IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 66, NO.

1, JANUARY 2018 401

Communication
A Reconfigurable Filtering Antenna With Integrated Bandpass Filters
for UWB/WLAN Applications
Jingya Deng , Simin Hou, Luyu Zhao , and Lixin Guo

Abstract— This communication presents a new reconfigurable wideband state and the narrowband state. In [8], the reconfigurable
filtering monopole antenna design with three switchable states for directed dipole antenna consists of a wideband bowtie dipole and a
UWB/WLAN applications. The antenna has three independent ports for
tuned narrowband thin dipole. The switching functionality between
ultra-wideband state, 2.4 GHz WLAN narrowband state, and 5.8 GHz
WLAN narrowband state, respectively. The narrowband state at 2.4 GHz a wideband state and four narrowband states is realized by con-
is produced by a first-order microstrip filter using an open-loop resonator, trolling the states of the p-i-n diodes. In order to realize frequency
and the narrowband state around 5.8 GHz is obtained by involv- reconfiguration, different types of RF switches can be selected, such
ing a third-order hairpin bandpass filter in the RF path. Frequency as MEMS switches, p-i-n diodes, and varactor diodes [9]–[11]. After
reconfiguration is achieved by RF path selection using dc controlled
p-i-n diodes. As a result, narrowband filtering responses at desired comprehensive analysis, p-i-n diode is selected in this communication
frequency bands can be achieved. One antenna prototype is simulated, because of its advantages in fast switching time, low cost, and easy
fabricated, and measured. Measured reflection coefficients and radiation integration with microstrip-based networks and antennas.
patterns demonstrate that the proposed reconfigurable filtering antenna Another crucial concern of wireless communication devices is the
is an eligible candidate for future multifunctional systems incorporating
both UWB and WLAN systems.
miniaturization and integration technique. There are several studies
about the integration technique of the antennas and the filters are
Index Terms— Bandpass filter, filtering antenna, reconfigurable proposed in [12] and [13]. A new compact filtering antenna is
antenna, UWB antenna.
proposed in [14], where a slot antenna is used to substitute the last
I. I NTRODUCTION resonator of the filter. By integrating a dual-mode resonator, a novel
There is a growing trend that more and more wireless systems are filtering antenna with dual-band response is achieved in [15].
integrating into one mobile device. However, the mobile device itself Based on the many research in the above, a new design method
is becoming more and more compact in size, which makes it harder of tuning a reconfigurable filtering antenna from a wideband state
to design multiple RF-front ends including antennas. To solve the to two narrowband states is proposed in this communication, which
aforementioned problem, it is suggested that reconfigurable antennas is realized by incorporating two bandpass filters to the feeding line.
are employed to realize wideband state and narrowband state within RF signals are fed through three independent ports and RF paths
one physical unit. Antennas working in wideband state have the are selected by using dc controlled p-i-n diodes, accordingly the
ability to sense the available frequency spectrum, while they can also proposed antenna can switch among three operating states with
achieve multiband operation by dynamically adjusting the resonant distinct frequency responses. The novelty of this communication lies
frequency in their narrowband states to desired frequency band of in the follow aspects.
interest. Meanwhile, miniaturization and integration of the antenna 1) For wireless systems such as mobile internet devices and smart
together with the microwave filter should be achieved as they are both phones to access the wireless spectrum of WLAN, WiMAX,
necessary parts of the RF front end. Therefore, a new concept named and UWB, a frequency reconfigurable antenna is employed as it
filtering antenna that can realize the radiation functionality and the can adaptively occupy the available spectrum instantly realizing
filtering capacity simultaneously is proposed in recent years [1], [2]. the dynamic spectrum allocations.
It avoids designing antenna and bandpass filter separately, thereby 2) The integrated bandpass filters provide good frequency selec-
realizes a more compact structure and improves the performance of tivity and high harmonic suppression for the proposed antenna
the whole RF front-end eventually. design.
In the past few decades, studies are carried out on narrowband 3) The reconfigurable filtering antenna not only realizes multiband
reconfigurable antennas [3]–[6]. A frequency reconfigurable antenna operation, but also achieves miniaturization of the RF front end.
is proposed in [7]. The narrowband frequency reconfiguration is 4) The WLAN frequency response is produced by bandpass filters;
realized by using a reconfigurable filter controlled by two varactor it has the potential to be applied to other wireless systems, such
diodes, while a p-i-n diode is employed to switch bands between the as WiMAX, Bluetooth, and Global Navigation Satellite System
by choosing appropriate filter structure.
Manuscript received March 23, 2017; revised August 5, 2017; accepted
September 21, 2017. Date of publication October 6, 2017; date of current The design of the UWB antenna, the filters, as well as the inte-
version January 2, 2018. This work was supported in part by the Natural gration of the antenna with the filters will be discussed in Section II.
Science Foundation of China under Grant 61471280 and Grant 61431010, Section III will display and analyze the simulated and measured
in part by the Foundation for Innovative Research Groups of the National results of the antenna. Section IV will make conclusion.
Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 61621005, and in part by
111 Project under Grant B17035. (Corresponding author: Luyu Zhao.) II. D ESIGN OF THE R ECONFIGURABLE F ILTERING A NTENNA
J. Deng, S. Hou, and L. Guo are with the School of Physics and
Optoelectronic Engineering, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, China (e-mail:
A. UWB Antenna Design
jydeng@xidian.edu.cn; 787218262@qq.com; lxguo@xidian.edu.cn). An elliptical-shaped monopole antenna is chosen because it can
L. Zhao is with the Key Laboratory of Antennas and Microwave Technolo- operate over a very wideband. The layout of the UWB mono-
gies, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, China (e-mail: lyzhao@xidian.edu.cn).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this communication are
pole antenna with its corresponding parameter values is indi-
available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. cated in Fig. 1(a). It is printed on a 1-mm-thick FR4 substrate
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2017.2760363 (dielectric constant εr = 4.4). The substrate has a dimension
0018-926X © 2017 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
402 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 66, NO. 1, JANUARY 2018

Fig. 1. (a) Layout of the UWB monopole antenna. (b) Reflection coefficient Fig. 3. Parametric studies concerning the (a) G’s and (b) W8’s influences
of the UWB monopole antenna (unit: mm). on the filter response.

Fig. 2. Layout and simulated S-parameters of filters. (a) Hairpin bandpass

filter. (b) Open-loop filter.
Fig. 4. Configuration of the proposed filtering antenna with the biasing
of 40 × 38 mm2 . The top layer consists of an elliptical-shaped patch network.
as the radiating element which is excited through a 50  microstrip TABLE I
feeding line. The length of the microstrip line is 20 mm, and the D IMENSIONS OF THE P ROPOSED A NTENNA (U NIT: mm)
width is 2 mm. As can be seen in Fig. 1(a), a ground plane with
two symmetrical triangular cutouts is printed on the bottom layer
of the substrate. Fig. 1(b) depicts the reflection coefficient of the
UWB monopole antenna.

B. Bandpass Filters Design dc biasing networks for p-i-n diodes. It is observed from Fig. 4 that
Before implementing the filter-antenna integration, it is neces- by etching a rectangular slot in the 50  microstrip line and placing
sary to design the bandpass filters for the required WLAN bands, the p-i-n diodes in suitable places, the whole design can realize the
respectively. First of all, a third-order hairpin bandpass filter is frequency reconfiguration as well as filtering function. The frequency
employed to produce a 5.8 GHz WLAN narrowband response. When reconfiguration functionality is implemented by p-i-n diodes, and the
the coupling coefficients k12 and k23 of the hairpin filter are set filtering capability is obtained by the designed filters. Hence, a mul-
to be 1.9 and the external quality factors are chosen to be 5.33, tifunctional antenna is obtained without increasing the size of the
the hairpin filter is able to produce an excellent 5.8 GHz WLAN circuit. Considering the parasitic effect after filter-antenna integration,
narrowband response. Then, we can design the physical dimensions fine tuning on the parameters is conducted. High-frequency simula-
of the hairpin filter by using the technique given in [16]. The lengths tion software (HFSS 15) is employed to perform the simulations, and
of the first and third resonator are designed to be a little shorter than the optimized parameters are listed in Table I.
the second resonator, which is used to compensate for the coupling As mentioned in the above, three p-i-n diodes are soldered in
between the resonators and the effects of the input and output feeding suitable places, respectively, where diode D1 is located in the slot
line. It can be seen from Fig. 2(a) that the filter has a compact line of the feeding line, and diodes D2 and D3 are placed at both
structure which supplies high out-of-band rejection in stopband and sides of the feeding line. When diode D1 is turned ON and diodes
flat response in passband. D2 and D3 are OFF, the port 1 feeds RF signal to the antenna and
Fig. 2(b) shows the layout of an open-loop filter that has a 2.4 GHz the two filters do not operate. At this time, the antenna generates an
WLAN narrowband response. The length of the resonator, which is UWB response. When diode D1 is switched OFF, different RF paths
about λg/2, is determined by the center frequency specified. And are selected to operate at narrowband states by switching the diodes
λg refers to guided wavelength at f = 2.4 GHz. The parametric D2 and D3. When port 2 is excited, the antenna operates at 2.4 GHz
studies about the gap g and the position of feed (denoted as W8) narrowband; otherwise, the antenna operates at 5.8 GHz narrowband
are given in Fig. 3. According the simulated results, we selected when RF signal is fed to port 3.
g = 0.6 mm and W8 = 1.35 mm. Consequently, a 2.4 GHz WLAN In this communication, beam lead p-i-n diodes MA-COM
bandpass response with the required bandwidth can be realized [17] MA4AGBL912 are used as the switching elements to achieve fre-
and the simulated S-parameters are shown in Fig. 2(b). quency reconfiguration between the UWB state and two WLAN
narrowband states. The equivalent circuits used in the simulation
C. Reconfigurable Filtering Antenna Design software HFSS are shown in Fig. 5(a). The main factors to be
Based on the design and analysis in the above, the final step considered are the forward resistance R S and the reverse bias
is to integrate the monopole and bandpass filters to achieve the capacitance Ct when choosing p-i-n diode. According to its data
reconfigurable filtering antenna. Fig. 4 depicts the whole structure sheet [18], when the p-i-n diode is forward biased, a 4  resistor
of the proposed antenna, which is composed of three RF ports, should be used in the circuit model and the reverse state is represented
a monopole, two bandpass filters, 50  microstrip lines, and the by a 0.025 pF capacitor and a 4 k resistor which are connected
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 66, NO. 1, JANUARY 2018 403

Fig. 5. Equivalent circuits for (a) p-i-n diode and (b) dc biasing network
reverse bias.

Fig. 6. Surface current distributions. (a) Ultra-wideband state, 2.4 GHz.

Fig. 7. Simulated and measured reflection coefficients of the pro-
(b) Ultra-wideband state, 5.8 GHz. (c) Narrowband state, 2.4 GHz.
posed antenna. (a) Wideband state. (b) 2.4 GHz WLAN narrowband state.
(d) Narrowband state, 5.8 GHz.
(c) 5.8 GHz WLAN narrowband state.

in shunt. As shown in Fig. 5(b), the dc biasing networks for the

p-i-n diodes are given. The biasing pads are connected to the +3 V
dc biasing voltage and ground (GND), respectively. A dc-blocking
capacitor is used to block the dc source. As described in Fig. 5(b),
a 2.2 pF capacitor is employed to decouple the dc-biasing voltage
and RF signal, and a 30 nH biasing inductor together with a high
impedance biasing line is used to choke the RF signal. An inductor,
a capacitor, and a metallic via compose a low-pass filter as shown
in Fig. 5(b), which obtains a wide stopband from 3 to 10 GHz [19],
thereby the isolation between dc source and RF signal is realized.
In addition, a 100  resistor in the biasing line is used for limiting the
maximum forward bias current of the diode at the supplied voltage.
In order to clarify the working mechanism of the proposed antenna,
the simulated current distributions at different frequencies in three
states are plotted in Fig. 6. Fig. 6(a) and (b) illustrates that the
surface currents at the 2.4 and 5.8 GHz of the ultra-wideband
state are distributed over the elliptical-shaped monopole and feeding
Fig. 8. Simulated and measured normalized radiation patterns for wideband
line, which confirm the performance over the entire frequency band state. xoy plane: (a) 3.5 GHz, (b) 5.5 GHz, and (c) 9 GHz. yoz plane:
in Fig. 1(b). It can be seen clearly from Fig. 6(c) that the surface (d) 3.5 GHz, (e) 5.5 GHz, and (f) 9 GHz (pol: polarization).
current mainly concentrates on the open-loop filter exciting the
2.4 GHz WLAN narrowband. As shown in Fig. 6(d), the surface B. Far-Field Radiation Patterns
current at 5.8 GHz WLAN narrowband is mainly concentrated on The radiation patterns of the antenna are simulated and evaluated
the hairpin filter. inside the anechoic chamber. The simulated and measured normalized
radiation patterns for both ultra-wideband and narrowband operating
III. S IMULATION AND M EASURED R ESULTS states are plotted in Figs. 8 and 9. The orientation of the coordinate
system in all radiation pattern figures is the same as the one shown
A. Input Reflection Coefficients in Fig. 4. Good agreements between simulated and measured results
The proposed reconfigurable filtering antenna is manufactured and can be observed. The almost figure of eight-shaped patterns are
measured. The simulated and measured reflection coefficients in obtained for the xoy plane, while the radiation patterns in yoz plane
three states of the antenna are shown in Fig. 7(a)–(c), respectively. are nearly omni-directional at lower frequencies. But variations may
It is observed from Fig. 7(a) that the measured bandwidth can occur due to the excitations of some undesired high order resonance
cover an ultra-wideband from 3 GHz to more than 11 GHz. When modes at upper frequencies. Since the frequency reconfiguration is
diode D1 is OFF, the switching of the narrowband states can be realized at the feeding line, similar radiation patterns for different
achieved depending on the biasing condition of the other two diodes. operating states and operating frequencies are obtained. It can
It is observed from Fig. 7(b) and (c) that the measured antenna be observed that the radiation patterns of the proposed antenna
operates at either 2.2–2.48 GHz band or 5.2–6 GHz band. Moreover, are similar to that of the conventional printed monopole antenna;
the harmonic suppression of the narrowband operation is almost therefore, the proposed antenna has good radiation characteristics.
up to 11 GHz. Reasonable agreements between the simulated and The simulated cross-polarization for xoy plane is not shown in some
measured results are obtained. The differences can be attributed to figures as they are all below −30 dB level.
the errors in the manufacturing process and differences between the Furthermore, the measured gains for the three operating states
values given in the data sheet of the p-i-n diode and the actual of proposed reconfigurable filtering antenna are plotted in Fig. 10.
operation. From Fig. 10, it is observed that the gains vary from 1.01 to 2.28 dB
404 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 66, NO. 1, JANUARY 2018

IV. C ONCLUSION
To realize wideband-to-narrowband frequency reconfiguration with
filtering function, a reconfigurable filtering antenna is presented in
this communication. Three p-i-n diodes are employed to achieve
frequency reconfiguration between the wideband response and two
narrowband responses with reasonable return losses, while two band-
pass filters are integrated to the feeding line to obtain the filtering
function. The WLAN band is used as a proof-of-concept example
to represent the idea about how to achieve reconfiguration between
different states. The proposed antenna has been fabricated and tested,
which shows the antenna has a flat gain in the passband and good
frequency skirt selectivity. The proposed filtering antenna is suitable
to apply for the RF front end and also can be useful for the wireless
platform applications.

R EFERENCES
[1] Y. Yusuf, H. Cheng, and X. Gong, “A seamless integration of 3-D
Fig. 9. Simulated and measured normalized radiation patterns for narrowband vertical filters with highly efficient slot antennas,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
state. xoy plane: (a) 2.4 GHz and (b) 5.5 GHz. yoz plane: (c) 2.4 GHz and Propag., vol. 59, no. 11, pp. 4016–4022, Nov. 2011.
(d) 5.5 GHz (pol: polarization). [2] H. M. Hizan, I. C. Hunter, and A. I. Abunjaileh, “Integrated dual-
band radiating bandpass filter using dual-mode circular cavities,” IEEE
Microw. Wireless Compon. Lett., vol. 21, no. 5, pp. 246–248, May 2011.
[3] L. Pazin and Y. Leviatan, “Reconfigurable rotated-T slot antenna for
cognitive radio systems,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 62, no. 5,
pp. 2382–2387, May 2014.
[4] X. L. Yang, J. C. Lin, G. Chen, and F. L. Kong, “Frequency reconfig-
urable antenna for wireless communications using GaAs FET switch,”
IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 14, pp. 807–810, Dec. 2015.
[5] M. Konca and P. A. Warr, “A frequency-reconfigurable antenna archi-
tecture using dielectric fluids,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 63,
no. 12, pp. 5280–5286, Dec. 2015.
[6] S. Danesh, S. K. A. Rahim, M. Abedian, and M. R. Hamid, “A compact
frequency-reconfigurable dielectric resonator antenna for LTE/WWAN
Fig. 10. Measured realized gains of the proposed antenna. and WLAN applications,” IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 14,
pp. 486–489, 2014.
[7] P. Y. Qin, F. Wei, and Y. J. Guo, “A wideband-to-narrowband tunable
antenna using a reconfigurable filter,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag.,
vol. 63, no. 5, pp. 2282–2285, May 2015.
[8] L. Ge and K.-M. Luk, “A band-reconfigurable antenna based on directed
dipole,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 62, no. 1, pp. 64–71,
Jan. 2014.
[9] H. Rajagopalan, J. M. Kovitz, and Y. Rahmat-Samii, “MEMS reconfig-
urable optimized E-shaped patch antenna design for cognitive radio,”
IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 62, no. 3, pp. 1056–1064,
Mar. 2014.
[10] T. Li, H. Zhai, L. Li, and C. Liang, “Frequency-reconfigurable bow-tie
antenna with a wide tuning range,” IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag.
Lett., vol. 13, pp. 1549–1552, Aug. 2014.
[11] A. K. Horestani, Z. Shaterian, J. Naqui, F. Martín, and C. Fumeaux,
“Reconfigurable and tunable S-shaped split-ring resonators and applica-
tion in band-notched UWB antennas,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag.,
vol. 64, no. 9, pp. 3766–3776, Sep. 2016.
[12] J. Shi et al., “A compact differential filtering quasi-Yagi antenna with
high frequency selectivity and low cross-polarization levels,” IEEE
Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 14, pp. 1573–1576, 2015.
[13] G.-H. Sun, S.-W. Wong, L. Zhu, and Q.-X. Chu, “A compact printed
filtering antenna with good suppression of upper harmonic band,” IEEE
Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 15, pp. 1349–1352, Apr. 2016.
[14] M. M. Fakharian, P. Rezaei, A. A. Orouji, and M. Soltanpur,
Fig. 11. Port isolations of the antenna. (a) Wideband state. (b) 2.4 GHz “A wideband and reconfigurable filtering slot antenna,” IEEE Antennas
WLAN narrowband state. (c) 5.8 GHz WLAN narrowband state. Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 15, pp. 1610–1613, 2016.
[15] C. X. Mao et al., “Dual-band patch antenna with filtering performance
and harmonic suppression,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 64,
in the wideband state. When the antenna operates at the narrowband no. 9, pp. 4074–4077, Sep. 2016.
states, the gains are 0.96–1.10 dB in 2.4 GHz WLAN narrowband [16] J.-S. Hong, Microstrip Filters for RF/Microwave Applications, 2nd ed.
New York, NY, USA: Wiley, 2011.
state and 1.18–1.72 dB in 5.8 GHz WLAN narrowband state. The [17] W.-J. Wu, Y.-Z. Yin, S.-L. Zuo, Z.-Y. Zhang, and J.-J. Xie, “A new
gains in the narrowband state are slightly lower than that in the compact filter-antenna for modern wireless communication systems,”
wideband state, which is due to the insertion loss caused by additional IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 10, pp. 1131–1134, 2011.
filters and can be reduced using low-loss substrate. Port isolations of [18] Beam Lead PIN Diode for Use up to 40 GHz, MA4AGBLP912 Datasheet,
M/A-COM Technology Solutions, Lowell, MA, USA, Mar. 2016.
the proposed antenna are displayed in Fig. 11. It can be observed [19] P.-Y. Qin, A. R. Weily, Y. J. Guo, T. S. Bird, and C.-H. Liang, “Frequency
that the antenna achieves port isolations better than 20 dB isolation reconfigurable quasi-Yagi folded dipole antenna,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
throughout the operating band. Propag., vol. 58, no. 8, pp. 2742–2747, Aug. 2010.