110

IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 9, 2010

A Compact CPW-Fed Slotted Patch Antenna

for Dual-Band Operation
Wen-Chung Liu, Senior Member, IEEE, Chao-Ming Wu, and Nien-Chang Chu

AbstractA compact coplanar waveguide (CPW)-fed patch

antenna designed by simply embedding two types of shaped slots
into a rectangular patch for achieving dual-band operation is
presented. The use of embedded slots can effectively excite multiresonant modes together with good dual-impedance bandwidths,
especially ultrawide for the upper bandwidth. By fabricating
and measuring the prototype of the proposed optimal antenna,
dual operating bands with 10-dB return-loss bandwidths of about
230 MHz centered at 2.42 GHz and of about 73% ranging from 4.8
to 9.62 GHz covering the required bandwidths of 2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz
WLAN standards and the C-band satellite communication were
obtained. Also, a stable monopole-like radiation pattern and an
average antenna gain of 1.4 and 5.1 dBi, respectively, across the
dual operating bands have been measured.
Index TermsCoplanar waveguide (CPW), dual-band, patch
antenna, ultrawideband, WLAN.
Fig. 1. Configuration of the proposed CPW-fed slotted patch antenna for dualband operation.

I. INTRODUCTION
ECENTLY, the ability to integrate more than one communication standard into a single system has become an
increasing demand for a modern portable wireless communication device. However, it is difficult to simultaneously set the
dual or multiple antennas and a diplexer into such a device due
to the devices limited space. This indicates that a modern antenna requires not only the function of providing a dual- or
multiband operation, but also a simple structure, compact size,
and easy integration with the system circuit. For this, many
promising dual- or multiband planar antenna designs such as
the microstrip-line-fed antennas [1][3], the probe-fed antennas
[4][6], the planar inverted-F antennas (PIFAs) [7][9], the dielectric resonator antennas [10], [11], and the coplanar waveguide (CPW)-fed antennas [12][14] have been reported. However, most of them have either a large overall size or a complicated structure to reduce the antennas application. Considering
that the planar slot antenna has a low Q-factor that can thus provide a wide impedance bandwidth and is easy to generate multiresonance by simply varying the slot width and shape, it has
received much attention recently [15], [16]. Meanwhile, for the
known attractive features of the CPW-fed antenna such as low
profile, light weight, a single metallic layer, easy realization, and

Manuscript received December 16, 2009; manuscript revised January 28,

2010. Date of publication February 25, 2010; date of current version March
16, 2010. This work was supported by the National Science Council of the
Republic of China (on Taiwan) under Grant NSC 98-2221-E-150-045.
W.-C. Liu and C.-M. Wu are with the Department of Aeronautical
Engineering, National Formosa University, Yunlin 632, Taiwan (e-mail:
wencliu@nfu.edu.tw).
N.-C. Chu is with the Institute of Electro-Optical and Materials Science, National Formosa University, Yunlin 632, Taiwan.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2010.2044135

integration with system circuits, it is therefore feasible for designing a simple and compact dual- or multiband antenna by
composing both the slot structure and the CPW-feeder.
In this letter, a simple dual-band design of a CPW-fed
monopole antenna consisting of a compact rectangular
patch and a couple of twin embedded slots is presented.
By properly selecting shapes and dimensions of these
embedded slots, good dual-band impedance bandwidths
as well as suitable radiation characteristics for use in
2.4 (2.4-2.484)/5.2 (5.15-5.35)/5.8 (5.725-5.825) GHz WLAN
and C-band (48 GHz) satellite operations can be achieved. The
effects of the embedded slots to the resonance were studied,
and an experimental prototype of the proposed antenna design
working at these frequencies was fabricated and measured,
verifying the design concept.
II. ANTENNA DESIGN AND DISCUSSIONS
The configuration of the proposed dual-band CPW-fed
slotted patch antenna is shown in Fig. 1. The antenna was
etched on a 1.6-mm-thick FR4 substrate with relative per4.4. The basis of this antenna structure is a
mittivity
rectangular patch with dimensions of
mm or
with respect to the desired lower resonant
about
frequency 2.4 GHz. This incidentally makes the patch be the
quarter-wavelength antenna candidate. A couple of twin slots
including dual folded slots and dual inverted-L-shaped slots
were embedded into the patch to form the antenna as a CPW-fed
rectangular patch monopole with four protruded strips, which
include dual side strips and dual short strips. However, different from a conventional CPW-fed patch antenna, each of

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LIU et al.: COMPACT CPW-FED SLOTTED PATCH ANTENNA FOR DUAL-BAND OPERATION

Fig. 2. Simulated return loss against frequency for the proposed antenna with
different embedded slots.
TABLE I
OPTIMAL GEOMETRICAL PARAMETERS OF THE PROPOSED CPW-FED
DUAL-BAND SLOTTED PATCH ANTENNA

the two side strips was shorted to the ground. Such a design
skill was found to be helpful for improving the antennas
impedance matching. In examining the performance of the
proposed antenna configurations in terms of enhancing the dual
bandwidths, the commercially available moment method code
IE3D was used for required numerical analysis. Via iterative
design process, the proper parameters for optimal dual-band
operation of the proposed antenna were finally obtained and are
listed in Table I. Note that in this design, the width of all slots
was selected as 0.5 mm.
Fig. 2 shows the simulated frequency response of return loss
for the proposed antenna, denoted as ant 1. It is clearly seen that
dual impedance bandwidths (10 dB return loss) of 210 MHz
(2.342.55 GHz) and 5.05 GHz (4.89.85 GHz) with two dominant resonant modes excited at 2.42 and 5.21 GHz were obtained. Particularly, an ultrawide bandwidth for the upper operating band was produced as two more resonances at 6.86 and
9.5 GHz were excited to thus form an ultrawide continuous
bandwidth. The bandwidths clearly cover the required bandwidths of the WLAN 2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz standards and the C-band
satellite communication. Meanwhile, to examine the effects of
the embedded slots to the antennas matching condition, the
simulated results of return loss for the proposed antenna without
part of the embedded slots were also studied and plotted in
Fig. 2. Obviously, for the case without the upper portion for
each folded slot (denoted as ant 2), only a worse resonance was
excited at the lower band of about 2.45 GHz, which is mainly
due to the fundamental mode of the rectangular patch. However,
for the case of the proposed antenna without the two inverted-Lshaped slots (denoted as ant 3), multiresonant modes with worse
and good impedance matching for the lower (3.1 GHz) and
upper (5.45 GHz) bands, respectively, were excited.
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111

Fig. 3. Simulated return loss against frequency for the proposed dual-band
slotted patch antenna with different slot embedment. All dimensions are the
same as listed in Table I.

Fig. 4. Simulated return loss against frequency for the proposed dual-band
slotted patch antenna with various L . Other parameters are the same as listed
in Table I.

To further investigate the effect of each slot to the proposed

antennas bandwidth characteristic, the frequency response of
return loss for the proposed antenna with different slot embedment was also analyzed and is shown in Fig. 3. Obviously, for
the case with the folded strip (ant 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9), the upperband resonance was effectively excited, and especially, good
ultrawideband impedance matching was achieved as the dual
folded strips were simultaneously embedded. Similarly, better
lower-band matching condition was obtained when inserting the
dual inverted-L-shaped slots into the patch. These results clearly
indicate that existence of the inverted-L-shaped slots can significantly affect impedance matching to the lower band, whereas
the upper portions of the two folded slots will seriously change
the excitation of the upper-band resonant modes.
for the dual
Fig. 4 presents the tuning effect of the length
inverted-L-shaped slots with selected values from 3 to 7 mm

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IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 9, 2010

Fig. 5. Simulated return loss against frequency for the proposed dual-band
slotted patch antenna with various L . Other parameters are the same as listed
in Table I.

on return-loss response. As predicted, the lower-band resonance

is significantly affected by this parameter. The lower operaintion band is moved toward the lower frequency when
creases, whereas that of the upper band is almost unchanged.
Such a band-tunable function for the lower band is very helpful
when this antenna is expected to also be used for communication
standards operating at around 2 GHz, such as the GSM-1900,
UMTS, and IMT-2000, etc.
for each folded slot
Fig. 5 illustrates the effect of length
with varying dimensions of 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7 mm on the frequency
response of the return loss for the proposed antenna. Note that
mm is the proposed optimal design. The rethe case of
sults show that the upper operation band is shifted toward the
dehigher frequency and has a narrower bandwidth when
creases, whereas the lower resonant mode is almost unaffected.
and
to significantly affect the lower
The main reason for
and upper operating bands, respectively, is due to the lengths of
the dual side strips and the dual short strips, which appropriately
provide the electric current paths for the lower and upper resoand . The larger the
nances and are changed by varying
, the longer the side strip (short strip) to thus shift the
lower (upper) operating band toward the lower frequency, and
vice versa. The above study is very vital for the designer to have
information in achieving the desired operating band for various
applications based on this antenna prototype.
III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The prototype of the proposed antenna, denoted as ant 1
in Fig. 2, was constructed and experimentally investigated.
Fig. 6 presents the measured return loss against the frequency
for this antenna. Obviously, dual-band operations, especially
an ultrawide bandwidth for the upper operating band, were
obtained. The lower-band resonance was excited at 2.42 GHz
with impedance bandwidth of 210 MHz (2.342.55 GHz),
whereas the upper-band resonances occurred at 5.12, 6.61, and
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Fig. 6. Measured and simulated return loss against frequency for the proposed
dual-band slotted patch antenna.

Fig. 7. Measured far-field radiation patterns of the proposed antenna at dif). (a) 2.42, (b) 5.21, and (c) 6.61 GHz.
ferent frequencies (E ; E

000

9.35 GHz accompanying an ultrawide bandwidth of 4.82 GHz

(4.89.62 GHz). Agreement between simulation and measurement seems very good, allowing for a bandwidth discrepancy
% at the upper operating band.
(230 MHz) of
The far-field radiation characteristics at frequencies of 4.42,
5.21, and 6.61 GHz for the proposed antenna have also been
measured and are shown in Fig. 7. The results, in general, show
this antenna has a stable monopole-like radiation pattern with
conical radiations in the elevation planes (xz and yz planes) and
a nearly omnidirectional pattern in the azimuth plane (xy plane).

LIU et al.: COMPACT CPW-FED SLOTTED PATCH ANTENNA FOR DUAL-BAND OPERATION

113

REFERENCES

Fig. 8. Measured peak antenna gains across the lower and upper bands for the
proposed antenna.

However, the omnidirectional property is degraded when operating frequency increases. This may due to the difference of vertical and horizontal current distributions on the slotted patch increasing when operating frequency increases. Finally, the peak
antenna gains against frequency for the proposed antenna across
the dual operating bands were measured and are shown in Fig. 8.
It should be noted that the gain across the upper band was only
measured up to 8.2 GHz due to the equipment limitation in our
laboratory. We obtained an average gain of 1.4 (11.6 dBi) and
5.1 dBi (3.86.6 dBi) for the lower and higher measured bands,
respectively.
IV. CONCLUSION
A single-layer CPW-fed monopole antenna designed from
simply embedding slots into a rectangular patch has been presented. With an antenna size of only 30 25 mm , including
the ground plane, multiresonance having dual continuous operating band and suitable radiation performance to cater for the
WLAN 2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz and the C-band satellite applications
are achieved. Also, the prototype has been constructed and measured to show a good agreement with the simulated results.

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