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30694
Received: 1 February 2017
DOI: 10.1002/mop.30693
Small dual-band slot antenna
using capacitor loading
Jae Hee Kim | Chi-Hyung Ahn
Korea Railroad Research Institute (KRRI), Uiwang-si, Gyeonggi-do, Korea
Correspondence
Jae Hee Kim Korea Railroad Research Institute (KRRI), Uiwang-si,
Gyeonggi-do, Korea.
Email: jaehee@krri.re.kr
Abstract
A method is proposed for designing a small dual-band slot
antenna using capacitor loading. A capacitor is loaded at
the right end of a slot antenna to form a parallel resonance
using inductance generated by the slot end. As the imped-
ance of the parallel resonator becomes capacitive at a
frequency higher than the resonance, the slot antenna reso-
nates at less than a quarter wavelength. To match input
impedance in dual-band, a coupled feed is placed near the
capacitor and a structure for frequency tuning is also
AND AHN
proposed. The antenna is simulated and fabricated to reso-
nate at the 2.4 and 5.8 GHz bands with slot size of
0.16k 3 0.05k. The bandwidth of the antenna is 90 MHz
at 2.4 GHz and 760 MHz at 5.8 GHz. By measuring radia-
tion patterns, the efficiency is no less than 70% at 2.4 GHz
and 60% at 5.8 GHz band.
KEYWORDS
capacitor, loading, parallel resonator, slot antennas
1 | INTRODUCTION
A slot antenna is made by etching a slot in a metal surface
and its resonant frequency depends on the size and shape of
the slot. As the parts or materials attached to the metal sur-
face have no significant effect on the performance of the
antenna, it is a preferred type of antenna for installation in an
environment surrounded by metallic materials. Because the
slot structure has an advantage in accommodating lumped
elements such as inductors or capacitors, it is useful as a tun-
able antenna. In practice, varactor diodes, pin diodes, stubs
and liquid metal Galinstan have been embedded in slot
antennas in designing tunable antennas.1–4 As a slot antenna
uses the ground plane, its performance could be enhanced by
integration with conventional antennas such as monopole or
inverted F antennas. In a dual-band antenna, a slot is applied
not only to create high frequency band resonance but also to
enhance the impedance bandwidth.5–7 A slot antenna can be
used to advantage in designing the antenna for a portable
device which has a metal case or metal frame.8,9 But as the
slot antenna has a structure with half-wavelength resonance,
it is difficult to reduce the antenna size10–14 and the slot size
is fundamentally dependent on the surrounding equipment
which creates difficulties with antenna design. A slot antenna
with open end is proposed to reduce the antenna size.15,16
However, in actual practice, this requires cutting the metal
frame, which places constraints on the design options.
This letter proposes a technique to reduce slot size of a
mobile device antenna using capacitor loading along with a
technique to utilize a dual-band design.
2 | LOADING EFFECTS OF THE
SLOT ANTENNA
Transmission line models for a conventional slot antenna
and the proposed antenna are illustrated in Figure 1. A con-
ventional slot antenna with a half wavelength resonance can
be modeled incorporating a transmission line with shorts on
the left and right. When connecting the capacitor to the short
at either end of the slot antenna, parallel resonance is formed
KIM AND AHN | 2127

T A BL E 1 Resonance length for the different loading effects As the sum of the impedance on the left and right should
be 0 at resonance condition,
Type 1st resonance 2nd resonance
 
xCP 21=ðxLP Þ 1Z0 tan ðbðl2xÞÞ
21
Slot antenna l5 12 k1 l5k2
(short) Zinl 1Zinr 5 jZ0 tan ðbxÞ1jZ0   50
Z0 1 xCP 21=1
ðxLP Þ tan ð b ð l2xÞ Þ
Slot antenna l< 14 k1 2 k2 <l< 4 k2
1 3
(3)
1Capacitor loading
(parallel resonator) Two extreme cases can be considered. When the parallel
resonator resonates, (3) can be expressed by
by the inductance from the short and the attached capacitor. jZ0
jZ0 tan ðbxÞ2 50 (4)
A transmission line model of the proposed antenna with the tan ðbðl2xÞÞ
short on left and parallel resonance on the right is possible.
When operating frequency is lower than the resonant fre- The first and second resonances occur as
quency, the parallel resonator is shown as inductor, and the 1 3
[ l5 k; k (5)
operating frequency is higher than the resonant frequency, 4 4
the resonator is shown as capacitor. Therefore, the proposed When the frequency is higher, (3) could be simplified as
antenna has a capacitor loading effect at frequencies higher
follows.
than the resonant frequency of the parallel resonator and it
resonates with a length shorter than a quarter wavelength. jZ0 tan ðbxÞ1jZ0 tan ðbl2bxÞ50 (6)
Accordingly, it has the advantage of size reduction compared 2p
bl5 l5np; n51; 2; 3; . . . (7)
with a conventional slot antenna. With regard to the trans- k
mission line model of the slot antenna and the proposed 1
antenna, the electric field distribution of the first resonance [ l5 k (8)
2
and second resonance are illustrated in Figure 1. The dashed
For frequencies higher than parallel resonance, the reso-
curve indicates the electric field when the first resonance
nance length l of the antenna is indicated as follows.
occurred and the dotted curve indicates the field at the sec-
ond resonance. The antenna length for the different loading 1 1 3
l < k1 ; k2 < l < k2 (9)
effects is indicated in Table 1. The length of the first and sec- 4 2 4
ond resonances can be easily calculated using transverse res- Parallel resonance is formed by connecting a capacitor to
onance technique.17 The resonance length is calculated the end of the slot antenna which allows antenna resonance
theoretically when the right end is connected to a parallel res- to occur at less than quarter wavelength, making it possible
onator in the transmission line model. For the point with the to reduce antenna size and to utilize dual-band resonance.
length 3 from the left, impedance on the right and left is
expressed as follows.
3 | DESIGN OF A DUAL-BAND
Zinl 5jZ0 tan ðbxÞ (1)
  SLOT ANTENNA
jxC
1
2j= ð xL Þ 1jZ0 tan ðbðl2xÞÞ
 
P P
Zinr 5Z0 (2) Figure 2 shows the designed dual-band slot antenna using
ðxLP Þ tan ðbðl2xÞÞ
1
Z0 1j jxCP 2j= the capacitor. For an FR4 substrate with a relative

FIGURE 1 Transmission line model (A) conventional slot antenna (B) proposed antenna. [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
2128 | KIM
FIGURE 2 Slot antenna structure (A) conventional antenna, (B) proposed antenna using capacitor loading. [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonli-
nelibrary.com]
permittivity 4.4, the width (Wg) and length (Lg) of the ground
are 50 and 100 mm, respectively, and the thickness (t) is
1 mm. The width (Wa) and the length (La) of the area for the
designed antenna are 20 and 6 mm, respectively. The line
width (WL) at the right of the slot antenna is 1 mm. Figure
2A shows a conventional slot antenna without a loading
effect at the end. The feed point is located at the center of
the slot and the distance (DF) to the left ground is 9 mm. The
width of the feeding line is 1 mm and the spacing (gF) from
the top surface of the slot antenna is 0.5 mm, and the coupled
feed is adopted for input impedance matching. Figure 2B
shows the proposed antenna with a capacitor connected in
parallel to the right end of the slot antenna. The capacitor
(CP) is attached to the point distanced (dC) by 17 mm from
the left end using a stub of 1 mm width and 5 mm length
(lC) taking into consideration the size of the element. The
location of the feeding stub and the spacing of the ground
FIGURE 3 S11 of the conventional slot antenna and the proposed
antenna for different capacitor values (Cp). [Color figure can be viewed at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]
AND AHN
are adjusted for dual-band matching, with the feeding stub
distanced by 15.1 mm from the left ground (DF) and the
spacing (gF) between stub and ground set as 0.2 mm. Simu-
lation is performed for each case using commercial software
(HFSS). Figure 3 shows simulated S11 of the conventional
slot antenna and the proposed antenna for different capacitor
values. The conventional slot antenna of Figure 2A resonates
at 3.85 GHz. When the capacitor (Cp) is 0.5 pF, the proposed
antenna of Figure 2B resonates at two frequencies, with the
first resonance occurring at 2.48 GHz and the second at
6.2 GHz. The resonant frequency of the parallel resonator by
capacitor and short structure at the right end of the slot is
2.53 GHz. The capacitor values (Cp) is changed to check the
effect of the parallel resonator. When the capacitor value is
changed to 0.7 pF, the second resonance at 6.2 GHz is main-
tained while the first resonant frequency is reduced to
2.23 GHz. The capacitor value of the parallel resonator had a
dominant effect on the first resonance.
The lumped capacitor has a fixed value, and it is neces-
sary to use additional stubs in order to tune the resonant fre-
quency. Figure 4 shows proposed antenna structure for fine
F I G U R E 4 Proposed antenna structure for fine tuning. [Color figure
can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
KIM AND AHN | 2129

FIGURE 5 S11 of the proposed antenna with tuning stubs present.

[Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

F I G U R E 8 Fabricated proposed antenna on the FR4 substrate.

[Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

FIGURE 6 S11 of the proposed antenna for different ground sizes

(Wg 3 Lg). [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

tuning. A method to adjust the resonant frequency of the

antenna downward at a low frequency is to increase the
capacitor value. To increase the capacitor value, a low-band
tuning stub is additionally connected near the capacitor. A
high-band tuning stub is located to the point with a strong
electric field so that the stub would decrease the resonant fre-
quency. In Figure 4, extending the length of a causes the
higher resonant frequency to decrease while extending the
length of b causes the lower resonant frequency to decrease.
FIGURE 9 S11 of the proposed antenna for the simulation and mea-
surement. [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
Figure 5 shows the variation of resonant frequency depend-
ing on the presence of a tuning stub. When connecting a
low-band stub with the length b 5 0.8 mm, width 0.5 mm
and spacing from the ground gb 5 0.7 mm near the capaci-
tor, the resonant frequency is changed from 2.48 to

FIGURE 7 Current distribution for the proposed antenna (A) at 2.4 GHz, (B) at 5.8 GHz. [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
2130 | KIM
FIGURE 10 Antenna efficiency for the simulation and measure-
ment. [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
2.45 GHz. When connecting a high-band stub with the
length a 5 2.3 mm and width 1 mm distanced by c 5 9 mm
from the left, the high-band resonant frequency is changed
from 6.2 to 5.75 GHz. This shows that it is possible to design
an antenna for detailed resonant frequencies using the tuning
stubs.
One important parameter in a slot antenna is ground size
because the antenna radiation depends on the ground current.
In general, a small ground causes a narrow bandwidth due to
the small radiation resistance. A parametric study is per-
formed for the different ground sizes as shown in Figure 6.
FIGURE 11 Radiation pattern for the simulation and measurement (A) at 2.44 GHz, (B) at 5.8 GHz (the coordinate is the same as the Figure 2).
[Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
AND AHN
The resonant frequency of the proposed antenna is not
changed by the different ground sizes, and the change in
antenna impedance is minor. This means that the proposed
antenna will not be greatly affected by the form factor of
mobile devices.
Current distributions of the proposed antenna are plotted
at 2.4 and 5.8 GHz in Figure 7. If we ignore current which is
cancelled by the different direction at the right end of the
slot, current distribution at 2.45 GHz is similar to that of an
open slot antenna with an opening at right end of the slot.
The current distribution at 5.8 GHz is similar to the current
distribution of a half wavelength slot antenna. The high
capacitor value due to capacitor loading plays a role in con-
necting the stub and the ground.
3 | FABRICATION AND
MEASUREMENT RESULTS
Using the design method in Figure 4, a dual-band slot
antenna is implemented at 2.4 and 5.8 GHz. The capacitor
value Cp on the antenna is 0.5 pF. The antenna is fabricated
on a 1 mm thick FR4 (Er 5 4.4, tand 5 0.02) substrate as
shown in Figure 8. S11 of the fabricated antenna is measured
using a network analyzer and the measured S11 is compared
KIM AND AHN
with a simulation result as shown in Figure 9. The antenna
operates at the WiFi bands, 2.4 and 5.8 GHz, and the imped-
ance bandwidth, S11 < –10 dB, is measured as 2.41–
2.5 GHz (3.7%) and 5.47–6.23 GHz (13.1%), while the simu-
lation is 2.41–2.49 GHz (3.3%) and 5.42–6.24 GHz (14.1%)
which correspond well the measured values. The radiation
efficiency and 3D radiation patterns are measured at an
anechoic chamber. The efficiency and the realized gain of
the antenna for the simulation and the measurement are illus-
trated in Figure 10. The solid lines indicate measured values
while the dotted lines indicate simulation values. In 2.4 GHz
band from 2.4 to 2.5 GHz (100 MHz bandwidth) and in
5.8 GHz band from 5.5 to 6.2 GHz (700 M bandwidth)
the efficiencies are no less than 70 and 60%, respectively.
Also, it shows similar value between the simulation and the
measurement.
The radiation pattern is illustrated in Figure 11. For the
coordinate z-x, x-y, and z-y planes in Figure 2, radiation pat-
terns (power sum of both the co-polarization and x-polariza-
tion) are measured and as a result, the measurement and
simulation have matched well. At 2.44 GHz, the right end of
the slot looks like open by the parallel resonance and the
radiation pattern is inclined to the x-axis just as an open slot
antenna and at 5.8 GHz, the radiation pattern is slightly
inclined to both sides of the slot as does that of a conven-
tional half wavelength slot antenna.
4 | CONCLUSIONS
A design method for a slot antenna operating at dual bands
using capacitor loading is proposed. The first resonant fre-
quency of a conventional slot antenna occurs at half-
wavelength. However, the resonant frequency of the pro-
posed antenna occurs at less than a quarter wavelength. The
resonance mechanism is analyzed using a transmission line
model and verified through simulation and measurement. A
dual-band antenna operating at 2.4 and 5.8 GHz is designed
and fabricated. The fabricated antenna had a bandwidth of
3.7% and 13.1% at each frequency band. With regard to the
measurement of the radiation pattern, it is quite similar with
the simulation result. The maximum efficiency measured is
85% and 91%, respectively, at each frequency band. The pro-
posed design method can be applied for mobile device anten-
nas which need to be small in size and are surrounded by
metallic materials.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was supported by a grant from R&D
program of the Korea Railroad Research Institute, Republic
of Korea.
| 2131
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How to cite this article: Kim JH, Ahn C-H. Small
dual-band slot antenna using capacitor loading. Microw
Opt Technol Lett. 2017;59:2126–2131. https://doi.org/
10.1002/mop.30693