A Compact Microstrip Antenna on a Cross-Shape Slotted Ground

with a Switchable Circular Polarization

1 2 3 3 #3
Won-Sang Yoon , Sang-Min Han , Jung-Woo Baik , Seongmin Pyo , , and Young-Sik Kim
1
R&D 2 Team, Samsung Thales
Chang-Li 304, Namsa-Myun, Cheoin-Gu, Yongin-City, Gyeonggi-Do 449-886, Republic of Korea
2
Department of Information & Communication Engineering, Soonchunhyang University
Asan, Chungnam 336-745, Republic of Korea
3
Department of Radio Communication and Engineering, Korea University
Anam-dong 5-1, Sungbuk-gu, Seoul 136-713, Republic of Korea
3
yskim@korea.ac.kr

Abstract — A compact circularG microstrip patch antenna antenna implementation and the experimental results of the
with a switchable circular polari¡ation (CP) is proposed at 2.4 proposed antenna are followed in section III. Finally, the
GHz. An unequal cross-shaped slot on a ground plane is utilized extended applications of the proposed antenna are mentioned
as a perturbation. By switching pin diodes mounted on the slot,
the CP sense of each antenna can be simply switched from left- in section IV.
handed (LH) CP to right-handed (RH) CP vice versa. Since the
perturbation can be made on the ground plane and no bias
circuit is required on the patch side, there is less distortion on II. ANTENNA DESIGN
the radiation pattern. From the experimental results for both CP Fig. 1 shows the configuration of the proposed circular
senses, the impedance bandwidth and CP bandwidth of theG
proposed antenna are up to 150 MHz and 35 MHz, respectively. microstrip patch antenna with a slotted ground. A crossed slot
Index Terms — Microstrip patch antenna, circular with unequal length is located on back side of the circular
polarization, reconfigurable antenna, crossed slot, pin diode. patch on a ground plane and yields two orthogonal
degenerative modes on the circular patch.
I. INTRODUCTION
In recent wireless communication systems, an important
development issue is the integration of several applications
into a single and compact system [1]. Since each application
operates in a different frequency band with different types of
r
polarization and radiation characteristics, these complex
systems require separate antennas for each application. As a df
multi-antenna in a terminal employs an increasing size,
reconfigurable antennas have been studied to efficiently
provide RF system requirements of adjustable bandwidths [2, feeding point
3], radiation characteristics [4], and multi-polarization [5, 6]
as a solution of avoiding limitation in physical size.
For some wireless applications, such as a RFID and a
satellite communication, the circular polarization (CP) is (a) top view.
suitable because of their insensitivity to transmitter and
receiver orientations [7]. Microstrip antennas have attractive
features, such as low profile, light weight and easiness to
integrate with circuit components. A circular polarization can
be obtained via perturbation or dual orthogonal feeding
network. Reconfigurable CP design with a microstrip antenna
is becoming major consideration for practical applications.
However, previous works in the electrical CP control have
the limitations due to complex bias circuits and a high degree
of fabrication process [8 – 12].
In this paper, a simple reconfigurable microstrip patch
antenna with a switchable CP sense is proposed. It can be
simply designed with a circular patch and a crossed slot on a
ground plane. By means of switching the states of PIN diodes
alternatively, the CP sense can be changed due to the current (b) bottom view.
rotation direction. In section II, the radiation mechanism and Fig. 1. Configuration of the proposed CP antenna.
the reconfigurable CP antenna design are described. The

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 0º 90º 180º 270º

(a) LHCP mode.

0º 90º 180º 270º

(b) RHCP mode.

Fig. 2. Current distribution of proposed antenna.

Hence, the current on the patch rotates in the clock wise

direction and the antenna can radiate the left-handed CP
(LHCP). The resonant frequency of the antenna is determined
by the radius, r, of the patch as follows:
c
fr = (1)
4r ε e

where c is the velocity of the light in the free space and e is

an effective permittivity of the substrate. The feeding point is
apart from the center of the patch to the x-axis with an offset
distance.
When the unequal crossed slot is flipped along the x-axis,
the CP sense of the antenna is switched to an RHCP. The (a) top view.
current distributions for each CP case are presented in Fig. 2.
As shown in Fig. 3, four PIN diodes, D1 – D4, are located on
the crossed slot with an unequal crossed slot length. To
z

control the state of PIN diodes with a DC bias voltage, the

zz
zz

ground plane is divided into four parts with narrow slits and
zz
zz

connected each other in an AC manner by capacitors, C1 – C4.

zz
zz
zz

Since the bias circuit is located on the ground plane, no RF

choke is required to isolate a bias circuit to a radiation
element. Therefore, the radiation has a less effect on the bias
circuit. Furthermore, the resonant frequency is lowered due to
the narrow slits from 2.44 GHz to 2.18 GHz with the radius
of circular patch, r, of 16 mm as shown in Fig. 4. The
polarization control and the operation of the reconfigurable
antenna are summarized in Table 1.
(b) bottom view.
Fig. 3. Configuration of the proposed reconfigurable CP antenna.

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 TABLE I. SUMMARY OF POLARIZATION OF THE ANTENNA Fig. 5 shows the measured return losses of the proposed
Diode state Polarization antenna. The impedance bandwidths for both the RHCP and
LHCP are 2.36 – 2.51 GHz. As shown in Fig. 6, the CP
D1,4 : off bandwidths of the 3 dB AR are 2.39 – 2.425 GHz, 2.395 –
Antenna 1 LHCP
D2,3 : on 2.43 GHz for the LHCP and the RHCP, respectively. The
D1,4 : on minimum ARs are 0.6 dB at 2.41 GHz for the LHCP and 1.0
Antenna 2 RHCP
D2,3 : off dB at 2.42 GHz for the RHCP, respectively. The peak gains
at 2.42 GHz are 1.3 and 1.7 dBi for the RHCP and an LHCP,
respectively. Fig. 7 shows the measured linear spinning
patterns and AR is lower than 3 dB in + z-axis direction for
both of CP senses.

Fig. 4. Resonant frequency shift due to the narrow slit.

III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

Fig. 6. Measured axial ratios of the proposed antenna.
The proposed reconfigurable antenna has been designed at
2.4 GHz. On the top side of an FR4 substrate with r = 4.4
and h = 1.6 mm, a circular patch with a radius of r = 14 mm
is fabricated with a size reduction effect due to a bias circuit.
A crossed slot with dimensions of llong = 11 mm, lshort = 8 mm
and w1 = 1 mm are located below the circular patch on the
bottom ground of the substrate. For DC isolation, narrow slits
with width, w2 = 0.2 mm is placed on the diagonal direction
of the substrate. The feeding point of the patch is 5.8 mm
apart from the center of the patch. As shown in Fig. 4d, four
PIN diodes of BAR64–02W (Infineon Technologies) used as
current paths are located on the slot.

(a) LHCP mode.

Fig. 5. Measured return losses of the proposed antenna.

(b) RHCP mode.
Fig. 7. Measured linear spinning pattern of the proposed antenna.

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 IV. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a compact circular microstrip patch antenna
with slotted ground structures is proposed for a switchable
circular polarization diversity. The alternative CP can be
controlled from switching the current paths on the slot. The
electrical switching has been simply achieved by changing a
PIN diode state. The experimental results have shown the
excellent controllability of the CP sense at 2.4 – 2.5 GHz.
The proposed antennas can be applicable for wireless
terminals of RFID and WLAN systems.
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