242 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.

15, 2016

A Frequency-Reconfigurable Series-Fed Microstrip

Patch Array With Interconnecting CRLH
Transmission Lines
Muhammad Saeed Khan, Antonio-Daniele Capobianco, Member, IEEE, Adnan Iftikhar,
Sajid Asif, Student Member, IEEE, Bilal Ijaz, Member, IEEE, and Benjamin D. Braaten, Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract—This letter presents the design of a frequency-recon-

figurable series-fed microstrip patch array in which the elements
are interconnected with composite right/left-handed transmission
lines (CRLH-TLs). Reconfigurable CRLH-TLs are used instead of
meandered microstrip lines to reduce the overall size of the array
and provide two different zero-phase frequencies of operation for
broadside radiation in both instances. p-i-n diodes were used to re-
configure the array by changing the electrical lengths of the patches
and microstrip sections of the CRLH-TLs. The measurements were Fig. 1. Layout of the reconfigurable series-fed array with CRLH-TL inter-
taken in an anechoic chamber to verify the simulation results. The connects. (a) Top view. (b) Bottom view. Dimensions are: mm,
array can be reconfigured to operate at 1.97 and 2.37 GHz. mm, mm, mm, mm, mm,
mm, mm, mm, mm, mm,
Index Terms—Composite right-/left handed transmission line, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm,
microstrip antenna array, series-fed array. mm, mm, mm, mm, mm,
and mm.

I. INTRODUCTION
from a single point and the radiating elements are connected
in series by using conventional transmission lines of suitable
R APID growth in the areas of WiMAX, WiFi, GPS,
Bluetooth, and UWB [1] has led to the development
of multiband platforms capable of accessing these wireless
length for the operating frequency. These transmission lines
can be replaced by meandered lines and drive the elements
of the array with the same voltage phase in order to achieve
services. A major benefit of a reconfigurable antenna is the
a broadside radiation pattern. However, at low microwave
capability to access multiple services in a device without the
frequencies, meander lines can be very large. A possible way
need of multiple antennas, thus potentially saving space. In
to overcome this size problem is to incorporate composite
many of the reconfigurable antenna designs in published litera-
right/left-handed transmission lines (CRLH-TLs) into the feed
ture, p-i-n diodes, RF microelectromechanical system (MEMS)
network of a series-fed antenna array [8]–[13]. Efforts have
switches, and optical switches have been used to reconfigure
been made previously to minimize the overall size of an array
the antennas [2]–[6]. Furthermore, microstrip patch antenna
using CRLH-TLs [14]–[16]. However, these designs were
arrays are of great interest because of their small size, low
limited to a single band of operation, and broadside radiation at
cost, light weight, ease of manufacturing, and useful radiation
two different frequencies may be difficult.
patterns [7]. Typically, series-fed antenna arrays are driven
In this letter, the benefits of metamaterial-based transmission
lines are combined with frequency reconfigurability to develop
a compact series-fed microstrip patch array. The layout of the
Manuscript received April 02, 2015; accepted May 24, 2015. Date of publi-
cation June 01, 2015; date of current version February 12, 2016. proposed array is shown in Fig. 1. It consists of three radiating
M. S. Khan is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, patches and two nonradiating CRLH-TL interconnections be-
North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58102 USA, and also with the De- tween the radiating elements. The p-i-n diodes activate one of
partment of Information Engineering, Padova University, 35131 Padova, Italy.
A.-D. Capobianco is with the Department of Information Engineering, the CRLH-TLs at a time along with the particular sections of
Padova University, 35131 Padova, Italy. the main microstrip patch. These electrical switches reroute the
A. Iftikhar and S. Asif are with the Department of Electrical and Computer current in a specific direction and alter the electrical lengths in
Engineering, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58102 USA, and also
with the Department of Electrical Engineering, COMSATS IIT, Islamabad the overall array, hence controlling the operating frequency of
44000, Pakistan. the array and achieving broadside radiation at two frequencies.
B. Ijaz is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, COMSATS IIT, Is- Furthermore, this work is related to the single-frequency design
lamabad 44000, Pakistan.
B. D. Braaten is with the Department of Electrical and Computer En- reported in [16].
gineering, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58102 USA (e-mail:
[email protected]). A. Design of the Array
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this letter are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. The equivalent impedance model of a series-fed antenna
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2015.2439637 array is shown in Fig. 2(a), which is classified as a standing

1536-1225 © 2015 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.
KHAN et al.: FREQUENCY-RECONFIGURABLE SERIES-FED MICROSTRIP PATCH ARRAY WITH INTERCONNECTING CRLH TRANSMISSION LINES 243

Fig. 3. (a) Layout of CRLH-TL unit cell 1. (b) Layout of CRLH-TL unit
Fig. 2. (a) Circuit representation of a 3-element series-fed array with conven- cell 2. (c) Circuit representation of CRLH-TL unit cells. Dimensions are:
tional microstrip interconnects and (b) circuit representation of a 3-element mm, mm, mm, mm, mm,
series-fed array with CRLH-TL interconnections showing the switching mm.
mechanism.

wave array [17]. In these particular arrays, the feed is a single

point, and , and represent the input impedance of
each radiating element. The impedance of each antenna element
and interconnecting transmission line has an important role in
matching [18]. Furthermore, for a broadside radiation pattern,
each element must be fed with the same voltage phase. This can
be done by either designing the length of each interconnection
to be a multiple of the TL wavelength or to introduce the
CRLH-TLs that can be tuned to have a zero phase constant near
the operating frequency [13] (i.e., a zero-phase frequency). Fig. 4. Simulated phase for the conventional transmission line with a total
length of , higher band (unit cell 1) and lower band (unit cell 2).
To make the antenna array compact and reconfigurable, the
switching mechanism shown in Fig. 2(b) was used. When the simulated. Then, when the length of the TL was increased, the
arm of the switch was connected to , the CRLH-TL2 inter- zero-phase frequency was shifted to the lower band of 1.97 GHz
connects were activated. Then, when switch was connected ( mm), as shown in Fig. 4. For comparison, the
to the arm, the CRLH-TL1 interconnects provided the path for phase introduced by a conventional 50- microstrip intercon-
current to travel along the array. nect is also plotted in Fig. 4. The length of this interconnect
For a starting point, the CRLH-TL unit cells reported in [11] was chosen equal to the length of the CRLH-TL unit cell 1 in
were adopted and finalized with a parametric study in HFSS. Fig. 3(a). It can be seen that the zero-phase frequency occurs at
The layout and equivalent circuit of the CRLH-TL intercon- 4.7 GHz, which is almost double the zero-phase frequency of the
nects is shown in Fig. 3. It consists of series impedances (se- CRLH-TL unit cell 1. Once the zero-phase configurations were
ries-connected and ) as well as shunt impedances (par- determined, the CRLH interconnects were added to the array as
allel connected and ). represents the parasitic in- shown in Fig. 1. Initially, the dimensions of the radiating patches
ductance of the TL supporting wave propagation, and rep- were calculated using traditional half-wavelength antenna for-
resents the parasitic capacitance between the ground and the mulas, but later these dimensions were modified though a para-
printed conductors on the top of the substrate. represents the metric study to optimize the results in HFSS. Furthermore, the
interdigitated capacitance between the fingers of the unit cell, overall length was chosen such that the spacing was approxi-
and is introduced due to the shunt stubs. When and mately 0.5 lambda at the lower operating band and 0.67 lambda
are dominant for the frequencies of interest, a positive phase at the upper operating band. Finally, it should be mentioned that
shift will be introduced by the CRLH-TL unit cell of length . the zero-phase can be moved to other frequencies by changing
This phase shift can be changed to a particular frequency by the series inductance of the CRLH-TL. In fact, to shift the
adding a shunt per-unit-length capacitor, , followed by a se- zero-phase to a lower frequency, the length of the TL connecting
ries per-unit-length inductor on both sides on the CRLH-TL with CRLH-TL is changed from to , changing the series
unit cell. With this configuration, the multiband CRLH-TL char- inductance .
acteristics can be achieved. A Rogers RT/Duriod 5880 substrate
with a thickness of 1.57 mm, , and the loss tangent of II. SIMULATED AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
0.0009 was chosen and used in the simulation environment with
0.5 oz copper. A. Prototype Testing
The phase of the unit cells at both operating frequencies To demonstrate the functionality of the proposed frequency-
is shown in Fig. 4. It can be seen that the zero-phase occurs at reconfigurable series-fed array, a prototype was fabricated on
2.39 GHz ( mm) when unit cell 1 [in Fig. 3(a)] was the same Rogers RT/Duroid 5880 substrate as the simulations
244 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 15, 2016

Fig. 5. (a) Photograph of the manufactured prototype. (b) Diode “ON” model
and (c) diode “OFF” model.

Fig. 7. Simulated and measured for the upper band with activated.

Fig. 6. Simulated and measured for the lower band with activated.

Fig. 8. Surface current distribution for (a) 1.97 and (b) 2.37 GHz.
and is shown in Fig. 5(a). The CRLH-TL unit cells were con-
nected to the array elements with switches consisting of sur-
face-mount voltage-controlled p-i-n diodes. The control voltage B. Surface Current
( V) was applied to the conducting surface with RF The simulated surface current distribution at both operating
chokes. The p-i-n diodes chosen were manufactured by Sky- frequencies is shown in Fig. 8. When the array is operating at
works [19] (part number: SMP 1322), and to isolate the se- the lower band, the current travels through the small patches
ries-fed antenna array from the dc power source supplying the to the CRLH-TL unit cell 2. There is a small induced current
bias voltage, the RF chokes manufactured by Mini-circuits (part on CRLH-TL unit cell 1 as well, but it does not contribute to
number: ADCH-80A) [20] were used. the lower resonant band due to its weak intensity. Similarly,
The p-i-n diodes were modeled using the equivalent circuit when the array is operating at the upper band, the current flows
defined in the data sheet, and the lumped elements were used through CRLH-TL unit cell 1 and there is much less current
in HFSS in a manner to the methods reported in [11] and induced on the small patches and CRLH-TL unit cell 2.
[12]. For the ON state, the diodes were modeled using the
equivalent circuit shown in Fig. 5(b), and for the OFF state, the C. Radiation Patterns, Gain, and Efficiency
diodes were modeled using the circuit in Fig. 5(c). Figs. 6 and Next, the normalized radiation pattern of the array was mea-
7 show the comparison of the -parameters of the array with sured in both the lower and upper reconfigurable bands. In par-
measurements. When switch was activated by biasing the ticular, the component in the -plane was measured at 1.97
lower diodes series and unbiasing the upper diode series, the and 2.37 GHz. The results from the measurements are shown in
antenna had a smaller electrical length and the current was the Fig. 9, and a broadside radiation has been demonstrated at
passing through the CRLH-TL unit cell 1, hence resonating both switching frequencies.
at the higher resonant frequency of 2.37 GHz (as shown in Next, the gain of the proposed reconfigurable antenna array
Fig. 7). When was turned “OFF” (i.e., when the lower diodes was measured in a fully calibrated anechoic chamber and com-
were unbiased) and was turned “ON” (i.e., upper diodes pared to the simulated gain values from HFSS. When the array
were biased), then a longer current path through the CRLH-TL was configured for the lower band, the measured gain at the
unit cell 2 was introduced. This then resulted in the lower 1.97 GHz (resonant frequency) was 1.9 dBi while the simulated
reconfigurable frequency of 1.97 GHz (as shown in Fig. 6). A gain was 2.45 dBi. Also, while still configured for 1.97 GHz,
fair comparison between simulated and measured results can the gain at 2.37 GHz (nonresonant frequency) was measured
be seen. Differences between the results in Figs. 6 and 7 could to be 6.0 dBi and simulated to be 5.2 dBi. This illustrated
be due to: 1) the placement of the diodes during manufacturing; that the radiation from the antenna is in the desired lower re-
2) the machine milling of the CRLH sections; 3) the nonideal configurable band. Similarly, when the array was reconfigured
RF chokes; and 4) the additional losses in the diodes (which is for the upper operating band, the measured gain at 1.97 GHz
shown by the lower measured curves). (nonresonant frequency) was 5.5 dBi and the simulated gain
KHAN et al.: FREQUENCY-RECONFIGURABLE SERIES-FED MICROSTRIP PATCH ARRAY WITH INTERCONNECTING CRLH TRANSMISSION LINES 245

observed that the zero-phase CRLH-TLs provided a reasonable

broadside pattern at both of the reconfigurable frequencies.

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