2017 Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium — Fall (PIERS — FALL), Singapore, 19–22 November

A Compact Design of Switched Line Phase Shifter for a Microstrip

Abstract— This paper presents a 1×4 microstrip Phased Array Antenna (PAA) with a uniquely
designed switch line phase shifter to obtain steerable beam pattern. The antenna is designed on a
Rogers RT/Duroid 6006T M dielectric substrate with a relative permittivity of 6.15. Each element
of the probe fed PAA are connected to a phase shifter on a different dielectric substrate. The
phase shifter has four equal length microstrip lines placed on a circular fashion around a via that
connects the antenna. The circular phase shifter network feeds the antenna through the via at the
center. This design is useful if a phase shifter must be integrated with an antenna in a tight space.
A diode switch is placed between the microstrip traces to change the length of the transmission
line. An addition of each transmission line provides a phase shift of 90◦ . The Arduino controlled
switches can be turned ON and OFF to steer the antenna beam pattern. The maximum steering
angle obtained was ±45◦ . The antenna is appropriate for Wi-Fi application that requires direc-
tional beam pattern, Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) communications, scanning radar,
and other applications requiring steerable beam pattern.

1. INTRODUCTION
Phased array antennas are widely used for various applications requiring fixed or steerable beam
pattern. These antennas provide control over the direction and beam pattern without mechanically
adjusting the antenna position. The beam produced by the antenna can be steered in a desired
angle by changing the phase of individual antenna element. The PAA provides flexibility to receive
signal from a direction where the signal path is not obstructed and transmit signal in any preferred
direction. The application of traditional PAA were limited to aerospace and military use due to high
cost, complexity, and the size of the antenna. The use of such antenna is found mostly in spaceships
and satellites for space communications [1] and military radars [2]. To obtain a directional antenna
pattern, each antenna element in an array must be fed through a phase shifter. The realization of a
mechanical phase shifter on each antenna element makes an antenna costly and bulky. Therefore,
the implementation of such antenna on a small electronic device is difficult due to area constraint.
The research advancement in patch antenna and microstrip base phase shifters made it possible
to realize antenna arrays for wide range of applications. Today antenna arrays are employed on
Wi-Fi, LTE technology [3], and health care applications [4]. In this paper, we design a phase shifter
for a four-element linear patch antenna array. The antenna is designed at 4.9 GHz, public safety
band; however, the concept of phase shifter can be applicable for diverse applications. Our goal
is to design a phase shifter small enough to fit within the antenna element spacing so that its
realization is possible under each antenna unit.
To reduce the size and bulkiness of an antenna, electrical phase shifters are more realized on an
antenna than mechanical phase shifters. Butler Matrix and switch line phase shifter are some of
the popular electrical phase shifter used in antenna arrays. To reduce the size of an antenna, a dual
band Butler matrix are found to be implemented on phased arrays [5]. As the number of antenna
element increases, the number of such phase shifter must increase. As a result the size of the
antenna gets bigger. The increasing uses of Butler matrix in modern wireless communications [6]
and 5G technologies [7] can be substituted with the proposed design to reduce the overall antenna
dimension. The number of input and output ports in a Butler matrix are equal. Excitation of each
input ports provides directional beam pattern of an antenna. The direction of an antenna beam
can be controlled using this method, however the phase shift on each antenna element cannot be
controlled independently. Therefore, a broadside beam cannot be obtained using this method. A
Butler matrix can be formed with 4, 8 or 16 input/output ports. Hence, an antenna array with
different number of antenna element cannot be realized. The Butler matrix must be stacked up if
they are used to feed a planar array, thus by increasing space and complexity.
In a switch line phase shifter, the input signal is routed through different length transmission
line so that the signal reaches the antenna at different time. A true time delay is obtained using
switch line phase shifter as in [8] and [9]. A four-bit switched line phase shifter is realized in [8] using

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 2017 Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium — Fall (PIERS — FALL), Singapore, 19–22 November

Micro-electro-mechanical switches (MEMS) where different length transmission lines are switched
to obtain desired phase shift. In [9] a constant phase shift is produced by switching a reference
transmission line with a phase shifting line. In current designs, the length of the transmission lines
switched to obtain phase shift are longer and does not fit within antenna element spacing. In our
proposed design, the phase shift is provided by extending a transmission line using RF switches
along a circular path around the via that feeds the antenna. If this circular traces are branched at
four equal lengths to feed the coaxial fed antenna at the center, four phases of 0◦ , 90◦ , 180◦ , and
270◦ should be achieved.

2. DESIGN
A probe fed four elements rectangular patch antenna is designed in High Frequency Structural
Simulator (HFSS). The dimension of the antenna depends on the resonance frequency, relative
permittivity of the material, and its height. The antenna is designed for a frequency of 4.9 GHz. A
Rogers RT/Duroid 6006T M is used as a dielectric material. The height of the dielectric substrate
is 1.524 mm and the relative permittivity is 6.15. The higher value of dielectric constant minimizes
the size of the antenna. This kind of material is very suitable for antenna that has area constraint.
The length of each antenna element is 11.37 mm and the width is 20.78 mm. The antenna elements
are placed on a substrate of length 80.1128 mm and width 161.7784 mm. The antenna elements are
placed half wavelength apart and a space of quarter wavelength is established between the antenna
element and the edge of the substrate. A ground plane is placed on the other side of the dielectric
substrate. The phase shifter for the antenna is placed on a different dielectric substrate. The phase
shifter and the antenna are on a separate substrate. The isolation of phase shifter from antenna
substrate provides higher gain and reduces spurious effect. It also helps to suppress side lobe level
of antenna radiation pattern. The research conducted by M. T. Ali et al. on two different antenna
structures shows that the antenna with separate feeding substrate is more advantageous than the
antenna with feeding network on a same substrate. They found that the ratio of main lobe to side
lobe was −11.9 dB for an antenna with separate feeding network. Whereas, a ratio of −5.35 dB was
obtained for an antenna with feeding network on a same substrate [10].
The design of phase shifter is shown below in Figure 1. The phase shift is obtained by delaying
an input signal by increasing the length of the transmission line. The design shows four equal
length transmission line placed around a via. Each of the traces are connected to the via and
can be switched to provide different phase shift. A phase difference of 90◦ is expected from each

Figure 1: Dimension of transmission lines on a phase shifter.

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2017 Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium — Fall (PIERS — FALL), Singapore, 19–22 November

additional transmission line. Each traces of transmission line are matched to 50 Ω impedance using
single open stub. The dimension of the transmission line and the stubs are shown in Figure 1
below. The transmission lines are mitered to minimize the loss due to sharp corners. A gap of
4 mm is placed between the transmission line. A diode switch will be placed in each gap to extend
the transmission line. The diode switches are turned ON and OFF with an Arduino to obtain a
desired phase shift. For simulation purpose, these gaps will be filled with a lumped component to
provide the effect of a diode switch.
Each of these phase shifters are placed under each antenna element on a different dielectric
substrate. The phase shifter connects to an antenna through a coaxial cable. A corporate feed
network is then connected to these phase shifters as shown in Figure 2 below. The antenna is fed
through the input port of a corporate feed network.

Figure 2: Corporate feed network connected to phase shifters.

The proposed antenna with antenna elements and the phase shifter are shown below in Figures 3
and 4.

Figure 3: Top view of proposed phased array antenna.

Figure 4: Slant view of proposed phased array antenna.

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3. RESULTS
The simulation was performed using High Frequency Structural Simulator (HFSS). The proposed
phase shifter is first simulated with a single antenna element to validate the expected phase shift
from each arm of the microstrip lines. We projected that an addition of each transmission line
would provide a phase increment of 90◦ . The phase of reflection coefficient obtained from each
arm of the transmission line is shown in Figure 5 below. The simulation shows that the result is
in a close agreement with the projected phase shift. In reference to the first transmission line, an
addition of 2nd, 3rd and 4th traces provide 87◦ , 59◦ , and 63◦ phase shift respectively. The error in
the result is probably due to the stubs of unequal length on each transmission line and signal on
which the measurement is taken. The phase shift is measured on a reflection coefficient instead of a
forward gain signal. The measurement of phase shift was not possible on a forward signal without
removing an antenna from the simulation. The phase shifter with an antenna at the end acts as a
one port network and does not provide all s-parameters.
The antenna is simulated by enclosing it in a Perfectly Matched Layer (PML) boundary. The
wave reaching the radiation boundary are absorbed perfectly if the incident angle of the wave is
normal to the radiating surface. For a phased array antenna, the radiated energy is steered at

Figure 5: Phase difference between four transmission lines on a phase shifter.

Figure 6: S-parameter for three different phase shifter configurations.

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different angles. The wave is not absorbed as desired if the incident angle is not normal to the
boundary. Therefore, a PML boundary is used while simulating antenna structures that produces
oblique radiation pattern. The antenna is simulated at a frequency of 4.965 GHz. This is the center
frequency of 4.9 GHz public safety band. The simulation was performed to obtain beam steering
at three different angles. First, the simulation was run with the reference line of the phase shifter
connected to the first antenna element and addition of 2nd, 3rd and 4th lines for each consecutive
antenna elements. The second simulation was performed with transmission lines in reverse order.
Third was performed with the reference line on each phase shifter connected to each antenna
element. The result of s-parameter for each case is shown below in Figure 6. The two-dimensional
radiation pattern of E-field on Figure 7 shows that a beam steering of ±45◦ and 0◦ were obtained
from the simulation.

Figure 7: 2D-Radiation pattern with three different phase shifter configurations.

4. CONCLUSION
The performance of the designed phase shifter for an antenna array produced a good result and
met the design expectation. An addition of each transmission line segment to the reference line
provided a phase shift close to 90◦ . A beam steering of ±45◦ with minimum reflection was obtained
at the desired frequency band. The phase shifter was designed to fit within the space of antenna
element spacing. This method of phase shifting can be applied and can perform very well with
other applications as well. This method of phase shifting is very useful for antenna arrays in small
electronic devices that have area constraint. The designed antenna covers 11 channels (7, 8, 9,
183, 184, 185, 187, 188, 189, 192, and 196) of 5 GHz Wi-Fi. The phase shifter has a potential use
in diverse applications including MIMO communication, scanning radar, and other beam steering
technologies.

5. FUTURE WORK
The antenna is on a process of fabrication. The switching between transmission line on a phase
shifter will be controlled by an Arduino. Diode switches will be used to switch between the signal
paths. A future publication will address mutual coupling effect and optimized antenna performance
results.
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tems,” 2016 IEEE International Symposium on Phased Array Systems and Technology (PAST),
1–7, 2016.

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3. Bashri, M. S. R., T. Arslan, and W. Zhou, “A dual-band linear phased array antenna for WiFi
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