Using the Concept of Obtainable Efciency

Bandwidth to Study Tunable Matching Circuits

Jussi Rahola
Optenni Ltd
P.O. Box 42
02211 Espoo, Finland
Email: jussi.rahola@optenni.com
Risto Valkonen
Aalto University School of Electrical Engineering
SMARAD Centre of Excellence
Department of Radio Science and Engineering
P.O. Box 13000, 00076 AALTO, Finland
Email: risto.valkonen@aalto.
AbstractWhen designing tunable matching circuits for an-
tennas, it is often difcult and cumbersome to study which
matching circuit topology would be best for a given application.
To speed up this design task we propose the concept of obtainable
efciency bandwidth related to a given matching circuit topology.
The obtainable efciency bandwidth is calculated at a given
efciency level for all the frequencies of interest as the bandwidth
through an optimized matching circuit of the given topology. The
obtainable efciency bandwidth can be used to compare different
matching circuit topologies and also taking into account the losses
in the matching components.
I. INTRODUCTION
One of the key design criteria for antennas is the impedance
bandwidth (at a given return loss or VSWR level). During
the antenna concept creation and design stage it is useful
to study not only the observed impedance bandwidth but
also the obtainable impedance bandwidth through a matching
circuit. During the antenna design phase the antennas might
not be optimally matched (or they might be non-resonant) and
therefore looking at the observed impedance bandwidth might
give the wrong picture of the antenna performance. Instead, by
looking at the obtainable bandwidth a more fair comparison
of different antennas can be made.
For narrowband single-resonant antennas the obtainable
impedance bandwidth can be estimated by calculating the
antenna quality factor (Q factor). The calculation can be
carried out from the impedance data as explained in [1].
However, for wideband and multiresonant antennas the Q
factor is not any longer well dened and thus the estimation
can give misleading information about the obtainable antenna
impedance bandwidth [2], [3].
To obtain a better estimate of the obtainable impedance
bandwidth, the concept of bandwidth potential was proposed
in [4]. The bandwidth potential at a given frequency was
dened as the impedance bandwidth through a two-component
matching circuit when the original impedance was matched to
50 Ohms. In the concept of optimized bandwidth potential [5]
the two-component matching circuits are optimized for each
center frequency so that maximal bandwidth around the center
frequency is obtained. This denition gives more practical
results when multiresonant antennas are used.
As a renement to the original denitions of bandwidth
potential we prefer to calculate the results in terms of the sym-
metric impedance bandwidth, which makes the interpretation
of the result curves simpler and more unambiguous.
Matching circuits consisting of discrete inductors and capac-
itors and transmission lines are widely used to improve the
operation bandwidth of antennas and speed up the antenna
design process. It is usually much easier to the tune the
antenna resonance by changing the component values of a
matching circuits than by modifying the physical antenna
geometry. However, when using matching circuits particular
attention must be paid to component losses and tolerances.
In matching circuit design the priority should be to obtain
the best possible transfer of power from the generator to the
antennas. When real components with resistive losses are used,
the optimal power transfer is often obtained with different
component values than the best impedance match. This is the
key motivation to use the efciency bandwith approach instead
of impedance bandwidth.
In many cases the antenna system has to be made tunable
in order to cover a wide range of operation frequencies. For
example, the digital television standards use a wide range of
frequencies whose wavelength is large compared to the typical
dimensions of mobile devices. It would be very difcult to
cover the whole operation range with one passive antenna.
Another example of large bandwidth requirements is the LTE
(long term evolution) radio standard which uses frequencies
from 700 MHz to several gigahertz. Tunable antennas are also
needed in cognitive radios which operate as secondary users
on a variety of radio systems and a broad range of frequencies,
where they also need to sense if the frequencies are used by
the primary users or not.
One of the easiest methods for making tunable radio systems
is to use tunable matching circuits connected to the antennas.
One or multiple matching component are made tunable, either
with a continuous tuning range or with discrete steps. A
discretely tunable component can be realized by using a
bank of switched components in a parallel conguration. For
example, with 5 parallel switched branches, a 32-state tunable
component is obtained.
This paper describes how the bandwidth estimation tools
can be used to help the design of tunable matching circuits.
The main goal is to help the antenna engineer to choose the
best topology for the matching circuit.
6th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EUCAP)
978-1-4577-0919-7/12/$26.00 2011 IEEE 1869
II. OBTAINABLE EFFICIENCY BANDWIDTH
In the standard bandwidth potential algorithm, different
matching circuit topologies are considered for each center fre-
quency and the best topology in terms of impedance bandwidth
determines the bandwidth potential value. The best topology
is naturally changing as a function of frequency. When the
bandwidth potential calculation is used as a gure of merit
for an antenna candidate, the bandwidth potential at the center
frequency of the desired operation band is evaluated to see if
the operation band could be covered with a two-component
matching circuit.
When a tunable matching circuit is used, the same topology
has to be used over a range of frequencies. Thus, to ease
the analysis of tunable matching circuits, the concept of
bandwidth potential can be extended to the case where the
matching circuit topology is xed. Furthermore, we propose
to take the losses in the matching circuit into account and
rather talk about the obtainable efciency bandwidth of a
circuit topology, calculated at a required minimum efciency
level. The algorithm for calculating the obtainable efciency
bandwidth OEBW(f) is as follows:
1) Loop over all the frequencies of interest f.
2) For a frequency f, optimize the matching circuit com-
ponent values, using the given topology, so that the
symmetric efciency bandwidth (at a given efciency
level) is maximized and store this value as OEBW(f).
Then the obtainable efciency bandwidth can be plotted as
a function of frequency in the form of absolute or relative
bandwidth (the bandwidth as a percentage of the center
frequency).
The obtainable efciency bandwidth can be used in the
following fashion when designing tunable antenna systems.
Suppose that the task is to design a tunable antenna system that
would give at least 2 dB efciency over the frequency range
[f
1
, f
2
] with an instantaneous bandwidth of 10 MHz. Now
calculate the obtainable efciency bandwidth OEBW(f) at
2 dB level for a given matching circuit topology and antenna
and if the value is more that 10 MHz for all the frequencies
in the range [f
1
, f
2
], then the matching circuit topology could
be used for the tunable application. To be more exact, it is
enough if the OEBW(f) between f
1
+ 5 MHz and f
2
5
MHz is larger than 10 MHz.
Note that in the denition of the obtainable efciency
bandwidth by default all the matching circuit components
values can be changed, and thus all the components would be
tunable ones. However, this is not a fundamental restriction.
For practical reasons, it is often useful to x the values of
some of the components and only allow the tuning of the
rest of the components. Then, the obtained result naturally
depends on the value of the xed component. Likewise,
restrictions for the minimal and maximal component values
can be incorporated to make the analysis more practical. In
addition, realistic component losses should be used in the
analysis, typically dened as a Q factor for inductors and
effective series resistance for capacitors.
III. EXAMPLES
Consider the antenna geometry visualized in Fig. 1. The
ground plane is a PEC plate of 40 mm by 100 mm. We use a
coupling element type antenna that is separated by 2 mm gap
from the ground plane. The vertical antenna plate extends 4
mm above the ground plane and the horizontal antenna plate is
2 mm wide. All the metalizations are 0.5 mm thick. The whole
structure is enclosed in a plastic shell (relative permittivity 3
and electric loss tangent 0.01) that is 1 mm thick and separated
from the structure by a 0.5-1 mm gap on all sides. The antenna
was simulated with CST Microwave Studio [6]. The matching
circuits were simulated using Optenni Lab matching circuit
optimization software [7].
Fig. 1. Antenna geometry.
Our goal is to make a tunable antenna system that would
operate from 700 MHz to 960 MHz with at least 20 MHz
instantaneous efciency bandwidth at -2.2 dB efciency level
(corresponding to 4 dB return loss).
Fig. 2 shows the optimized bandwidth potential of the
antenna calculated at the 4 dB return loss level. At the
center frequency of the desired operation range (830 MHz),
the bandwidth potential is around 120 MHz, showing that
the antenna cannot be operated with a xed two-component
matching circuit. With more matching components a better
impedance bandwidth can be obtained, but then the component
losses will start to reduce the efciency bandwidth.
uandW|dth ctent|a|
bWct
A
b
s
o
|
u
t
e

b
a
n
d
w
i
d
t
h

[
M
u
z

0
100
200
300
+00
S00
Irequency [Guz
0,6 0,8 1 1,2 1,+
Fig. 2. Optimized bandwidth potential at 4 dB return loss of the example
topology.
1870
We will now examine the performance of tunable two-
component matching circuits topologies M1 to M4 given in
Figs. 3 to 6. These are the four two-component topologies that
are suitable in matching the coupling element at frequencies
below 1.5 GHz.
tcad
|crt 1
2
t1. 12 nu
t2
+ nu
Generatcr
|crt 1
1
Fig. 3. Matching circuit topology M1. The component values produce a
resonance within the desired operation range.
tcad
|crt 1
2
t1. 19 nu
C1
9 |
Generatcr
|crt 1
1
Fig. 4. Matching circuit topology M2.
tcad
|crt 1
2
t1
8 nu
C1. 1 |
Generatcr
|crt 1
1
Fig. 5. Matching circuit topology M3.
tcad
|crt 1
2
t1
20 nu
t2. 28 nu
Generatcr
|crt 1
1
Fig. 6. Matching circuit topology M4.
Fig. 7 shows the comparison of the bandwidth potential (at
4 dB return loss level) to the obtainable efciency bandwidths
assuming the topologies M1 to M4 are lossless. The bandwidth
potential curve is obtained as the maximum envelope curve of
the obtainable efciency bandwidth curves, considering all the
topologies.
Fig. 8 shows the effect of losses on obtainable efciency
bandwidth for matching circuit topology M1. First, the match-
ing circuit M1 is analyzed with lossless components. Then
moderate component losses (Q factor of 70 at 1 GHz) are
added for the inductors. In the third case the value of the
shunt inductor in circuit M1 is xed to 4 nH and the other
inductor is allowed to vary.
Finally, Fig. 9 shows the obtainable efciency bandwidth
for topologies M1 to M4 when components with losses are
used. The capacitors have a series resistance of 0.1 Ohm and
the inductors have the same Q value as above.
8andwidth
uandW|dth ctent|a|

A
b
s
o
|
u
t
e

b
a
n
d
w
i
d
t
h

[
M
u
z

S
Irequency [Guz
,6 ,8 , , ,6
Fig. 7. Bandwidth potential at 4 dB return loss versus obtainable efciency
bandwidth at -2.2 dB efciency level for lossless topologies M1 to M4. The
bandwidth potential curve is right behind the curves for topologies M1 and
M4.
Obtainab|e etticiency bandwidth
tcss|ess
tcsses
One ||xed cca
A
b
s
o
|
u
t
e

b
a
n
d
w
i
d
t
h

[
M
u
z

0
100
200
300
+00
S00
Irequency [Guz
0,6 0,8 1 1,2 1,+ 1,6
Fig. 8. Obtainable efciency bandwidth at -2.2 dB efciency level for
topology M1 without losses, with losses and with losses so that the shunt
inductor is xed to 4 nH.
Obtainab|e etticiency bandwidth
M1
M2
M3
M+
A
b
s
o
|
u
t
e

b
a
n
d
w
i
d
t
h

[
M
u
z

0
100
200
300
+00
S00
Irequency [Guz
0,6 0,8 1 1,2 1,+ 1,6
Fig. 9. Obtainable efciency bandwidth at -2.2 dB efciency level for
topologies M1 to M4 when components with losses are used.
1871
Fig. 9 also shows that the best performance is obtained with
matching circuit topologies M1 and M4. These topologies can
cover the desired operation range.
In practical tunable matching circuits tunable capacitors are
preferred over tunable inductors due to their smaller losses. In
addition, continuously tunable inductors operating on a broad
frequency range are not currently found on the market.
We will now examine the same physical antenna as before
and try to nd tunable matching circuit geometries to be used
from 1 GHz upward. Fig. 10 shows the wideband optimized
bandwidth potential of the antenna. Based on our experience
we chose the topology M5 shown in Fig. 11 with three
xed inductors and two tunable capacitors. We prefer to use
the capacitors in the shunt conguration to minimize the
associated losses.
Fig. 12 shows the obtainable efciency bandwidth for this
topology at the -2.2 dB efciency level. In the analysis, the
Q factor of the inductors was set to 100 at 1 GHz and the
effective series resistance of the tunable capacitors to 0.5 Ohm.
The result shows that the tunable matching circuit gives at least
100 MHz of instantaneous bandwidth from 1 to 6 GHz at the
given efciency level.
8andwidth potentia|
bWct
A
b
s
o
|
u
t
e

b
a
n
d
w
i
d
t
h

[
M
u
z

0
S00
1 000
1 S00
2 000
Irequency [Guz
0 1 2 3 + S 6
Fig. 10. Optimized bandwidth potential at 4 dB return loss level of the
example antenna.
tcad
|crt 1
2
t1
+ nu
C1
2.S |
t2. 2 nu
C2
1.S |
t3
3 nu
Generatcr
|crt 1
1
Fig. 11. Matching circuit topology M5, with three xed inductors and two
tunable capacitors.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
We have proposed the concept of obtainable efciency band-
width of a matching circuit that is connected to an antenna.
The obtainable efciency bandwidth is calculated starting from
the antenna input impedance, a matching circuit topology
Obtainab|e etticiency bandwidth
M
A
b
s
o
|
u
t
e

b
a
n
d
w
i
d
t
h

[
M
u
z

Irequency [Guz

Fig. 12. Obtainable efciency bandwidth at -2.2 dB efciency level for
topology M5 when components with losses are used.
and a target level for the efciency through the matching
circuit. At each frequency, the calculation uses an optimization
algorithm to maximize the symmetric efciency bandwidth of
the matching circuit around the analysis frequency.
The obtainable efciency bandwidth can be used to study
the relative performance of different tunable matching circuit
topologies. The concept allows all the matching components
to be tunable or alternatively the values of some components
could be xed and only a couple of components would be
allowed to have variable values.
The proposed concept is related to the concept of bandwidth
potential that is used to estimate the obtainable impedance
bandwidth. Originally, the bandwidth potential calculation
(e.g. using an optimized two-component matching circuit)
was mainly used to select the best possible antenna in an
early design stage. With a xed matching circuit topology
the bandwidth potential concept can also be used to select a
tunable matching circuit topology for a given antenna and to
evaluate how different antennas would perform in conjunction
with such a tunable matching circuit.
For a xed matching circuit topology, the concept of ob-
tainable efciency bandwidth can be used in a similar way
as the bandwidth potential, but the component losses can be
taken into account to get more realistic bandwidth estimates.
REFERENCES
[1] A. Yaghjian and S. Best, Impedance, bandwidth, and Q of antennas,
IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 53, pp. 12981324, 2005.
[2] H. R. Stuart, S. R. Best, and A. D. Yaghjian, Limitations in relating
quality factor to bandwidth in a double resonance small antenna, IEEE
Antennas Wireless Propagat. Lett., vol. 6, pp. 460463, 2007.
[3] J. Rahola, Estimating antenna bandwidth using the bandwidth potential
and Q value techniques, in Proceedings of the 15th International Sym-
posium on Antennas and Propagation, Macao, November 23-26, 2010.
[4] J. Villanen, J. Ollikainen, O. Kivek as, and P. Vainikainen, Coupling
element based mobile terminal antenna structures, IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propagat., vol. 54, pp. 21422153, 2006.
[5] J. Rahola, Bandwidth potential and electromagnetic isolation: Tools for
analysing the impedance behaviour of antenna systems, in Proceedings
of the EuCAP 2009 conference, Berlin, March 23-27, 2009.
[6] CST Microwave Studio EM simulator, www.cst.com.
[7] Optenni Lab matching circuit optimization software, www.optenni.com.
1872