A Dual Wideband Bandpass Filter for WLAN and 5G

Wi-Fi Applications
Pinky Khundrakpam1, Manimala Pal2, PankajSarkar3 and Rowdra Ghatak4
1
Electronics & Communication Engineering Department, National Institute of Technology Manipur, Imphal-795001, Manipur,
India (e-mail: pinks.kh@gmail.com)
2
Radio Engineering and Antenna Laboratory, ECE Dept., NFET, NSHM Knowledge Campus Durgapur, INDIA
(manimalapal@yahoo.com)
3
Electronics & Communication Engineering Department, School of Technology, North Eastern Hill University, Shillong-793022,
Meghalaya, India (e-mail: pankajsarkar111@gmail.com)
4
Microwave Component Design Laboratory, Electronics and Communication Engineering Department, National Institute of
Technology Durgapur, Durgapur-713209, West Bengal, India (e-mail: rowdraghatak@yahoo.com).

Abstract—A two order dual-band bandpass filter using a half-
wavelength step impedance resonator to operate at the passbands
2.45 GHz and 5.45 GHz is proposed. Ground slots were
embedded below the coupled line section to increase coupling
that resulted in passbands of 560 MHz and 470 MHz. Four
transmission zeroes obtained at 1.75 GHz, 3.79 GHz, 6.23 GHz
and 9.34 GHz, near the two passband edges enhanced the filter
selectivity. The detailed design process is presented.
Keywords—Dual-band bandpass filter, Stepped Impedance
Resonator, Ground Slots.
I. INTRODUCTION
Extensive studies on microstrip bandpass filters have been
reported since a long time to rally the needs of the modern
multiservice wireless communication systems. The multiband
bandpass filters (BPF) are an indispensable part of receiver
front end to function as a single device that caters to multiple
bands simultaneously. Among these, the planar BPFs are quite
promising due to their easy printed circuit technology
fabrication, compactness and low integration cost [1]. Dual
band BPFs are designed by using Stepped Impedance
Resonator (SIR), which was first presented by Makimoto and
Yamshita in [2]. In [3], a tri-band BPF was reported using Tri-
section SIRs achieving sharp passband skirts. A compact
microstrip dual-band BPF operating in dual-mode was
presented in [4]. The two resonators utilized were of E-shape
and the feedlines were of T-shape to achieve wide stopband.
Another dual-band BPF was also reported that consisted of two
open loop resonators of half wavelength (λ/2), assimilated in
concentric topology [5]. Ground slots were further embedded
to obtain wider passbands. Reference [6] proposed a class
of dual-band BPFs with λ/4 SIRs and also presented a rigorous
synthesis method for these compact filters. A double-slot-
loaded resonator was proposed in [7] for exploration of a
novel dual-band BPF with two closely spaced passbands.
Recently, a triband BPF was reported that employed two
asymmetric stub-loaded resonators with coupled I/O ports,
thereby achieving a wide stopband[8].
A dual-band BPF is realised in this paper using two half
wavelength SIRs with increased coupling introduced by
embedding ground slots. The proposed BPF have passbands
with centres at 2.45 GHz and 5.45 GHz suitable for 5G Wi-Fi
(5.15-5.85 GHz) as well as WLAN bands. Simulation of the
final filter layout was achieved using the electromagnetic
simulation software IE3DTM. Section II presents the detailed
filter design, while the results are discussed in section III and
section IV presents the concluding remarks.
II. FILTER DESIGN
The configuration of the proposed dual-band BPF employs
two λ/2 open end Stepped Impedance Resonators. Fig. 1 shows
the schematic of a basic λ/2 SIR. Typical of an SIR, it consists
of a section with high impedance (Z1) with an electrical length
of θ1 between two sections of low impedance (Z2) with an
electrical length of θ2. Considering Yin = 0, resonance condition
of the SIR can be derived. The impedance ratio, Rz of the SIR
is then given by,
Rz =
z 1
= tan θ 1 tan θ 2 (1)
z 2
The first spurious frequency (fSB1) of the SIR is related to
the fundamental frequency (f0) as,
f SB1 π
= (2)
−1
f0 2 tan Rz
The SIR is then bent in the form of a hairpin with the
coupling of the two SIR sections achieved along the low
impedance section, and then the SIR is loosely coupled to the
I/O port. Frequency response of the bent SIR presenting the
resonance characteristics is shown in Fig. 2. The corresponding
impedance ratio, obtained from the equation (2) gives the value
of Rz to be very less than one, where f0 = 2.24 GHz and fSB1 =
5.36 GHz.
Fig. 1 Basic layout of λ/2 Stepped Impedance Resonator.
The layout of the proposed dual-band BPF is shown in Fig.
3. It is realized on a dielectric substrate of permittivity 4.4 and
height of 0.795 mm. The second SIR is rotated by 180° with

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respect to the first one to enhance the otherwise poor coupling
between the two resonators if the orientations of the two SIRs
were same. A 50-Ω tap line was used to achieve the I/O
coupling. Ground slots with length Lg and width Wg are
embedded below the coupled low impedance sections of the
two hairpin-shaped SIRs to further improve the passband
response and also to avoid minimum gap between the SIRs that
poses difficulty in fabrication process.
after taking different values ranging from 0.2 mm to 0.6 mm.
Similarly, an optimum spacing of 0.23 mm was achieved after
fine tuning the gap ‘g2’ between the low impedance segment of
first resonator and the segment with high impedance of the
second resonator. The parametric studies of the ground slot
widths and lengths were also performed to achieve the
optimum passband response of the filter as indicated in fig. 5.
Fig. 6 indicates the variation of the S-parameters with the
ground slot lengths. After varying the length ‘Lg’ between 5
mm to 9 mm, a fine tuned value of 8.5 mm was obtained.
Similarly, the variation of the S-parameters with the ground
slot widths is shown in Fig. 7. A fine-tuned width of Wg = 2.3
mm was obtained.

Fig. 2 Frequency response of hairpin-shaped SIR presenting

resonance characteristics.
Magnitudes as shown in inset are L1=9.61, L2=13.76, W1=1.39,
W2=0.63 (all in mm)

Fig. 4 Simulated results of the S-parameters for different

values of the gap ‘g1’.

Fig. 3 Proposed dual-band bandpass filter layout.

The tap position ‘t’, the inter resonator spacings g1 and g2,
and the length ‘Lg’ and the width ‘Wg’ of the ground slots as
shown in Fig. 3 are critical to achieve the desired filter
passband response. The optimized tap position ‘t’ was found to
be 0.065 mm. The influence of the gap ‘g1’ between the two
low impedence sections of the two SIRs on the S-parameters
are shown in Fig. 4. A gap of 0.23 mm was taken to be optimal

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Fig. 5 Simulated results of the S-parameters for different
values of the gap ‘g2’.
TABLE I. FILTER DIMENSION
Parameter Value Parameter Value
L1 9.61 mm Lg 8.5 mm
L2 13.76 mm Wg 2.3 mm
W1 1.39 mm g1 2.3 mm
W2 0.63 mm g2 2.3 mm

Fig. 7 Simulated results of the S-parameters for various slot

widths (Wg).
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The frequency response of the final layout of the proposed
dual-band BPF obtained from EM simulation using IE3DTM is
shown in Fig. 8. The two passbands so obtained have centres at
2.45 GHz and 5.45 GHz respectively. The first and second
passband bandwidths obtained were 560 MHz and 470 MHz
respectively. Four transmission zeros were obtained. The first
two at 1.75 GHz and 3.79 GHz near the first passband and the
next two at 6.23 GHz and 9.34 GHz near the second passband
thereby increasing the selectivity of the BPF at both the bands.
The current distribution profile of the proposed dual-band BPF
at the passbands are presented in the Fig. 9.

Fig. 6 Simulated results of the S-parameters for various slot

lengths (Lg).
Fig. 8 Simulated frequency response of the proposed dual-band
BPF.

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(a) (b)
Fig. 9 Current distribution profile observed at (a) first passband
(b) second passband of the proposed filter.
IV. CONCLUSION
A configuration of a compact dual-band BPF is proposed
here, employing two half-wavelength Stepped Impedance
Resonators with embedded ground slots thereby enhancing the
coupling and increasing the passband bandwidth. The proposed
BPF realized two passbands with centres at 2.45 GHz and 5.45
978-1-4673-6621-2/16/$31.00 © 2016 IEEE
GHz with bandwidth of 560 MHz and 470 MHz respectively.
Four transmission zeroes were obtained adjacent to the pass-
band edges which enhanced the filter selectivity.
REFERENCES
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