A Novel Wideband Bandpass Filter Using Square

Loop Resonator and Thee-Coupled Line Load

S. Punyawarin1 and N.Siripon2

Center of Excellence in Power Conversion Technology
Department of Electrical Engineering
Chiang Mai University, 239 Huaykaew Road, Chiang Mai, Thailand 50200.
bird.songklod@gmail.com1
nipapon.s@cmu.ac.th2

Abstract—A new wideband bandpass filter (BPF) using
square loop resonator is presented. The new load is introduced.
This load consists of three-coupled lines connected to the high
impedance transmission line. With the corresponding length of
the coupled lines and the transmission line, the capacitive and
inductive properties are obtained. To improve the filter
performance, the three-line coupled line load is used and placed
at the middle of the transmission line on the upper part of the
resonator. In addition, the stubs are connected at the corners of
the square loop resonator, leading to the broaden bandwidth.
For the better band rejection, the interdigital feed lines are
utilized to connect at feed lines. As the experimental results, it is
found that this filter gives the bandwidth of approximately 2.27
GHz or the fractional bandwidth of 79.5 percent and the return
loss of 20dB. The measured frequency responses of the bandpass
filter are well agreed with the responses from the simulation.
Keywords—Bandpass filter; coupled line; resonator
I. INTRODUCTION
Microwave bandpass filters are widely demanded for
communications applications. Various filter configurations
[1]-[15] are used to design the bandpass filters to achieve the
filter’s performance such as specific bandwidth, low return
loss and sharp band rejection. Among them, microwave ring
resonator is popularly used in filter designs [3]-[9] since it
provides low radiation loss and high Q factor. With other
design techniques, the microwave bandpass filter based on
ring resonator are studied and implemented in order to
improve the filter performance such as the use of loading stub
[3]-[8]. This technique gives the broaden bandwidth. In
another work, the quadruple mode ring resonator is utilized to
achieve the wide bandwidth and common mode suppression.
With a stepped-impedance one-wavelength ring into a
stepped-impedance half-wavelength resonator [4], the
harmonic responses are suppressed, giving the high frequency
selectivity.
In this work, the wideband bandpass filter based on square
loop resonator is presented. The three-coupled lines are
introduced to place inside the resonator. The circuit is
fabricated on FR4. In the experimental result, it is found that
the filter provides the fractional bandwidth at least 82.2%.
Additionally, it provides the return loss of 20 dB. The
measurement results are corresponded to the simulation
results.
II. THREE- COUPLED LINE LOAD
Fig. 1 shows the three-coupled line load. This element
consists of the symmetrical three-line coupler and the high
impedance transmission line. One end of the tree lines are
connected to the open stubs where the length of the stubs and
the coupled ones is no longer than a quarter wavelength. For
simply understand, the three-coupled lines can be viewed as
two symmetrical couplers connected together as depicted in
Fig.2. The model of lumped-element coupler [16] is used.
Therefore, the three-coupled lines can be performed as the
inductive and capacitive elements. To enhance the capacitance
value to the load, the open stubs are connected to the one end
of each line. Then, the high impedance transmission line with
the length of l4 is connected at the other end of the middle line.
Fig.3 expresses the frequency response of the three-coupled
line load where
l1 + l2 < λg 4 (1)
It is noticed that the frequency response of this load can be
controlled by the length of stubs and the coupled lines.

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 (a)

Fig. 1. A three-coupled line load

(b)

(c)
a)
Fig. 4. The proposed filter: a) the dimension of three-coupled line load b) the
square loop rsonator and the length of the interdigital coupled line and (c) its
line’s width

III. DESIGN TECHNIQUE OF BANDPASS FILTER

The proposed bandpass filter is composed of three main
elements; the square loop resonator, three-coupled line load
and the interdigital feed lines. Typical ring resonator consists
of two transmission line sections connected in parallel. The
length of each section is equal to half wavelength where the
b) resonator is designed in the first mode. It is found that the
Fig. 2. a) Two symmetrical couplers forms as the tree-coupled lines and b)
resonator give the narrow bandwidth [15], [17]-[18]. To
the model of lumped-element coupler improve the filter bandwidth, the three-coupled line load is
used. It is placed at the center of the lower section of the
resonator. This causes the filter giving the low return loss and
wide bandwidth. For the better return loss, the open stubs are
connected at the corner of the upper section. However, the
filter still suffers from the band rejection. The out-of-band
performance is improved by employing the interdigital
coupled lines. These coupled lines are used as the feed lines of
the proposed filter.

IV. EXPERIMENT
Based on the design techniques as explained above. The
novel bandpass filter is designed at 2.8 GHz and fabricated on
FR4 substrate where the dielectric loss is 4.45, the thickness is
1.6 mm. and the conductive thickness is 35µm. The main
objectives of the bandpass filter is to obtain the wide band
Fig. 3. Simulated results of three-coupled line load respect to various length

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width, low return loss and good band rejection. To achieve TABLE I. THE DIMENSION OF THE PROPOSED FILTER ELEMENTS
these goals, the Advanced Design System (ADS) program is Dimension of Filter
Type of
used as a program tool. Instead of employing the schematic to Parameter Variable Length(mm)
design the filter, we used the EM simulation for more accurate
results. Fig.4 shows the dimension of each filter component w1 2.0
and the dimension details are written in Table 1.
w2 1.0
A photogrph of the proposed bandpass filter fabricated
corresponding to the physical dimension is illustrated in Fig.5. w3 1.0
The toal size of this circuit is approximately 11.8x60 mm2. w4 0.5
Then, the Agilent HP’s N5230C PNA-L network analyzer was
used to measure the filter performance. Fig.6 shows simulation Widths w5 0.8
and measurement results. As we can see, the bandpass filter
provides the wide bandwidth. The 3-dB fractional bandwidth is w6 1.0
about 79.5 %, from 1.72 GHz to 3.99 GHz. The insertion loss w7 2.2
is better than 0.81 dB. and the return loss is achieved by at least
20 dB. Furthermore, the filter gives the good band rejection, w8 2.5
especially at the second-harmonic components. Comparing to
the simulation result and the measurement result, it is found w9 3.0
that these two results are closely the same where the subscript w10 0.3
m represents the measurement results. Width
w11 0.6

l1 4.9

l2 2.4

l3 1.5

l4 2.0

l5 5.0
Lengths
l6 15.8

l7 11.8

l8 1.5

l9 8.0

Fig. 5. A photograph of the fabricated bandpass filter l10 14.8

s1 0.5

Gaps s2 0.4

s3 0.3

Fig. 6. The simulation and measurement results
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, the novel wideband bandpass filter is
proposed. The three-coupled line load is introduced. This load
provides the inductive and capacitive properties; therefore, the
broaden passband and the low return loss can be achieved. This
load is located at the lower section of the square loop resonator.
To obtain the good band rejection, the interdigital lines are
utilized as the filter feed lines. Then, this filter was fabricated
on FR4. As the experimental results, it is shown that the filter
provides the good performance. The return loss in the pass
band is at les 20 dB. Furthermore, the measured bandwidth is
about 2.27GHz or a fractional bandwidth of 79.5%. The
measurement results are well agreed with the simulation
results.

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 ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author would like to thank Agilent Technologies Inc.
for software Agilent Advanced Design System as a program
tool. Also, the author would like to express the great gratitude
to the Department of Electrical Engineering, Chiang Mai
University and the Telecommunications Research and
Industrial Development Institute (TRIDI) for measurement
instrument supports.
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