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4, APRIL 2008

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Band-Rejected Design of the Printed Open Slot Antenna for WLAN/WiMAX Operation
Wen-Shan Chen, Senior Member, IEEE, and Kuang-Yuan Ku
AbstractThe band-rejected designs of the printed open slot antenna for wireless local area network (WLAN)/worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) applications are investi6 GHz) of gated. First, the broadband characteristic (2 3 open slot antenna design with small size is implemented and measured. Then, inserted a single strip on the broadband antenna is studied and investigated. By inserting a strip on the printed open slot of the broadband antenna, to reject frequency from 3.56 to 4.58 GHz, a dual-broadband design of the open slot antenna with small size is obtained for WLAN applications in the 2.4 GHz (24002484 MHz) and 5 GHz (51505825 MHz) bands. Furthermore, by inserting two strips of different length on the open slot antenna, a three-band antenna is achieved. By adjusting the dimension of two strips on open slot antenna, a three operating modal frequencies at 2 37 2 72, 3 31 3 78, and 4 5 5 97 GHz for WiMAX application have been obtained. Detailed design steps and experimental results for the designs are studied and investigated in this paper. Index TermsBand-rejected (band-notched) design/function, printed slot antenna, wireless local area network (WLAN), worldwide interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX).

I. INTRODUCTION

ECENTLY, the increasing demand for antenna with multiband operation in modern wireless communication systems has attracted public attention. Several multiband antenna designs for wireless local area network (WLAN) applications have been reported. In [1], designs of dual-band slot antenna with double T-match stub, the dual-band resonances and of the antenna are generated. at In addition, the compact slotted CPW-fed antenna [2], is embedded by three shape slots a straight, an invert-L and a , meander slot to produce triple resonant modes at , and , respectively. By adjusting location of microstrip feed and notched shape, another compact dual-/multiband antenna [3], a broadband from 2.37 GHz to 4.38 GHz or a dual-band operation at 2.4/5 GHz, is obtained. A novel and simple dual-band (2.4 and 5.2 GHz) design with double-T monopole antenna has been shown in [4]. In [5], a single-feed triangular planar inverted-F with a V-shaped slot to
Manuscript received March 27, 2007; revised November 6, 2007. This work was supported by the National Science Council of the Republic of China under Grant NSC 96-2221-E-218-002. The authors are with the Department of Electronic Engineering, Southern Taiwan University, Tainan County 710, Taiwan, R.O.C. (e-mail: chenws@eecs. stut.edu.tw). Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TAP.2008.919192

perform dual-frequency for 2.4/5 GHz is proposed. The open slot antenna designs for wide band operation are proposed [6], [7]. In [6], three different slot shapes straight, L, and inverted T, are cut at the center of the nite ground plate edge. The quarter-wavelength slot antenna [7] with L-shape horizontal and vertical tuning stub is also published. The wideband bandwidth of the Quarter-wavelength slot antenna is from . In addition, the microstrip-line-fed slot antennas [8], [9] possess advantages such as wide impedance bandwidth, low prole, light weight, easy manufacture, and low cost. These advantages make it suitable for various wireless communication applications, such as the popularity of WLAN and prospective worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX). The operating bands are 2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz WLAN bands for IEEE 802.a/b and 2.5/3.5/5.5 GHz for WiMAX bands. In practical applications, broadband antenna must use lter to suppress dispensable bands that lead to increase in cost. Moreover, these studies of printed slot antenna have a disadvantage of large size. In addition, very few attempts have been made at tuning the slot and using parasitic patch to yield a rejected band. Thus, the ultrawideband (UWB) tapered slot antenna [10] and band-notch UWB planar monopole antenna with two parasitic patches [11] for band cutoff characteristic are published. In [12], a design is proposed by adding the parasitic strip on the ground plane by adjusting the length and location of the parasitic strip, hence, the notched frequency band ( ) for UWB is achieved. In this article, a novel design of the band-rejected function has been proposed by inserting strips on wideband printed open slot antenna by choosing the proper parameters of the strips, to reject single, dual bands operation. The tri-band design of the open slot antenna with small size for WLAN/WiMAX applications is also presented.

II. ANTENNA DESIGN AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS Fig. 1 depicts the geometry of the proposed antenna. By combining one open-end - -directed slot and one open-end - -directed slot, connected to the end position at the left side of the ground plane, an open slot antenna is formed. The open slot antenna is printed on a FR4 substrate with a thickness of 0.8 mm and a relative permittivity of 4.4. This antenna has a small . The printed open slot on asymoverall size of 30 35 metric ground plate produces wideband impedance characteristic in small size antenna [13]. The band-rejected function of the proposed antenna, is to insert a strip on the open-end -directed slot of open slot antenna by properly tuning the dimension of the strip to determine the center-rejected frequency and

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Fig. 3. Measured and simulated band-rejected return loss for WLAN bands. Fig. 1. Geometry of the band-rejected open slot antenna for WLAN bands.

is the length of strip , which affects the rejected center frequency. The design steps for dual-band and tri-band operation are also presented as below. 1) Design Steps for Dual-Band Antenna: Step 1) Design a broadband open slot antenna following the design published in [13]. Step 2) Insert a metal strip on the inner edge of the open slot antenna. The length of the metal strip corresponds to quarter-wavelength of the center-rejected frequency. Step 3) Adjust the proper antenna parameters to obtain the good design of the dual-band antenna.

Fig. 2. Measured return loss for various lengths (L ) of the proposed antenna shown in Fig. 1: L = 7 mm, L = 20 mm, W = 19 mm, W = 6 mm, W = 5 mm, W = 1 mm. TABLE I MEASURED RETURN LOSS OF THE BAND-REJECTED FUNCTION WITH VARIOUS WIDTH OF L

2) Design Steps for Tri-Band Antenna: Step 1) Design a broadband open slot antenna following the design published in [13]. Step 2) Insert a long metal strip on the inner edge of the open slot antenna. The length of the long metal strip corresponds to quarter-wavelength of the low center-rejected frequency. And, insert another short strip on the inner edge of the open slot antenna. The length of the short metal strip corresponds to quarter-wavelength of the high center-rejected frequency. The design case shown in Fig. 6 is setting the long strip below the short strip. The effect of exchanging the location of the long strip and short strip is not signicantly. Step 3) Adjust the proper antenna parameters to obtain the good design of the tri-band antenna. Two designs of dual-band and tri-band are implemented and studied below. A. The Band-Rejected Function for WLAN Bands At rst, the broadband effect of the printed open slot antenna is proved. The wide band bandwidth ( ) of the printed open slot antenna with an overall size of 30 35 0.8 is achieved. From the above-mentioned investigations, the band-rejected function of the antenna for WLAN bands is achieved. The measured and simulated return loss of the proposed antenna is shown in Fig. 3. The simulated results were obtained by using the high-frequency structure simulator (HFSS). There is a slight discrepancy between the simulated

bandwidth of the rejected band. The authors xed the width of the strip of 1 mm, for all antennas shown in this article. Fig. 2 depicts the return loss with a difference in length of strip . The authors found that the rejected-band shifts to the increases. These experlow frequency as length of the strip imental results are shown in Table I. In this case, the rejected bandwidth is dened by the range of return loss is larger than 10 , where dB. The length of the strips is about 1/4 is the wavelength of the center-rejected frequency in free space. The important parameter of the band-rejected open slot antenna

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Fig. 4. Measured and simulated E-plane (y -z plane) and H-plane (x-z plane) radiation patterns of the proposed antenna. (a) f = 2:45 GHz. (b) f = 5:2 GHz.

Fig. 5. Measured gain of the proposed antenna for WLAN bands.

and measured return loss at higher resonance frequency. It may be attributed to the effect of soldering and measurement error.

It shows that a rejected band from 3.56 to 4.58 GHz has been achieved by using a metal strip in the printed open slot antenna. The impedance bandwidth for the lower and upper band covers ) and 5 GHz the operating bands of 2.4 GHz ( ). A dual-broadband design of the open ( slot antenna with small size for WLAN applications in the 2.4 GHz (24002484 MHz) and 5 GHz (51505825 MHz) bands is obtained. The measured and simulated radiation patterns of the proposed antenna at the several typical operation frequencies are also investigated. Fig. 4(a) plots the measured and simulated radiation patterns at 2.45 GHz; the results at 5.2 GHz are shown in Fig. 4(b). The radiation patterns of this design are acceptable for most wireless applications. At a higher frequency, the main beam of the - plane radiation pattern tilts, which is due to the non-uniform phase distribution on the proposed antenna. The pattern parameters of the proposed WLAN antenna are listed in

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Fig. 6. Geometry of the band-rejected open slot antenna for WiMAX bands.

Fig. 8. Simulated return loss of the proposed antenna with different groundplane sizes. Other antenna parameters are the same as in Figs. 1 and 7.

TABLE III MEASURED RETURN LOSS OF THE DUAL-BAND REJECTED FUNCTION FOR WIMAX APPLICATIONS.

Fig. 7. Measured and simulated dual-band rejected return loss for WiMAX bands (1) only strip A = 10 mm, (2) only strip B = 15 mm, (3) Combined strip A and strip B.

TABLE IV MEASURED PATTERN PARAMETERS FOR WIMAX ANTENNA.

TABLE II MEASURED PATTERN PARAMETERS FOR THE WLAN ANTENNA.

Table II for reference. Fig. 5 shows the measured gain of the proposed antenna. It can be observed that the strong gain drop over the rejected band is clearly shown in Fig. 5. In addition, it is also found that the gain atness over the WLAN bands is examined in Fig. 5. B. The Dual-Band Rejected Function for WiMAX Applications From the observation in above subsection, a dual-band WLAN antenna by using a metal strip embedded on the open slot antenna was examined. It is expected that the tri-band antenna can be obtained by using two strips with different length on the open slot antenna. The further research on dual-band

rejected function is that of using two strips of different lengths inserted on the open-end -directed slot. For three bands of designing the WiMAX operation, dual-band rejected function must be used on open slot antenna with a broadband effect. Fig. 6 illustrates the structure of the dual-band rejected antenna. The higher and lower rejected band are determined by strip A (10 mm) and strip B (15 mm), respectively, and the other antenna parameters are the same as those shown in Fig. 1. At the same time, by inserting strip A and strip B in the open slot, the dual-band rejected function can be obtained. The measured and simulated return loss of the dual-band rejected antenna is shown in Fig. 7. Detailed dimension and operating frequencies for the antenna design are listed in Table III. And, the pattern parameters of the proposed WiMAX antenna are

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5:5 GHz.

Fig. 9. Measured E-plane (y -z plane) and H-plane (x-z plane) radiation patterns of the proposed antenna. (a)

= 2:5 GHz. (b) f = 3:5 GHz. (c) f =

listed in Table IV. The three operating modes ( , , and ) that have been obtained are suitable for WiMAX application. The coupling effect of the two strips (strip A and strip B) is also shown in Fig. 7. For the design of WiMAX application, the coupling effect of the two strips on

open slot antenna must be considered. Effects of the ground plane are also considered by using HFSS. The slot size of the proposed WiMAX antenna with different ground-plane sizes is xed. The overall antenna sizes of , , are studied. The simulated results are shown and

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Fig. 10. Measured gain of the proposed antenna for WiMAX bands.

in Fig. 8. From the results, it is shown that the impedance matching on the lower band and middle band is slightly inuenced by the variations in the ground plane. The impedance bandwidths at the lower and higher band are also affected by the ground-plane size. -plane( - ) and Fig. 9(a) illustrates the measured -plane( - ) radiation patterns at 2.5 GHz; the results at 3.5 and 5.5 GHz are shown in Fig. 9(b) and (c). It is clearly seen that the radiation is stronger on open slot of the proposed antenna in the - plane. It is also observed that the main beam tilts at a higher frequency. Fig. 10 shows the measured gain of the proposed antenna. It can be observed that the signicantly gain reduction over the two rejected band is clearly shown in Fig. 10. The atness of gain over three operating bands of designing WiMAX application is also shown in Fig. 10. The measured gain of the three operating bands in this design is suitable to the gain demand of the WiMAX receiver. C. Current Distributions of the Dual-Band Rejected Antenna for WiMAX Applications To explain the behavior of the band-rejected operation, the current distributions at the rejected frequencies should be presented. Fig. 11(a) and (b) shows the simulated current distribution using HFSS for the dual-band rejected antenna at 3.1 GHz and 4 GHz, respectively. As shown in Fig. 11(a), the length of the strip A corresponding to the rejected frequency is approximately 3.1 GHz, and that of the strip B is about at 4 GHz, as shown in Fig. 11(b). When the strips are added into the open slot, the suppressed effect on open slot antenna occurs because the current distribution concentrates on the strip for the rejected frequency. III. CONCLUSION Two band-rejected designs of the open slot antenna have been proposed and implemented successfully. By inserting a metal strip on the open slot of the proposed antenna, the dispensable band is rejected. Due to the metal of strip connected to

Fig. 11. Simulated current distributions of the dual-band rejected antenna. (a) f = 3:1 GHz and (b) f = 4 GHz.

the ground plane, the major current distribution will be concentrated on the strip and will produce a band-rejected function. The length of the inserting strip, which corresponds to quarterwavelength, determines the center frequency of rejected band. The designed bands of the WLAN and the WiMAX system are achieved by using the band-rejected methods proposed in the article. Experimental results indicate the gain atness and good radiation patterns over the desired bands are successfully measured. The performances of dual-band and tri-band antenna design are suitable for the WLAN and the WiMAX application respectively. In this article, research was focused on dual-band and tri-band design for WLAN and WiMAX applications. Two compact designs for dual-band (2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz) and tri-band (2.5/3.5/5.5 GHz) open slot antennas have been implemented and investigated. The band-rejected function can be applied to more multiband operating systems. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to thank the referees for their through reading of the manuscript and suggestions for improvement.

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REFERENCES [1] Y. C. Lin and K. J. Hung, Design of dual-band slot antenna with double T-match stubs, Electron. Lett., vol. 42, pp. 438439, 2006. [2] W. C. Liu and H. J. Liu, Compact tri-band slotted monopole antenna with asymmetrical CPW grounds, Electron. Lett., vol. 42, pp. 840842, 2006. [3] N. Behdad and K. Sarabandi, A compact dual-/multi-band wireless lan antenna, in IEEE Antennas Propag. Soc. Int. Symp. Digest, 2005, pp. 527530. [4] Y. L. Kao and K. L. Wong, Printed double-T monopole antenna for 2.4/5.2 GHz dual-band WLAN operations, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 51, pp. 21872192, 2003. [5] J. S. Row, Dual-frequency triangular planar inverted-F antenna, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 53, pp. 874876, 2005. [6] S. I. Latif, L. Shafai, and S. K. Sharma, Bandwidth enhancement and size reduction of microstrip slot antenna, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 53, pp. 9941003, 2005. [7] A. P. Zhao and J. Rahola, Quarter-wavelength wideband slot antenna for 35 GHz mobile applications, IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 4, pp. 421424, 2005. [8] J. Y. Jan and J. W. Su, Bandwidth enhancement of a printed wide-slot antenna with a rotated slot, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 53, pp. 21112114, 2005. [9] Y. F. Liu, K. L. Lau, Q. Xue, and C. H. Chen, Experimental studies of printed wide-slot antenna for wide-band applications, IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 3, pp. 273275, 2004. [10] I. J. Yoon, H. Kim, H. K. Yoon, Y. J. Yoon, and Y. H. Kim, Ultra-wideband tapered slot antenna with band cutoff characteristic, Electron. Lett., vol. 41, pp. 629630, 2005. [11] K. H. Kim, Y. J. Cho, S. H. Hwang, and S. O. Park, Band-notched UWB planar monopole antenna with two parasitic patches, Electron. Lett., vol. 41, pp. 783785, 2005. [12] K. H. Kim and S. O. Park, Analysis of the small band-rejected antenna with the parasitic strip for UWB, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 54, pp. 16881692, 2006.

[13] W. S. Chen and K. Y. Ku, Broadband design of non-symmetric ground =4 open slot antenna with small size, Microw. J., vol. 50, pp. 110121, 2007. Wen-Shan Chen (S98M01SM05) received the B.S. degree from the National Taiwan Institute of Technology (currently National Taiwan University of Science and Technology), Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C., in 1994, and the Ph.D. degree from National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, R.O.C., in 2001, all in electronic engineering. From 2000 to 2002, he was an Assistant Professor at the Chien-Kuo Institute of Technology (currently Chien-Kuo University of Technology), Changhua, Taiwan, R.O.C. In 2002, he joined the Southern Taiwan University of Technology (currently Southern Taiwan University), Tainan, Taiwan, R.O.C., as an Assistant Professor. His research interests include antenna design, microwave circuits, and RF circuits. Dr. Chen is currently the Secretary of the IEEE APS Tainan Chapter. He served as a session chair of IEEE APS2003, APS2007. He is also a life member of the Chinese Institute of Electrical Engineering (CIEE).

Kuang-Yuan Ku was born in Taichung, Taiwan, R.O.C., in 1983. He received the B.S. degree from the Chung Chou-Institute Technology, Changhua, Taiwan, R.O.C., in 2004, and is currently working toward the M.S. degree at Southern Taiwan University, Taiwan, R.O.C.. His main research interests are in printed antenna for wireless communications, especially for the wideband slot antenna for WLAN applications.