Chapter-2

LOW PASS FILTER DESIGN

2.1 INTRODUCTION

Low pass filters (LPF) are indispensable components in modern wireless

communication systems especially in the microwave and satellite
communication systems. Due to the advancement in satellite and mobile
communications and miniaturization of the system and component effort has
been made to develop a variety of compact lowpass filters. In the design of low
pass microwave filters, the compact size and suppression of unwanted
frequency components with excellent pass band characteristics are the major
concerns. The highly desirable performances are a sharp cut off characteristic
and a wide stop band. Conventional design of microstrip low pass filters
basically involves either the use of shunt stubs or the stepped impedance
network, which is a high-low impedance transmission line [1-3]. For lower
microwave frequencies the size of the conventionally designed filter is large.
Moreover, the microstrip LPF design using conventional methods requires even
larger size to achieve a sharp cut-off. Several research works have been
reported in the literature to reduce the size of microstrip lowpass filters [119-
125]. Such as a microstrip lowpass filter using the slow-wave resonator has
been realized by C. Jianxin et. al. [119], where both, size reduction and
spurious band suppression have been achieved. In [120] a compact semi-
lumped lowpass filter was designed, which has the capability of harmonics and
spurious suppression. However, the use of lumped elements raises fabrication
difficulties. In [121] a lowpass filter using a single microstrip stepped impedance
hairpin resonator has been proposed, which has the advantage of extending
the stop band between the first and second resonant frequency due to

20
capacitance loading. In [122] a lowpass filter using coupled lines was proposed,
having two attenuation poles in the stop band. The utilization of microstrip
open-loop resonators allows various filter configurations including those of
elliptic or quasi-elliptic function response to be realized by J.S. Hong et al.
[123]. In another approach the compact filter has been achieved using the
defective ground structure (DGS) and/or Electromagnetic band gap structures
[45], [54],[126]-[128]. An effective and commonly used method is to introduce
the slow wave structure either on the main lines or on the ground plane of the
substrate. In [124] a spiral resonator is used to replace the stepped impedance
ladder network of the conventional filter design technique. The unsymmetrical
stubs have also been used in [125] to design a compact filter. These
techniques improve the stop band characteristics. The primary disadvantage of
this configuration is the relatively lower stop band suppression. The slow wave
structure on the ground plane can be introduced by using the defective ground
structures (DGS). The value of inductance and capacitance of the resonators
can be changed and thus the compact circuit size can be achieved. Simple
equivalent circuit model of DGS can be made which gives a low-pass property
with a wide stop band characteristic [45], [54], [126]- [128]. The dumb-bell DGS
may be regarded as a parallel L-C resonant circuit and although it can provide
attenuation in a wide stop band range however it can not provide a steep roll-off
[126]. The structures suggested in [45], [54], [126]- [128] have rectangular slots
connected with slot having small width. The increased inductance due to DGS
was compensated by increasing the distance between two rectangular slots.
The microstrip LPF designed in this thesis may be categorized mainly in two
parts, the first type of LPFs is based on the solid ground plane and the other
one is based on the defective ground structure. The lowpass filter synthesis
and design using the microstrip is elaborated in a concise manner and a
conventional lowpass microstrip filter is designed in the first section of this
chapter. And this conventionally designed LPF is modified by applying the
fractal curve. The fractal curve applied in this work is based on the Kotch curve
[129]. The LPF with fractal structure is compared with stepped impedance
microstrip low pass filter by reducing the end-effects and T-junction effects. A

21
compact microstrip LPF has been designed using non-periodic defective
ground structure (DGS). The filter designed using this method is compact and
shows wide stop band characteristics. The design technique is explained in
detail the filter is fabricated and tested [130]. Another DGS has been studied
which is used to design a microstrip LPF. In this design slots are etched on the
ground plane of a microstrip line. The slots dimensions are based on the
Chebyshev functions [131]. An effective modification has been suggested to
design compact microstrip low pass filter for lower microwave frequencies
[132]. The lengths of the high and low impedance lines in the filter can be
directly calculated by the proposed formula. From the simulated and measured
results it can be seen that the roll-off characteristics of the filter are sharper and
it gives wide range of stop-band characteristics in comparison with the
conventionally designed filter. A wide band LPF is also designed where a
cascade structure of triangular patch resonators is used.

2.2 COMPACT DESIGN OF LOW PASS FILTER

In this section a microstrip low pass filter is first designed using the step
impedance technique, then Kotch fractal curve is applied on the filter which
results a compact structure. The design procedure of step impedance
microstrip structure is based on the insertion loss (IL) method. The IL method
allows a high degree of control over the passband and stopband amplitude and
phase characteristics, with a systematic way to synthesize a desired filter
response [1]-[3]. In IL method power loss ratio is determined in terms of
reflection coefficient. The power loss ratio of a network is defined as the ratio of
available or the incident power to the actual power delivered to the load. Thus
the power loss ratio (PLR) of a network is defined as the available or the
incident power divided by the actual power delivered to the load [3].

22
 1 (2.1)
PLR  2
1    

where  is the input reflection coefficient for a lossless network terminating in a

resistive load impedance ZL = RL. The insertion loss, measured in decibel is

IL  10 log PLR (2.2)

In general insertion loss is defined as the ratio of the power delivered to load
when connected directly to the generator to the power delivered when the filter
is inserted. It has been seen that a realizable filter has a power loss ratio of the
form given by:

 M ( 2 ) 
PLR  1   2 
(2.3)
 N ( ) 

where M (ω2) and N (ω2) are polynomials in the frequency domain.. There are
many different types of polynomials that result in good filter response and each
type has its own set of characteristics. In this work Chebyshev response has
been considered to demonstrate the different design technique. Design of a
filter using the Insertion-Loss approach usually begins by designing a
normalized low-pass prototype (LPP). The LPP is a low-pass filter with source
and load resistance of 1Ω and cut-off frequency of 1 rad/sec. Impedance
transformation and frequency scaling are then applied to renormalize the LPP
and synthesized. To demonstrate the conventional technique the following
technical specifications are considered:

23
 Order of filter N =5
RS = RL = 50
Cut-off frequency = 2.5 GHz
Pass band ripple = 0.01dB

The element values for Chebyshev filters for desired pass band ripple for LPP
circuit has been be taken from [1] and given as below.

g0 = 1 g1 = 0.7563 g2 = 1.3049 g3 = 1.5773

g4 = 1.3049 g5 = 0.7563 g6 = 1.

By applying the frequency transformation along with the impedance

transformation, the desired L-C ladder network is obtained. The transformed
values from the prototype of corresponding inductance ‘L’ and capacitance ‘C’
can be calculated for the desired filter from following expressions given in [2] as
below :

 
L   c  Z 0 g ; g representing the inductance (2.4a)
 c 

  g
C   c  ; g representing the capacitance (2.4b)
 c  Z0

Where Ωc is cut off frequency of LPP, ωc desired cut off frequency, and Z0 is
load and source impedance. The transformed filter network with its elemental
values has been shown in figure (2.1).

24
 Fig.2.1 Schematic of the Low Pass Filter after scaling.

Rs = 50Ω C1 = 1.1041 pf L2 = 4.7624 nh C3 = 2.3026 pf

L4 = 4.7624 nh C5 = 1.1041 pf RL = 50Ω

The above results represent the lumped parameters which have to be

transformed into a distributed network through transformation methods.
Microstrip stub filters implemented through Richards transformation [136] is one
of the ways of designing low pass microwave filters. The more common and
simple technique for microstrip filter design is using stepped impedance
technique where the requirement of mapping as in the Richards transformation
is not required and hence the frequency response is not periodic. Also in the
stepped impedance technique the transmission lines are not needed to be
proportionate [3]. In the design of stepped impedance filter it should be ensured
that the transmission lines are electrically short that is their lengths should be
less than one eighth of the wavelength. The filters designed using this
technique is constructed by a cascade connection of low and high impedances
of electrically short transmission lines. A short low impedance transmission line
is approximated by a shunt capacitor to the ground and the short high
impedance line is approximated by a series inductor. The design philosophy of
the stepped impedance filter is based on the lumped approximation of the short
transmission line. Since a typical low-pass filter consists of alternating series
inductors and shunt capacitors in a ladder configuration as shown in figure

25
(2.1), one can implement the filter on a printed circuit board by using alternating
high and low characteristic impedance sections of transmission lines, where the
high and low impedances are used to get the effects of inductive and capacitive
reactance from the distributive structure. In a microstrip the impedance of the
line is inversely proportional to the width of the line for fixed substrate height. To
get the appropriate values of the inductances and capacitances in microstrip
the ratio of higher to lower impedance value of lines (ZH/ZL) should be as high
as possible (where ZH and ZL are the higher and lower impedances of the
microstrip lines), but limited by the practical values that can be fabricated on a
printed circuit board. The typical values are ZH=100 to 150 and ZL=15 to
25. In this design we have selected ZL =24Ω and ZH = 100Ω. The width (w)
and height (h) of the microstrip lines for different impedances values have been
calculated by using the equations given by [2].

W  8e A 
 for W/h < 2
h  e 2 A  2 

W  2     1   0.61  

    B  1  ln 2 B  1   r  ln  B  1  0.39  

  For W/h >2

h    
 2 r    r  


(2.5)

Where

 Z    1   r 1   0.11 

A   0  r  0.23   
 60  2    r  1  
 r 

 377 
B 
 2 Z 0  r 

26
   
  
  r  1    r  1  1  (2.6)
 re      
 2   2  12 h 
  1 
  w 

0
g  (2.7)
 re

Where εr relative dielectric constant, εre, effective dielectric constant, λ0

wavelength in free space and λg is the wave length in the corresponding lines.
Using the above equations the different parameters such as widths, effective
dielectric constants and wave lengths are listed in Table-2.1 for the low and
high impedance lines.

Table-2.1: The widths, effective dielectric constants and corresponding

wavelengths of low and high impedance microstrip lines.

For low impedance line For high impedance line

For ZL = 24Ω For ZH = 100Ω

w = 6.3525 mm w = 0.4801 mm

εre = 2.8042 εre = 2.3456

λgL = 71.6599 mm λgH = 78.3527 mm

Also for Z0 = 50Ω, from above equations the width of the transmission line
obtained is w = 1.836 mm. The relationship of inductance and capacitance to
the transmission line length at the cut-off frequency c are given by [3].

27
  C Z 
lk   c k L  where k=1,3,5 (2.8a)
 L 

 L 
lk 1   c k 1  (2.8b)
 H ZH 

Where lk and lk+1 are the lengths of resonators, ωc is the cut-off frequency, Ck
and Lk+1 are the corresponding transformed values of capacitances and
inductances, βL and βH are the phase constant for capacitive and inductive
lines. Using these design equations (2.8a) and (2.8b) and the lumped
parameter values obtained above, the lengths of the inductive and capacitive
lines have been determined.

l1= 3.95 mm, l2= 9.33 mm, l3= 8.25 mm, l4 = 9.33 mm,

l5= 3.95 mm

Fig. 2.2 Layout of Chebyshev LPF using stepped impedance technique.

Thus using stepped impedance technique we have obtained a low pass filter
structure. The simulated values of scattering parameters are depicted in the in
figure (2.3).

28
 S11 parameters S21 parameters

S-parameters in dB
-10

-20

-30

-40

-50

-60

-70
0 2 4 6 8 10

Frequency in GHz

Fig. 2.3 Simulated values of S11 and S21 parameters of stepped impedance
structure.

The total length of this filter is 34.81mm. Efforts have been made to reduce
the size of this filter in the preceding section using the fractal technique
without altering the basic characteristics of the filter.

2.3 FRACTAL STRUCTURE FOR SIZE REDUCTION

The structure of Kotch fractal curve [129] has been utilized to reduce the size
of the microstrip low pass filter. The lengths of inductive lines of the step
impedance microstrip lowpass filter have been reduced by applying the
proposed technique. The original physical lengths of the inductive lines are
maintained where as the over all circuit length has been reduced. The basic
structure of 1-D, 900 angles Kotch curve [129] taken into consideration for the
proposed design. This fractal curve shown in figure is up to two iterations. The
first iteration is shown in figure (2.4b) and the second iteration is shown in
figure (2.4c). The length of the line that is the distance between the two end
points p and q is considered as d which is shown in figure (2.4a). For first
iteration the length of the unit section line becomes d/8 which makes the

29
distance between p and q shorter by half that is d/2 where as the total
physical length of the line is unchanged. In similar fashion the distance
between p and q becomes d/4 for the second iteration as the length of the unit
section line becomes d/64 as shown in figure (2.4c). The structures shown in
figure (2.4) may be utilized to reduce the lengths of the microstrip filters where
long thin microstrip lines are used. This technique has been applied to the
sections l2 and l4 of figure (2.2).

(a)

(b)

(c)
Fig.2.4. Basic structure of the Kotch curve (a) Zero Iteration (b) First iteration
(c) Second Iteration.

The LPF shown in figure (2.2) has been modified to figure (2.5) after the
application of Kotch fractal curve with first iteration. In this process total length
 l l 
of the filter has been reduced from l1  l2  l3  l4  l5  to  l1  2  l3  4  l5  .
 2 2 

30
 Fig. 2.5 LPF with fractal shape inductive lines.

The simulated values of S-parameters for the stepped impedance LPF with
and without fractal change are given in the figures (2.6) and (2.7). From the
S11 and S21 parameters shown in figures (2.6) and (2.7) it is clear that by the
application of fractal without any appreciable change in the scattering
parameters the length has been reduced.

Without fractal structure With fractal structure

-10

-20
S11 in dB

-30

-40

-50

-60

-70
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Frequency in GHz

Fig.2.6. S11 parameters of lowpass filter with and without fractal structure.

31
 Without fractal structure With fractal structure

-5

-10
S21 in d B

-15

-20

-25
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Frequency in GHz

Fig. 2.7. S21 parameters of lowpass filter with and without fractal structure.

Fig. 2.8. Fabricated Structure of LPF using Fractal Structure.

The LPF shown in figure (2.5) has been fabricated for the specifications
mentioned earlier is designed and fabricated for the specifications mentioned
earlier and shown in figure (2.8). The measured results are very much similar
to the simulated values. The measured and simulated S11 and S21 parameters
are shown in figures (2.9) and (2.10). The length for the filter with
conventional technique is 34.81mm where as the total length of the filter with
fractal shape is 25.48mm. Thus the total reduction in size takes place is more
than 26%. The measured results are also in good agreement with the
simulated results.

32
 Simulated S21 Measured S21

-5

-10
S21 in dB

-15

-20

-25

-30
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Freque ncy in GHz

Fig.2.9 Measured and simulated S21 parameters of the filter with fractal lines.

Simulated S11 Measured S11

0
-5
-10
-15
S11 in dB

-20
-25
-30
-35
-40
-45
-50
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Frequency in GHz

Fig.2.10 Measure and simulated S11 parameters of the filter with fractal shaped
lines.

For the structure shown in figures (2.2) and (2.5) the effect of stray capacitance and
inductance have not been considered. In the following section the same will be
considered in the structure shown in figure (2.2) and the performance will be
compared with the performance of structure shown in figure (2.5).

33
2.3.1 LENGTH CORRECTIONS DUE TO END AND T-JUNCTION
EFFECTS

Since the inductive lines produce some capacitance and capacitive lines produces
stray inductance in stepped impedance ladder network. These are known as end
effect and T-junction effects. Due to these stray inductances and capacitances, the
overall inductance and capacitance of the structure change. The figures (2.11) and
(2.12) depict this phenomenon. The values of Ls and Cp can be obtained from [2]
which given below for convenience.

Fig.2.11 Stray capacitance (Cp) in high impedance line.

 1    gC 
C p    tan  (2.9a)
 c Z H   2 

Fig.2.12 Stray inductance (Ls) in low impedance line.

 Z    gL 
Ls   L  tan  (2.9b)
 c   2 

34
Where Cp and Ls are the stray capacitances and inductances. β is the phase constant,
ωc is the cutoff frequency and λgC and λgL are the wave length of the capacitive and
inductive lines. After solving the equations (2.9a) and (2.9b) for three iterations the
circuit size get reduced. But as the number of iteration increases the cut-off frequency
shifted towards higher side. To compensate the decreased length of lines are needed to
be optimized using the simulation software, which leads a lengthy process to design a
compact microstrip low pass filter using stepped impedance technique. The S11 and
S21 values are shown for every iteration in figures (2.13) and (2.14).

Without Iteration With first iteration

With second Iteration With third Iteration

0
-5
-10
-15
-20
S11 in dB

-25
-30
-35
-40
-45
-50
-55
-60
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Frequency in GHz

Fig. 2.13 Comparison of S11 parameters of conventionally designed filter with

considering end and T-junction effect.

Without Iteration With first Iteration With second Iteration With third Iteration

-5
S21 in d B

-10

-15

-20

-25
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Frequency in GHz

Fig. 2.14 Comparison of S21 parameters of conventionally designed filter with

considering end and T-junction effect.

35
It is evident from the figures (2.13) and (2.14) that the length reduction by
minimizing the stray capacitance and inductance for the three iterations the
cut off frequency has been increased from the desired value of 2.5 GHz to 3.2
GHz. By considering T-junction and end effect up to third iteration about 23%
size reduction has been achieved at the cost of cutoff frequency but using the
fractal technique a lot of lengthy calculation can be avoided and the size
reduction of more than 26% can be achieved without any shift in the cut off
frequency. At the same time there is no shift in the cutoff frequency. The
above proposed design technique using the fractal curve suggests that to get
the compact low pass filter structure Kotch curve can be used. This technique
does not require any lengthy calculation. The size reduction using this
technique is compared with size reduction by minimizing the effects of stray
capacitances and inductances from the stepped impedance structures.

2.4 LOW PASS MICROSTRIP FILTER WITH SUPPRESSED

HARMONICS

Since the conventional stepped impedance filter suffers from spurious

harmonics which makes the stop band limited. In section 2.3 the compact
stepped impedance LPF has been achieved by using the fractal structure but
it suffers from spurious modes. In this section efforts have been made to
suppress the spurious harmonics along with the compactness by using the
defective ground plane. First an LPF is designed for the desired specification
using the stepped impedance technique as discussed in section (2.2). Then
the slots are made on the ground plane. Due to these slots the inductance is
increased. The increased inductive impedance due to slot has been
compensated by reducing the length of high and low impedance lines thus the
compact structure is achieved. After using the slots just below the high

36
impedance line, the ratio of high to low impedance of the stepped impedance
structure has been increased without any reduction in the width of high
impedance line. The complexity of the proposed circuit design is considerably
lesser than the circuit suggested in [127-128].

Five poles Chebyshev function with 0.1dB pass band ripple has been
considered to design the proposed stepped impedance microstrip low pass
filter. The filter is conventionally designed using high-low impedance
technique for the desired cut-off frequency of 2.5GHz as discussed in
previous section. After the design of microstrip LPF the elliptical slots as
shown in the figure (2.16) have been etched on the ground plane. The minor
axis of the elliptical slot is equal to the length of the high impedance line and
the major axis is equal to twice of the width of the low impedance line. Due to
these slots the inductance of the line has been increased and thus the cut off
frequency of the resultant filter reduces by 0.684 times the desired cut-off
frequency. To compensate these increased inductive effects the size of
resonators must be reduced further. By repeating this process the optimized
dimensions of the resonators have been obtained using the full wave
simulation software CST microwave studio [134]. The effect of width of the
slot on the cut-off frequency has been shown in figure (2.17). The sharper roll-
off response can be achieved by increasing the length of slot at the expense
of pass band performance. Parallel capacitance values for the proposed DGS
elliptical unit may also be extracted from the attenuation pole location which
exists at the resonance frequency of the parallel L-C circuit [126] and
prototype low pass characteristics by using the following equations (2.10) and
(2.11).

5 fc
C p (in pF )  (2.10)
 2
  f02  fc 
 

250
L p (in nH )  (2.11)
C p (f 0 )

37
By changing the length of the slot the values of capacitance and inductance
can be controlled effectively.

Fig.2.15. Top view of stepped impedance LPF without DGS.

Using the above design method the different dimensions are as follows:
L1=10.04mm, L2 =7.77mm, L3 =4.35mm, width of 50Ω line=1.82, w1=5.05mm,
w2=0.46mm.

Fig.2.16. Top view of the proposed structure with two elliptical slots.

38
 4.5

Slot width in mm
4

3.5

2.5
2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 3 3.1 3.2
frequency in GHz

Fig.2.17. Relation between the width of the slot (minor axis of the ellipse) and
cutoff frequency.

With the above dimensions the LPF has been fabricated and shown in figures (2.18)
and (2.19). It has been critically observed that by applying the elliptical slots on the
ground plane, the cut-off frequency shifts towards the lower side and by reducing the
size of resonators the cut off frequency increases thus there has been a drastic
decrease in the overall size of the proposed filter.

Fig. 2.18. Bottom view of fabricated filter.

39
 Fig.2.19. Top view of the fabricated filter.

The structure shown in the figure (2.16) is simulated and the S11 and S21 parameters
are compared with the measured values of S11 and S21 parameters and shown in
figures (2.20) and (2.21).

Measured S11 Simulated S11

0.00
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
-5.00

-10.00
S11 in dB

-15.00

-20.00

-25.00

-30.00

-35.00
Frequency in GHz

Fig. 2.20 Simulated and Measured S11 Parameters.

40
 Measured S21 Simulated

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
-5

-10

S21 in dB
-15

-20

-25

-30

Frequency In GHz

Fig. 2.21. Simulated and Measured S21 parameters.

From these figures a close matching between the measured and simulated
values has been observed. It is clear that along with a better pass band
characteristic, a wider stop band characteristic also has been obtained. The
insertion loss at 3.9GHz has been observed as 19dB. The design technique is
simple. The transition band is quite sharp and transmission parameter
reduces from 0.216dB to 19dB within 1.4 GHz.

TABLE-2.2: Comparative results of three filter structure structures

Structure Max. Pass Frequen Max value

type band ripple cy at the S21 in dB
in dB harmonic at
in GHz harmonics

Without DGS 0.705 8.1 6

Elliptical 0.2159 No harmonics present

DGS

Rectangular 0.323 No harmonics present

DGS

41
From Table-2.2 it can be observed that with the solid ground the LPF shows a
spurious response at about 8.1 GHz, it reaches about 6dB which is
undesirable. When the slots are made on the ground plane, the undesired
harmonics disappear. The lengths of the resonators of the proposed structure
are compared in Table-2.3. There is about 33% reduction using the proposed
technique. The length of conventional LPF is 34.28mm and the length of the
proposed structure is 23mm. From the simulated results shown in figures
(2.22) and (2.23) the performance of LPF with and without DGS can be
observed.

TABLE 2.3: Comparison of size of conventional and proposed structures

Structures L1 (mm) L2 (mm) L3 (mm)

Conventional 10.0486 7.7734 4.359

(without DGS)
Structure

Proposed 7.5 4.25 3.5

structure

Fig. 2.22 S21 parameters of both LPFs (elliptical and square DGS) structures.

42
 Fig. 2.23 S11 parameters of both the proposed.

To compare the rectangular and elliptical shape slots the S11 and S21
parameters are shown in figures (2.22) and (2.23). From these results the
better pass band and wide stop band characteristics is observed due to the
slots at the ground with elliptical shape. The proposed LPF in this section is
compact and give wide band characteristics. In the next section another work
is proposed where the ladder network of DGS structure is used.

2.5 LOW PASS FILTER DESIGN USING THE DGS LADDER

Here on the ground plane of the microstrip line of characteristic impedance

50Ω a series of slots have been cut. The lengths of the slots L1, L2, a, b, c as
shown in figure (2.24) have been initially calculated and optimized using
FDTD based electromagnetic simulation software CST microwave studio
[134].

43
The design specifications of LPF are as follows:

Cutoff frequency 4GHz

Order of the filter N= 7

Pass band ripple= 0.1dB.

To determine w1 and w2 , a series of simulations have been performed and it

has been seen that the optimum values can be obtained through the following
equations with d= 0.2mm.

w2/d =75 (2.12)

w1/d=25 (2.13)

The lengths of the slots are calculated using the following equations:

0.37 g k 1
L1  L2  (2.14)
 gL

0.48 g k
abc (2.15)
 gC

Where the L1, L2 and a, b and c are the lengths of slots as shown in figure
(2.24) and the values of gk and gk+1 have already been defined as in [1] . The
values for εr and the height of the substrate h are taken as 3.2 and 0.762mm.
The dimensions are shown in figure (2.24). This DGS proposed in this work is
symmetrically placed on the ground plane of the microstrip line.

44
Fig. 2.24 Basic structure of the ground defect with dimensions of slots on
ground L1 = L2= 4mm, W1=5mm, W2=15mm, a=b=c=4mm and d=0.2mm.

Fig.2.25 Top view of structure from the top.

Fig. 2.26 Bottom view of the proposed structure.

45
 Fig.2.27 Top view of the fabricated structure.

The structure shown in figure (2.24) has been fabricated and shown in figures
(2.26) and (2.27). The structure shown in figure (2.24) has been simulated
and the scattering parameters S11 and S21 are compared with the
corresponding experimental values and shown in figures (2.28) and (2.29)
respectively.

S21Measured S21 Simulated

0
-5
-10
-15
S21 in dB

-20
-25
-30
-35
-40
-45
0 2 4 6 8 10

Frequency in GHz

Fig.2.28 Measured and simulated values of S21 parameter.

46
 S11 Measured S11 Simulated

-5

-10
S11 in dB -15

-20

-25

-30

-35

-40
0 2 4 6 8 10

Frequency in GHz

Fig.2.29 Measured and simulated values of S11 parameter.

It is evident from figures (2.28 and (2.29) that both the simulated and
experimental values of the scattering parameters are matching satisfactorily.
There are some small mismatches in the stop band characteristics between the
simulated and measured results and these are due to the manufacturing defects.

2.6 COMPACT LOW PASS FILTER FOR L-BAND APPLICATION

This section presents a compact microstrip low pass filter with sharp roll-off
characteristics. The structure of the proposed filter is shown in figure (2.30). The
filter has also been fabricated and shown in figure (2.31). The proposed filter
consists of three inter connected rectangular resonators. Eempirical expressions
have been derived to calculate the lengths of the resonators L1 and L3 and given
by equation (2.17) and for the length L2 given by equation (2.18). The function f(x)
used in equations (2.17) and (2.18) also derived empirically using large number
of simulated data and curve fitting. This function is given in equation (2.16). The

47
width of the resonators w2 and w3 are calculated from equations (2.5-2.7), where
the Zc equal to 165 ohm for a narrow section and 11ohm for the wider section.

f  x   9.39 x 4  37.43x3  54.9 x 2  33x  7.37 (2.16)

 150Z L 
lk   g (2..17)
 πf  x  ε Z  k
 ce 0 

 150 Z 0 
lk 1    g k 1 (2.18)
 πf  x  ε Z 
 le H 

Where lk+1 and lk are the physical lengths and εle and εce effective dielectric
constant of inductive (smaller width) and capacitive lines (wider width). Other
terms are defined as in section-2. The cut off frequency has been considered
as 1.7 GHz for the proposed design. The filter has been fabricated using the
substrate FR4 with dielectric constant 4.5 and height 1.5mm. By using the
design equations (2.17 and 2.18) the lengths have been calculated for the
frequency x = 1.7 GHz. The dimensions are calculated as L1 = 1.41mm, L3 =
2.44mm, L2 = 2.64mm, W 2 = 0.1mm and W 3 = 20mm and the width of the 50
ohm line is W 1 = 2.81mm. The designed structure has been simulated using
MoM based full wave electromagnetic simulation software IE3D [133] and
fabricated using photolithographic technique.

Fig.2.30 Lay out of the proposed design.

48
 Fig.2.31 Fabricated structure of the proposed LPF.

Fig.2.32 Measured and Simulated S11 parameter of designed structure.

49
 Fig.2.33. Measured and Simulated S21 parameter.

The measured and simulated S11 and S21 parameters are shown in the figures
(2.32) and (2.33) respectively. There are good agreements between the
simulated and measured results and are evident from figures (2.32) and
(2.33). From the physical dimensions it is observed that by using proposed
technique about 57% size reduction can be achieved with respect to the
physical length of filter with this specification designed by conventional
stepped impedance technique. From the results shown in figures (2.33) it is
observed that there is more than 22dB change within a range of 0.5 GHz
while in transition from pass band to stop band. We can conclude that this
proposed filter configuration gives high roll off. The two basic limitation of this
technique are

(i) It is limited only for the low microwave frequency range.

(ii) It does not provide wide stop band characteristic.

The following section is dedicated to get the wide stop band in a stepped
impedance low pass structure.

50
2.7 LOW PASS FILTER DESIGN TRIANGULAR PATCH RESONATOR

In this section triangular patch resonators are used to design LPF for wide
band applications. Patch resonators are more advantageous as compared
with the line based resonator filters in terms of compact size, simpler
structure, lesser design complexity and fabrication uncertainty, lower
conducting loss, higher power handling features and easier miniaturization.
The geometry of the proposed structure is shown in figure (2.34) where an
isosceles triangular patch resonator has been used in with input and out put
feed lines on the base of the triangle with distance b between them. The
resonant frequency of the triangular patch resonator has been assumed to be
10.2 GHz. The dimensions of the patch resonators can be obtained by
conventional design techniques as given in [135]. The widths of the input and
output feed lines have been calculated using equations (2.5-2.7) for
characteristic impedance 50 ohm and the dielectric constant 3.2, height of the
substrate 0.762mm. The calculated values of the dimensions are shown in
figure (2.34).

Fig. 2.34 Unit triangular patch with 50ohm lines.

51
The simulated values of the scattering parameters S11 and S21 are shown in
the figure (2.36) it evident from the simulated results that the cut off frequency
is 10.57 GHz against the theoretical cut off of 10.2GHz. The stop band
attenuation is more than 14dB and the pass band attenuation is approximately
zero dB. This structure gives quite broad pass band characteristics. The
height of the triangular patch d is varied and the simulated results of variation
of cut off frequency and the height of the triangular patch is shown in fig(2.35).
It is observed that keeping all other parameters constant the cut off frequency
of the LPF decreases almost linearly with the increase of d. For height d more
than 3mm it gives band width more than 9.5GHz. Three such triangular patch
resonators discussed above has been cascaded to obtained more attenuation
in the stop band. This cascaded structure is shown in figure (2.39) and the
corresponding fabricated structure is shown in figure (2.40). The experimental
and the simulated results for S-parameters are shown in figures (2.41) and
(2.42) and they show a good agreement with the simulated and measured
values. And it has been observed that the stop band attenuation is more than
20dB.

15.5
Frequency in GHz

14.5

13.5

12.5

11.5

10.5

9.5
3 3.5 4 4.5 5

Height of triangualr patch in mm

Fig. 2.35 Graph between height and frequency.

52
Fig. 2.36 Simulated response of the single triangular patch resonator.

Fig. 2.37 Triangular patches for low pass structure.

Fig. 2.38 Fabricated structure of proposed LPF.

53
 Measured S11 parameters
Simulated S11 parameters

S11 parameters in dB
-10

-20

-30

-40

-50

-60

-70
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14

Frequency in GHz

Fig. 2.39 Measured and simulated values of the S11 parameters Triangular LPF.

Measured S21 parameters

Simulated S21 parameters

0
S21 parameters in dB

-10

-20

-30

-40
0 5 10

Frequency in GHz

Fig. 2.40 Measured and simulated values of the S21 parameters of Triangular
LPF.

54
2.8 CONCLUSIONS

This chapter presents five different LPF structures. All the structures are
fabricated and the measured results are compared with results obtained using
simulation software. Using fractals the size of the low pass filter has been
reduced by applying the fractal shape on the stepped impedance resonators. The
designed structure is shown in figure (2.5). In another work the spurious
frequency bands in the stop band has been suppressed using the defective
ground plane. The wide stop band is achieved more than 10GHz. The maximum
value of insertion loss in stop band is more than 15dB. The results are shown in
figures (2.20) and (2.21). A pattern of ladder network of slots is etched on the
ground plane of 50 ohm microstrip line. A LPF response is achieved through this.
The design equations are derived using the simulation software. A low pass filter
is designed using the open stub lines as shown in figure (2.30). This filter can be
used for L-band application. The triangular patch resonator is used to design a
low pass filter. A periodic arrangement of these patches is arranged. Excellent
agreements between the measured and simulated results are obtained. These
are evident from the figures (2.39) and (2.40).

55