1982

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 51, NO. 8, AUGUST 2003

Broadband CPW-Fed Square Slot Antennas With a

Widened Tuning Stub
Horng-Dean Chen, Member, IEEE

AbstractBy using a coplanar waveguide (CPW) feed with a

widened tuning stub, a square slot antenna for broadband operation is presented. Experimental results show that the impedance
matching for the proposed antenna strongly depends on the location of the tuning stub in the square slot, and the impedance bandwidth is mainly determined by the width and length of the tuning
stub. By properly choosing the location and the size of the tuning
stub, a wide impedance bandwidth of 60% can be obtained, which
is about 1.9 times that of a conventional CPW-fed square slot antenna with a simple tuning stub. Details of the experimental results
are presented and discussed.
Index TermsBroadband operation, coplanar waveguide
(CPW)-fed, square slot antenna.

I. INTRODUCTION

ECAUSE the coplanar waveguide (CPW) fed wide slot antennas have the advantages of wide bandwidth and easy
integration with monolithic microwave integrated circuits, the
designs of the CPW-fed wide slot antennas have recently received much attention. A few attempts have been made to increase the bandwidth of CPW-fed slot antennas, including the
use of a wide rectangular slot [1], [2] or a bow-tie slot [3], [4].
Other broadband designs such as using a patch element loaded
in a circular slot [5] or the hybrid slot [6] have also been used to
obtain a dual-resonance response. However, for these published
CPW-fed broadband designs, their impedance bandwidths are
generally less than 50%. In this paper, an alternative method
for enhancing the impedance bandwidth of CPW-fed square slot
antenna is proposed. For this design, a widened tuning stub is
used, and the parameters of the location and size of the tuning
stub can control the coupling between the CPW feed line and the
radiating slot, which facilitates the impedance matching of the
antenna and thus leads to a large bandwidth of 60% obtained. In
this study, several designs are experimentally investigated, and
the characteristics of the input impedance and radiation patterns
are analyzed and discussed.
II. ANTENNA DESCRIPTION
Fig. 1 shows the geometry of the proposed CPW-fed square
slot antenna with a widened tuning stub. The antenna is printed
and relatively peron an FR4 substrate of thickness 1.6 mm
. The ground plane is chosen to be square and
mitttivity 4.4
Manuscript received March 16, 2001; revised April 4, 2002.
The author is with the Department of Electronic Engineering, Cheng-Shiu
Institute of Technology, Kaohsiung, Taiwan 833, R.O.C. (e-mail: hdchen@cc.csit.edu.tw).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2003.814747

Fig. 1. Geometry of the proposed CPW-fed slot antenna with a widened tuning
stub.

has a side length of . Square radiating slot of dimensions

is also chosen. A 50 CPW feed line, having a metal strip of
and a gap of distance , is used to excite the proposed
width
antenna. The widened tuning stub of length and width is
connected to the end of the CPW feed line. The spacing between
the tuning stub and edge of the ground plane is . For the demm,
sign studied here, the dimensions are chosen to be
mm,
mm, and
mm. The three
parameters of the tuning stub (i.e., , , and ) affect the broadband operation of the proposed antenna, and details of the design
are studied in the following section.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The proposed antennas with various design parameters have
been constructed. As a first step, the capability of the impedance
matching to a 50 CPW feedline for the proposed antenna with
a widened tuning stub is considered. In this case, the spacing
is varied and the effect on the impedance matching is investigated. Figs. 2 and 3, respectively, show the measured input
impedance on a Smith chart and the corresponding return loss
for different spacings of , where the tuning stub with a length
mm and a width of
mm is used. It is seen
of
that the resonant input resistance increases as the spacing decreases. A small resonant impedance loop for the antenna with
mm is observed and moved toward the center of the
Smith chart. The small loop of impedance locus implies that the

0018-926X/03$17.00 2003 IEEE

CHEN: BROADBAND CPW-FED SQUARE SLOT ANTENNAS WITH A WIDENED TUNING STUB

Fig. 3.
Fig. 2.

1983

Measured return loss against frequency for the antennas studied in

Fig. 2. Measured input impedance on Smith chart for different spacings (S );

L = 44 mm, G = 72 mm, ` = 22:5 mm, w = 32 mm, " = 4:4, h =
1:6 mm, w = 6:37 mm, g = 0:5 mm.

of the return loss for the case of

mm, obtained from
Ansoft High-frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS) simulation
software, is also shown in Fig. 5. Good agreement is observed
between the simulation and the measurement.

coupling between the widened tuning stub and ground plane becomes stronger as the spacing is reduced. A good impedance
matching for the proposed design is thus obtained by enhancing
the coupling between the widened tuning stub and ground plane.
Also observed in Fig. 3, the present proposed antenna with a
good matching can be implemented only when the spacing
mm, and the optimal spacing is found to be about 0.5 mm.
on the
Next, the effect of the tuning-stub length
impedance matching of the antenna is studied. Here, the
width of the tuning stub and the spacing are fixed to be
mm and
mm, respectively. The typical
measured impedance loci for various tuning-stub lengths are
mm in Fig. 4(a),
shown in Fig. 4. For the case of
there are two resonant modes excited; the lower resonant
mode is mainly due to the widened tuning stub in this design,
excited as a quarter-wavelength monopole antenna, and the
higher resonant mode is contributed from the fundamental
resonant mode of the square slot antenna. However, the two
resonant modes are not excited at close frequencies, thus for
the frequencies in-between the two resonant modes, the return
loss is less than 10 dB. On the other hand, when is decreased,
we see that impedance loci of Fig. 4(b) and (c) only have a
resonant loop. This is because the lower resonant frequency
is mainly dependent on the length of the tuning stub, and
the higher resonant frequency is primarily a function of the
of the square slot. Thus, by decreasing the length
length
of the tuning stub, the higher resonant frequency is only
slightly affected, while the lower resonant frequency is quickly
increased and shifted close to the higher resonant frequency. In
this case, all the frequencies between and in the two resonant
modes have a return loss larger than 10 dB. It can be concluded
that by properly selecting the tuning-stub length, two resonant
modes can be generated at close frequencies and thus results
in a wide bandwidth operation. From the results obtained, it
suggests in the proposed design that the optimal length of the
tuning stub for bandwidth enhancement should be selected to
(22.5 mm). In addition, the simulated result
be about 0.5

Moreover, it is found that the impedance bandwidth of the

proposed design can be further improved by adjusting the
. Fig. 5 presents the measured return
tuning-stub width
loss for various tuning-stub widths. The corresponding performances are listed in Table I, in which the center frequency
is defined as
, where
and
are the lower
and higher frequencies with 10 dB return loss, respectively. In
mm
these cases, the optimal tuning-stub length of
mm are considered to perform the
and the spacing of
broadband operation. For comparison, the reference antenna
has been constructed using the same process. This reference
antenna is completely identical to the proposed antenna with
a widened tuning stub except that a simple tuning stub of
mm extending into the square slot is used. The
reference antenna is also found to have a maximum impedance
mm, and its bandwidth is
bandwidth occurring at
about 32% or 611 MHz with respect to the center frequency
at 1895 MHz. From the results shown in Fig. 5, it is seen that,
when the tuning-stub width is less than 36 mm, the lower
with 10 dB return loss is slightly affected with
frequency
the variation in the tuning-stub width. However, the higher
with 10 dB return loss significantly increases
frequency
with an increase of the tuning-stub width. On the other hand,
when the width is larger than 36 mm, the lower frequency
dramatically increases with an increase of the width,
is only slightly affected by
but the higher frequency
changing the tuning-stub width. From another point of view,
the impedance bandwidth increases when the tuning-stub
6.3736 mm, but decreases when
width increases from
3640 mm.
the tuning-stub width increases further from
Consequently, the maximum impedance bandwidth is found
mm
and reaches 1320
to occur at about
MHz (15602880 MHz) or about 60% with respect to the
center frequency at 2220 MHz, which is about 1.9 times that
(32%) of the reference antenna with a simple tuning stub of
mm. It is also noted that an impedance bandwidth
is chosen in the
larger than 50% can be obtained when

1984

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 51, NO. 8, AUGUST 2003

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Fig. 4. Measured input impedance on Smith chart for various tuning-stub lengths (`) with S = 0:5 mm and w = 40 mm; other parameters are the same as in
Fig. 2. (a) ` = 32 mm. (b) ` = 27 mm. (c) ` = 22:5 mm. (d) ` = 17 mm.
TABLE I
PERFORMANCE OF THE PROPOSED CPW-FED SLOT ANTENNA WITH VARIOUS
TUNING-STUB WIDTHS (w ); L = 44 mm, G = 72 mm, " = 4:4,
h = 1:6 mm, w = 6:37 mm, g = 0:5 mm, ` = 22:5 mm

Fig. 5. Measured and simulated return loss against frequency for various
tuning-stub widths (w ) with S = 0:5 mm and ` = 22:5 mm; other parameters
are the same as in Fig. 2.

wide range from 26

to 40 mm
. This
suggests that the proposed antenna is relatively insensitive to
the fabrication tolerance for achieving a broadband operation.
The surface current distribution on the tuning stub and electric field distribution on the square slot for the proposed antenna are simulated and analyzed by using the HFSS simulation
software. Fig. 6 shows the simulated surface current distribuMHz and
tion on the tuning stub at the frequency
the electric field distribution on the square slot at the frequency

MHz for antenna 3 in Table I. At

MHz,
the vertical component of the surface current is the main contributors to the radiation, and the horizontal component contributes
MHz, the rato the cross polarization. Similarly, at
diation from the vertical component of the electric field is dominant, and the cross polarization is largely due to the horizontal
component of the electric field. Thus, for the present design, the
two frequencies are expected to have similar broadside radiation
characteristics. Fig. 7 shows the measured E plane (y-z plane)
1560, 2220,
and H plane (x-z plane) radiation patterns at
and 2880 MHz for antenna 3. From the results, it demonstrates
that all the operating frequencies have the same polarization

CHEN: BROADBAND CPW-FED SQUARE SLOT ANTENNAS WITH A WIDENED TUNING STUB

1985

(a)

(a)

(b)

(b)
Fig. 6. (a) Simulated surface current distribution on the tuning stub at the
frequency f
1900 MHz , and (b) simulated electric field distribution on
the square slot at the frequency f = 2650 MHz for the antenna studied in
Fig. 5 with w = 36 mm (antenna 3).

(c)
Fig. 7. Measured E plane and H plane radiation patterns for the antenna studied
in Fig. 5 with w = 36 mm (antenna 3). (a) f = 1560 MHz, (b) f = 2220 MHz,
(c) f = 2880 MHz.

planes and similar radiation patterns. It is also noted that both

the E plane and H plane patterns show relatively large cross-polarization radiation. This behavior is largely due to the strong
horizontal components of the surface current and electric field
observed, which leads to a significant increase of the cross-polarization radiation. Finally, the measured antenna gain in the
broadside direction on the air side is presented in Fig. 8. Result
shows that the measured antenna gain throughout the operating
bandwidth is within a range of 3.754.88 dBi.

IV. CONCLUSION
CPW-fed square slot antennas with a widened tuning stub
for broadband operation have been designed and successfully
implemented. The proposed antenna with a good impedance
matching has been achieved simply by tuning the spacing between the tuning stub and the ground plane. In addition, by incorporating the use of the tuning-stub length having about half
of the slot length and the tuning-stub width ranging in about

Fig. 8. Measured antenna gain in the broadside direction of the antenna studied
in Fig. 5 with w = 36 mm (antenna 3).

0.59 to 0.9 times the slot length, an impedance bandwidth more

than 50% has been implemented. Further, when the tuning-stub
width is chosen to be about 0.81 times the slot length, an optimal
impedance bandwidth reaching about 60% has been obtained.

1986

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 51, NO. 8, AUGUST 2003

REFERENCES
[1] X. Ding and A. F. Jacob, CPW-fed slot antenna with wide radiating
apertures, Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng/ Microwave Antennas Propagation,
vol. 145, pp. 104108, 1998.
[2] J. F. Huang and C. W. Kuo, CPW-fed slot antenna with CPW tuning
stub loading, Microwave Opt. Technol. Lett., vol. 19, pp. 257258,
1998.
[3] E. A. Soliman, S. Brebels, P. Delmotte, G. A. E. Vandenbosch, and E.
Beyne, Bow-tie slot antenna fed by CPW, Electron. Lett., vol. 35, pp.
514515, 1999.
[4] M. Miao, B. L. Ooi, and P. S. Kooi, Broadband CPW-fed wide slot
antenna, Microwave Opt. Technol. Lett., vol. 25, pp. 206211, 2000.
[5] E. A. Soliman, S. Brebels, E. Beyne, and G. A. E. Vandenbosch,
CPW-fed cusp antenna, Microwave Opt. Technol. Lett., vol. 22, pp.
288290, 1999.
[6] A. U. Bhobe, C. L. Holloway, M. Piket-May, and R. Hall, Coplanar
waveguide fed wideband slot antenna, Electron. Lett., vol. 36, pp.
13401342, 2000.

Horng-Dean Chen (S95A95M99) received the

B.S. degree in electrical engineering from National
Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, R.O.C., in
1984 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical
engineering from National Sun Yat-Sen University,
Kaohsiung, Taiwan, R.O.C. in 1992 and 1995,
respectively.
From 1995 to 1999, he was an Associate Professor
with the Department of Electronic Engineering,
Nai-Tai Institute of Technology. Currently, he is
an Associate Professor with the Department of
Electronic Engineering, Cheng-Shiu Institute of Technology, Kaohsiung,
Taiwan, R.O.C. His research interests include print microstrip and slot antennas
for wireless communications.