchanged since in Fig. 3 the reactance line cross-zero
point around 5.4 GHz does not shift. However, the resistance
of input impedance will change, also leading to impact on the
impedance matching of the slot resonance.

Fig. 4. Simulated input impedance and return loss with different L .

the position offset

is varied from 11 mm to 8 mm, the resistance of input impedance increases whereas the reactance decreases. By fine-tuning , optimal impedance matching for the
target frequency band can be achieved.
IV. MEASUREMENT AND DISCUSSION

C. Position Offset
Antennas input impedance is sensitive to the position offset
between the DR and the inductive slot. As shown in Fig. 4, when

Based on the information gathered from the parametric study,

a prototype antenna for 5-GHz 802.11a WLAN application is
designed and measured. The optimized antenna parameters are

GAO et al.: COMPACT WIDEBAND HYBRID DIELECTRIC RESONATOR ANTENNA

Fig. 5. Comparison of simulated and measured antenna return loss.

229

Two resonance frequencies around 5.0 and 6.0 GHz can be observed both in the simulated and measured result. The lower resonance is due to the CPW inductive slot while the higher resonance is due to the DR. The proposed antenna has a simulated
10-dB return loss bandwidth ranging from 4.80 to 6.23 GHz,
corresponding to a relative bandwidth of 25.9%. In contrast,
the fabricated antenna has a bandwidth of 28.9% and it is in
the frequency range of 4.716.30 GHz. The wider measured
impedance bandwidth is probably due to the fluctuation of DR
dielectric constant or the air gap between the resonator and the
ground plane.
Fig. 6 shows the measured antenna radiation patterns at
5.0 GHz and 6.0 GHz. The radiation patterns are broadside and
unidirectional in both the -plane and -plane. The radiation
front-back ratio is about 12 dB. In addition, an antenna gain of
about 3.8 dBi at 5.0 GHz and 2.6 dBi at 6.0 GHz in the broad0 is achieved. Conventional CPW-fed slot antenna
sight
has bidirectional radiation pattern which is different from that
mode. However, in
of the rectangular DRA dominant
this configuration, DR works as a dielectric loading at the
resonance frequency of the inductive slot. With the presence
of DR, the radiation patterns of inductive slot are modified to
become unidirectional.
V. CONCLUSION
In this letter, a compact wideband hybrid DRA structure is
proposed. The resonance of a CPW inductive feeding slot is
merged with that of a rectangular DR so as to achieve wideband
operation. A prototype antenna for a 5-GHz WLAN application
demonstrated a 28.9% bandwidth and a consistent radiation pattern within the working frequency band. The height of the DR
can be further reduced with higher dielectric constant material
to achieve more compact antenna size.
REFERENCES

Fig. 6. Measured E -plane and H -plane antenna radiation patterns at 5.0 GHz
and 6.0 GHz.

22 mm,
5.0 mm,
10.2,
45 mm,
6.5 mm and
9.2 mm. Fig. 5 shows the comparison
of simulated and measured return loss of the proposed antenna.

[1] A. A. Kishk, B. Ahn, and D. Kajfez, Broadband stacked dielectric

resonator antennas, Electron. Lett., vol. 25, pp. 12321233, Aug.
1989.
[2] S. M. Shum and K. M. Luk, Stacked annular-ring dielectric resonator antenna excited by axi-symmeric coaxial probe, IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propag., vol. 43, no. 8, pp. 889892, Aug. 1995.
[3] A. Petosa, N. Simons, R. Siushansian, A. Ittipiboon, and M. Cuhaci,
Design and analysis of multisegment dielectric resonator antennas,
IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 48, no. 5, pp. 738742, May
2000.
[4] R. N. Simons and R. Q. Lee, Effect of parasitic dielectric resonators on
CPW/aperture-coupled dielectric resonator antennas, Proc. Inst. Elect.
Eng., vol. 140, no. 5, pp. 336338, Oct. 1993.
[5] A. A. Kishk, Y. Yan, and A. W. Glisson, Conical dielectric resonator
antennas for wide-band applications, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag.,
vol. 50, no. 4, pp. 469474, Apr. 2002.
[6] A. Buerkle, K. Sarabandi, and H. Mosallaei, Compact slot and dielectric resonator antenna with dual-resonance, broadband characteristics,
IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 53, no. 3, pp. 10201027, Mar.
2005.
[7] M. S. Al Salameh, Y. M. M. Antar, and G. Seguin, Coplanarwaveguide-fed slot-coupled rectangular dielectric resonator antenna,
IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 50, no. 10, pp. 14151419, Oct.
2002.
[8] R. K. Mongia and A. Ittipiboon, Theoretical and experimental investigations on rectangular dielectric resonator antennas, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 45, no. 9, pp. 13481356, Sep. 1997.