Progress In Electromagnetics Research C, Vol.

47, 167171, 2014

A Dual-Band Bow-Tie-Shaped CPW-Fed Slot Antenna
for WLAN Applications
Lin-Chuan Tsai
*
AbstractA dual-band bow-tie-shaped CPW-fed slot antenna design for wireless communication
applications is proposed. The antenna consists of a signal strip, two conducting strips and bow-tie-
shaped slots. With simple tuning geometrical parameters, the proposed antenna is suitable for WLAN
2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz bands. This antenna is designed on a single-layer PCB FR4 substrate with permittivity
r = 4.4, loss tangent tan = 0.0245 and thickness h = 1.6 mm. The antenna size of the radiating area
and ground plane is 60 45 mm
2
. The measured results show a positive agreement with the simulated
results.
1. INTRODUCTION
Recent research on antennas is very active due to the continuous demands of various wireless
communications such as WLAN in the 2.42.4835 GHz, 5.155.35 GHz, and 5.7255.852 GHz frequencies.
To achieve small size, light weight, ease of fabrication and maintenance of multi-band operation, the
applied antenna structures employ CPW-fed antennas because they have a relatively wide bandwidth,
low-cost, feasibility for dierent frequency bands and compatibility with surface-mount devices. This
study addresses the characteristics of a bow-tie-shaped slot antenna. Broadband CPW-fed circularly
polarized antenna with machine-gun-shaped feeding line and symmetric-aperture.
Many authors have contributed signicantly to the study of CPW-fed slot antennas [18]. In [1], the
proposed broadband antennas, a new quasi-metallic-wall technique for improving the gain of CB-CPW
single antenna and arrays, are presented as having desirable features for UWB applications. A simple
and compact ultra wide-band (UWB) aperture antenna is obtained with a promising performance.
In [2], a CPW-fed, Gaussian process (GP) regression is proposed as a structured supervised learning
alternative to neural networks for the modeling of antenna input characteristics. In [3], a broadband
printed CPW-fed circular slot antenna composed of a circular slot fed with a 50 CPW line through
a circular patch is presented. Measured results show that the proposed design oers an ultra-wide
bandwidth of 143.2% (from 2.3 to 13.9 GHz). In [4], a dual-band CPW-fed hybrid antenna consisting
of a 5.4 GHz high-band inductive slot antenna and a 2.4 GHz low-band F-shaped monopole antenna is
proposed. A number of CPW-fed slot antennas have been proposed [58].
In this paper, a new conguration for the design of a dualband antenna is proposed and
implemented. Fig. 1 shows the geometrical conguration of the slot antenna. This antenna is
implemented on a FR4 substrate with r = 4.4, loss tangent tan = 0.0245 and thickness h = 1.6 mm.
The antenna consists of a signal strip, two conducting strips and bow-tie-shaped slots. A 50 CPW-fed
transmission line is used for the antenna feed, and the gaps between the feed lines are 0.3 mm. In
order to obtain a good impedance condition, the conguration of the slot antenna is derived by tuning
the geometrical parameters (h and t). The proposed design procedures are for specied frequencies
and can be validated by simulation and measurement. This paper is organized as follows. Section 2
Received 10 January 2014, Accepted 18 February 2014, Scheduled 21 February 2014
* Corresponding author: Lin-Chuan Tsai (ginggle@mail.lhu.edu.tw).
The author is with the Department of Electronic Engineering, Lunghwa University of Science and Technology, 300 Wanshou Rd.,
Sec. 1, Guishan Shiang, Taoyuan 33306, Taiwan, R.O.C.
168 Tsai
Figure 1. Bow-tie-shaped slot antenna; L
1
= 60,
L
2
= 45, L
3
= 30, L
4
= L
5
= L
6
= 20 (unit:
mm).
Figure 2. The simulated S
11
(dB) of bow-tie-
shaped slot antenna.
describes design procedures and discusses the simulated results for the dual-band slot antenna. Section 3
briey describes and discusses the experimental and simulated results for the proposed antenna. Finally,
Section 4 briey draws some conclusions.
2. ANTENNA STRUCTURE AND DESIGN
The bow-tie-shaped slot antenna is devised within bandwidth ranges which cover the 5.2/5.8 GHz
(WLAN) bands. In this section, the design procedures of the antenna include some parameter tuning,
which can enhance the bandwidth of this antenna. Fig. 2 shows the simulated results, S
11
(dB), of the
antenna. For the simulated results, the 10 dB bandwidth of the antenna is 1.94 GHz (5.087.02 GHz),
and the bandwidth can cover the operating frequency band of WLAN 5.2/5.8 GHz.
Adding two extra bow-tie-shaped conducting strips, h obtains a resonant frequency at 2.4 GHz
(WLAN) of the antenna and maintains good impedance and stable radiation characteristics. Fig. 3
shows the conguration of the geometric parameter tuning. When h is used as the parameter for
adjustment, it optimizes the lower frequency band bandwidth and return loss. The simulated results of
parameter h vary from 16 to 19 mm and are shown in Fig. 4. In the simulated results, the h adjustment
Figure 3. The conguration of a dual-band bow-
tie-shaped slot antenna.
Figure 4. The simulated S
11
(dB) of the tuning
h.
Progress In Electromagnetics Research C, Vol. 47, 2014 169
results show that the upper frequency band ranges are approximately identical. However, varying the
geometrical parameter h does not aect the upper frequency band, although strong eects on the excited
resonant modes in the lower frequency band can be observed. When h = 16 mm, the lower frequency
band range of the antenna is from 2.3 to 2.53 GHz (230 MHz), and the upper frequency band range of
the antenna is 5.05 to 6.31 GHz (1.26 GHz). The lower frequency band return loss is 18.3 dB, and the
upper frequency band return loss is 23.2 dB. However, when h = 17, 18 and 19 mm, the center frequency
of the lower frequency band drifts towards the lower frequency band. As a result, h = 16 mm is selected
as the optimum parameter.
Figure 5 shows the simulated results of the tuning parameter t. The simulated results of parameter
t, which vary from 5.5 to 9 mm, are shown in Fig. 5. The simulation results show that the proper choice
of parameter t is important in the proposed antenna. At 9 mm, the lower frequency band range of this
antenna is 2.172.5 GHz and the upper frequency band range is 4.986.31 GHz. The lower frequency
band return loss is 21.1 dB and the upper frequency band return loss is 24 dB. However, when t = 5.5
or 7.5 mm, the center frequency of the lower frequency band drifts towards the upper frequency band.
The eects on the excited resonant modes in the lower frequency band can be seen clearly. In this
study, the optimum t is determined to be 9 mm when using the simulated results of return loss. The
simulated current distribution of the proposed antenna at 2.45 GHz is shown in Fig. 6. The antenna is
obtained by adjusting the size of the parameters h and t to produce the required frequency response
characteristics. The strongest power of the current distribution at 2.4 GHz is mainly in the signal strip
and both sides of bow-tie-shaped conducting strip. As a result, the tuning parameters h and t are used
to generate another 2.4 GHz frequency band. The simulated results clearly verify the validity of the
study. By selecting appropriate sizes for h, t, good impedance matching of the CPW-fed slot antenna
can be obtained.
Figure 5. The simulated S
11
(dB) of the tuning
t.
Figure 6. The current distribution of the
proposed antenna at 2.45 GHz.
3. MEASUREMENT RESULTS
Figure 7 shows the physical layout of the proposed antenna, which is built on FR4 substrate having
a thickness of 1.6 mm, a relative dielectric constant of 4.4 and a loss tangent tan = 0.0254. The
proposed physical antenna size in the study is 60 45 mm
2
. We measured the return loss using an
Agilent N5230A network analyzer. The simulated and measured return loss of the proposed antenna is
shown in Fig. 8. The simulated results were determined using the electromagnetic simulation software
of the Ansoft HFSS (High Frequency Structure Simulator).
For the simulated and measured results, the simulated 10 dB bandwidth of the antenna was found
to be 0.33 GHz (2.172.5 GHz) in the lower frequency band and 1.32 GHz (4.986.31 GHz) in the upper
frequency. The measured 10 dB bandwidth of the antenna is 0.31 GHz (2.262.57 GHz) in the lower
170 Tsai
Figure 7. The photo of the fabricated bow-tie-
shaped slot antenna.
Figure 8. The simulated and measured S
11
(dB)
of the proposed slot antenna.

2.45GHz E-plane (y-z plane) 2.45GHz H-plane (x-z plane)
5.3 GHz E-plane (y-z plane) 5.3 GHz H-plane (x-z plane)
Figure 9. Measured radiation patterns at 2.45 and 5.3 GHz.
frequency band and 1.75 GHz (4.816.56 GHz) in the upper frequency band. The measured return loss
sink in the 2.4 GHz band (WLAN) is about 29.8 dB and in the 5.2 to 5.8 GHz (WLAN) band is about
38.3 dB. The measured results are in positive agreement with the simulated results. In addition, by using
Progress In Electromagnetics Research C, Vol. 47, 2014 171
the described design method, a dual-band antenna was developed to cover the WLAN 2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz
operation bands.
The measured far-eld co-polarization and cross-polarization radiation patterns of the proposed
slot antenna at the two typical frequencies are presented in Fig. 9. In the H-plane (x-z plane), the
radiation pattern is nearly omni-directional at the lower and upper frequency bands (2.45 and 5.2 GHz).
In the E-plane (y-z plane), the radiation pattern is nearly bidirectional at the lower and upper frequency
bands. An acceptable and stable radiation pattern for the dualband application was obtained for the
proposed antenna. Table 1 shows the measured peak gain, eciency and frequency bands for the
proposed antenna. The measured peak gain with 2.45/5.3 GHz bands was obtained for the proposed
antenna. The highest gain for the proposed antenna is about 3.65 dBi at 5.3 GHz and the highest
eciency is at about 80.27% at 2.45 GHz.
Table 1. Gain and radiation eciency.
Freq (GHz) Gain (dBi) Total Rad. Eciency (%)
2.45 2.55 80.27
5.3 3.65 75.54
4. CONCLUSIONS
A novel dual-band conguration of a CPW-fed slot antenna using a signal strip, two conducting strips
and bow-tie-shaped slots has been proposed and implemented. The inuences of the two geometrical
parameters on the antenna have been studied. With simple tuning parameters, the proposed antenna is
suitable for WLAN 2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz operation bands. The measured results show a positive agreement
with simulated results.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported by the National Science Council, R.O.C., under Grant NSC 102-2221-E-262-
002.
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