the resonator is then given by
quency (f11 ) of a corresponding simple circular microstrip antenna
Y1 y Y2 . 2
e2 j L s . 9.
Y1 q Y2 . 2
This result is readily verified from a complete analysis where
the transverse electric and magnetic fields are matched at
z s 0 and z s L. Since the analysis is straightforward, it is
not presented here.
Although the technique has been applied only to rod and
ring resonators, it can be applied to more complex structures
under the assumption listed at the beginning of Section II.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
A simple equation to design rod and ring dielectric res-
onators in a cutoff waveguide is presented. At a prescribed
frequency, the length of the resonator is given explicitly in
terms of the propagation constant of the resonant mode in
the dielectric-loaded region and the phase of its reflection
coefficient at the interface between the loaded and empty
regions. The approach is validated both analytically and nu-
merically.
REFERENCES
1. W.H. Harrison, A miniature high-Q bandpass filter employing
dielectric resonators, IEEE Trans Microwave Theory Tech MTT-
16 1968., 210218.
2. S.B. Cohn, Microwave bandpass filters containing high-Q dielec-
tric resonators, IEEE Trans Microwave Theory Tech MTT-16
1968., 218227.
3. T. Hishikawa, K. Wakino, K. Tsunoda, and Y. Ishikawa, Dielectric
high-power bandpass filter using quarter-cut TE 01 image res-
onator for cellular base stations, IEEE Trans Microwave Theory
Tech MTT-35 1987., 11501155.
4. Y. Kobayashi and M. Minegishi, Precise design of a bandpass filter
using high-Q dielectric ring resonators, IEEE Trans Microwave
Theory Tech MTT-35 1987., 11561160.
5. K. Zaki and C. Chen, New results in dielectric-loaded resonators,
IEEE Trans Microwave Theory Tech MTT-34 1986., 815824.
6. M. Jaworski and M.W. Pospieszalski, An accurate solution of the
cylindrical dielectric resonator problem, IEEE Trans Microwave
Theory Tech MTT-27 1979., 639643.
7. T. Itoh, Numerical techniques for microwave and millimeter-wave
passive structures, Wiley, New York, 1989.
1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
CCC 0895-2477r99
A BROADBAND CIRCULAR
MICROSTRIP ANTENNA WITH TWO
OPEN-RING SLOTS
Jen-Yea Jan1 and Kin-Lu Wong1
1
Department of Electrical Engineering
National Sun Yat-Sen University
Kaohsiung, Taiwan 804, R.O.C.
Recei ed 21 May 1999
ABSTRACT: This letter presents a new design of a probe-fed circular
microstrip antenna with two open-ring slots for broadband operation.
Due to the two embedded open-ring slots in the circular patch, two
resonant modes of similar radiation characteristics are found to be
MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 23, No. 4, November 20 1999
excited at frequencies in the icinity of the fundamental resonant fre-
without slots. The two closely excited resonant modes can cause the
enhancement of the impedance bandwidth of the proposed circular
microstrip antenna, and experimental results show that the obtained
bandwidth for the proposed antenna can be greater than two times that
of a simple circular microstrip antenna. The proposed antenna design
and obtained broadband performance are presented. 1999 John Wiley
& Sons, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 23: 205207, 1999.
Key words: microstrip antenna; broadband operation
1. INTRODUCTION
With some specific slots loaded in microstrip antennas,
broadband operation has been achieved. For such slot-loaded
broadband circular microstrip antennas, the specific slots
loaded in the patch include a U-shaped slot w1x, an arc-shaped
slot w1x, and two sectoral slots w2x. In the design with a
U-shaped slot or an arc-shaped slot, broadband operation is
demonstrated by incorporating a foam or an air substrate w1x.
As for the case with two sectoral slots, the broadband an-
tenna shown is fabricated on a regular electrically thin mi-
crowave substrate w2x. The presence of the two sectoral slots
in the circular patch results in the excitation of two closely
excited resonant modes for the antenna to have a wide
impedance bandwidth. However, some distortions in the radi-
ation patterns of the frequencies within the obtained wide
impedance bandwidth have also been observed for such a
design w2x.
In this letter, we demonstrate another promising slot-
loaded circular microstrip antenna with two open-ring slots
for broadband operation. The broadband antenna to be stud-
ied is printed on an inexpensive FR4 microwave substrate.
The present proposed broadband design is related to the
dual-frequency operation of a circular microstrip antenna
with an open-ring slot w3x in which two operating frequencies
with similar radiation characteristics are obtained, and the
frequency ratio between the two frequencies is within a
region of about 1.231.32. It is then found that, by embed-
ding two open-ring slots, the frequency ratio between the two
operating frequencies can be significantly lowered to be close
to unity, which leads to bandwidth enhancement for the
proposed antenna. Moreover, for the proposed antenna, good
broadside radiation patterns of the frequencies within the
impedance bandwidth are observed. Details of the proposed
antenna design are described, and measured radiation pat-
terns and gains are given.
2. ANTENNA DESIGN
The proposed slot-loaded broadband circular microstrip an-
tenna is shown in Figure 1. The circular patch in this study
has a disk radius of 23.36 mm, and is printed on an FR4
substrate of thickness 1.6 mm h. and relative permittivity 4.4
r .. The outer open-ring slot is at a small distance of 1 mm
away from the patch boundary. The two open-ring slots have
the same narrow width, 0.5 mm, and the distance between the
two slots is set to be 1 mm. Both of the two slots are placed
symmetrically with respect to the y-axis in which an optimal
probe feed for good impedance matching can be located. The
distance between the probe feed and the disk center is
denoted as d p here. The inner open-ring slot has a small
opening, and is fixed to be 2 mm in this study. The outer
open-ring slot has a relatively large opening, and has an angle
of . In the proposed design, it is found that, by choosing a
205

Figure 1 Geometry of the proposed broadband circular microstrip
antenna with two open-ring slots. The dimensions shown in the figure
are not to scale
suitable angle of , two resonant modes can be closely
excited at frequencies in the vicinity of the fundamental
resonant frequency f 11 . of a corresponding simple circular
microstrip antenna without slots, leading to the enhancement
of the impedance bandwidth of the proposed antenna.
3. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
Figure 2 presents the measured results of return loss for the
proposed antenna. The angle is selected to be 32, and the
feed position is at d p s 13 mm. First note that, when there
are no open-ring slots, the fundamental resonant frequency
f 11 . of the circular microstrip antenna with a radius of 23.36
mm in this study is at about 2 GHz. And it is clearly seen that
the proposed antenna has two adjacent resonant modes ex-
cited at frequencies near 2 GHz: one at 2148 MHz, and the
other at 2200 MHz. The impedance bandwidth, determined
Figure 3 Measured E-plane yz plane. and H-plane xz plane. radiation patterns for the antenna shown in Figure 2. a. f s 2148
MHz. b. f s 2200 MHz
206 MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 23, No. 4, November 20 1999
Figure 2 Measured return loss against frequency for the proposed
broadband antenna; r s 4.4, h s 1.6 mm, d p s 13 mm, s 32,
ground-plane size s 75 mm = 75 mm. Other parameters are given in
Figure 1
from 10 dB return loss, is found to be 90 MHz or about
4.14% with respect to the center frequency at 2175 MHz.
The center frequency is determined from f L q f H .r2, where
f L and f H are the lower and higher frequencies with 10 dB
return loss in the antenna bandwidth.. This impedance band-
width is about 2.1 times that about 2%. of the corresponding
simple circular microstrip antenna without slots.
The radiation characteristics of the operating frequencies
within the 10 dB impedance bandwidth formed by the two
resonant modes are also studied. Figure 3 shows the mea-
sured radiation patterns at the two resonant frequencies of
2148 and 2200 MHz. Similar broadside radiation patterns
have been observed for the two resonant modes, and good
cross-polarized radiation less than y20 dB. is also seen.
Figure 4 shows the measured antenna gain in the broadside
direction for the operating frequencies within the impedance
bandwidth. The results show that the gain variation within
the impedance bandwidth of the proposed antenna is within a

Figure 4 Measured antenna gain in the broadside direction against
frequency for the antenna shown in Figure 2
variation less than 2.6 dB. Also, it should be noted that,
mainly owing to the FR4 substrate used in this study, which
has a large loss tangent about 0.025., the antenna gain level
obtained here is lower than about 3.5 dBi. When some other
low-loss dielectric substrates are used in place of the FR4
substrate utilized here, a higher antenna gain level of the
proposed antenna than that obtained here can be achieved.
4. CONCLUSIONS
By loading two open-ring slots in a circular microstrip an-
tenna, two adjacent resonant modes with similar broadside
radiation patterns can be excited, and the enhancement of
the impedance bandwidth of the proposed antenna can be
obtained. For the specific parameters studied here, the ob-
tained impedance bandwidth can be about 2.1 times that of
the corresponding simple circular microstrip antenna without
slots. Good broadside radiation patterns of the operating
frequencies within the impedance bandwidth have also been
observed, and the cross-polarization radiation is seen to be
less than y20 dB. The variation of the antenna gain within
the impedance bandwidth is observed to be less than 2.6 dB.
Finally, it should be noted that, since the specific design
parameters are not optimized in this study, better broadband
performance than that obtained here is also possible.
REFERENCES
1. S. Dey, C.K. Aanandan, P. Mohanan, and K.G. Nair, A new
broadband circular patch antenna, Microwave Opt Technol Lett 7
1994., 604605.
2. K.M. Luk, Y.W. Lee, K.F. Tong, and K.F. Lee, Experimental
studies of circular patches with slots, Proc Inst Elect Eng 144
1997., 421424.
3. J.Y. Jan and K.L. Wong, Single-feed dual-frequency circular mi-
crostrip antenna with an open-ring slot, Microwave Opt Technol
Lett 22 1999..
1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
CCC 0895-2477r99
MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 23, No. 4, November 20 1999
FOUR-ELEMENT ANTENNA-ARRAY
BEAM-FORMING NETWORK
S. Uysal1
1
Department of Electrical Engineering
National University of Singapore
Singapore 119260
Recei ed 19 May 1999
ABSTRACT: In this work, a C-band passi e microstrip four-element
antenna-array beam-forming network (BFN) using high-directi ity
directional couplers is described. In the transmit mode, an input signal is
split into four equiphase equiamplitude parts so as to correctly feed the
elements of a linearr2-D array. The amplitude difference among the four
feeds is within 0.5 dB, and the phases of the signals at the feeds differ by
less than 10 in a 4:1 bandwidth. 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Microwave Opt Technol Lett 23: 207209, 1999.
Key words: beam-forming network; wideband array feed
INTRODUCTION
In the context of a beam-forming network, the phase and
amplitude equality between the radiating elements means
that the signals presented to the radiating elements can be
added. In other words, the signal that is transmitted or
received. at the source or detector. has an amplitude of N
where N is the order of the BFN. times that of a signal at
any one of the feeds. In addition, it also has a phase charac-
teristic equivalent to that of a signal at any one of the feeds.
The methods of achieving the equiphase equiamplitude
condition differ due to the nature of the network configura-
tions used in the BFN. The corporate-feeding and series-
feeding networks are two of the more commonly used net-
work configurations. For the corporate-feeding network, in
order to preserve the symmetry property that is necessary for
the equiphase equiamplitude condition, the number of radiat-
ing elements is preferably binary. Otherwise, part of the
power that is available at the source in the transmit mode. is
dissipated in matched loads. Besides the requirement for a
binary number of elements, the relatively higher coupler loss
makes this feeding network impractical for high-order BFN.
The series-feeding network, on the other hand, has no re-
striction on the number of radiating elements as long as
medium allows the realization of tight couplers., and has
more flexibility in circuit design.
Waveguide BFNs utilizing directional couplers have been
reported in the literature w1x. A recent paper reports a BFN
using high-temperature superconductor HTS. technology for
communication systems w2x. This Ku-band BFN uses a cas-
cade of 3 dB branch-line couplers to form a one-to-four BFN.
In this paper, we report on a wideband four-element
array-antenna BFN based on the series-feeding concept. Sim-
ulations are performed using the HP EEsof RF and Mi-
crowave Design System MDSTM . software package. The
simulated BFN using smooth edge couplers is first built and
tested. An improved BFN simulated with ideal couplers is
then built using high-directivity couplers which can be found
in w3x; both BFNs are built on 25.4 = 50.8 mm2 alumina
substrates with r s 9.9 and thickness h s 0.635 mm.
THEORY OF OPERATION
For a general N-order series-feeding BFN as shown in Figure
1, if the input in the transmit mode. power is unity and the
207