IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 62, NO.
7, JULY 2014
Frequency-Reconfigurable Low-Profile Circular
Monopolar Patch Antenna
Lei Ge, Student Member, IEEE, and Kwai-Man Luk, Fellow, IEEE
AbstractA novel frequency-reconfigurable antenna is pre-
sented based on a circular monopolar patch antenna. The antenna
comprises of a center-fed circular patch surrounded by four
sector-shaped patches. Eight varactor diodes are introduced to
bridge the gaps between the circular patch and the sector-shaped
patches. By changing the reverse bias voltage of the varactor
diodes, the antenna can be switched in the operating frequency. A
fully functional prototype is developed and tested, which exhibits a
continuously tunable frequency band from 1.64 GHz to 2.12 GHz.
The measured efficiency rises from about 45% to about 85% as
the operating frequency increases from 1.64 GHz to 2.12 GHz.
Stable monopole like radiation patterns are achieved at all op-
erating frequencies. In addition, the antenna owns a low-profile
structure (0.04 free-space wavelengths at 1.9 GHz). The frequency
selective feature and stable radiation patterns make the antenna
potentially suitable for future wireless communication systems,
such as cognitive radio.
Index TermsCognitive radio, frequency-reconfigurable an-
tenna, monopolar patch antenna, varactor diode.
I. INTRODUCTION
A S the electromagnetic frequency spectrum for wireless
communications is getting more congested, frequency-re-
configurable antennas have received significant attention due to
its ability to use the spectrum efficiently. Cognitive radio [1],
[2] is one candidate of future wireless communication systems,
where it utilizes frequency-reconfigurable narrowband antennas
to communicate at some unoccupied frequency. To obtain reli-
able system performance, good frequency selectivity and stable
radiation patterns at all frequencies are desired for frequency-re-
configurable antennas. Besides, other demands are also needed,
such as compact size, low-profile structure, easy fabrication and
inexpensive price.
Frequency-reconfigurable antennas are often realized by em-
ploying PIN diodes, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)
switches, or varactor diodes as tunable components [3]. PIN
diodes are usually inexpensive and exist in abundance on the
market in various packages and configurations; therefore many
Manuscript received December 20, 2013; revised March 04, 2014; accepted
April 07, 2014. Date of publication April 17, 2014; date of current version July
02, 2014. This work was supported in part by the Research Grants Council of
the Hong Kong SAR and CityU Strategic Research Grant [Project No. CityU
9041677].
The authors are with the State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves, City
University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China (e-mail: hellogelei@gmail.com).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2014.2318077
0018-926X 2014 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
3443
frequency-reconfigurable antennas are designed based on PIN
diodes [4][7]. Nevertheless, the poor quality factor and high
power loss introduced by PIN diodes limit their applications.
MEMS switches have some advantages over PIN diodes, such
as lower insertion loss, higher quality factor, higher linearity,
and lower power losses. However, they show higher control
voltage and longer switching time. Since recent developments
in MEMS technology enable the realization of MEMS with
high switching speed and compact size, reconfigurable an-
tenna design using MEMS switches has acquired tremendous
research interest [8][11]. Integrating varactor diodes in an
antenna structure is commonly utilized for achieving frequency
reconfiguration [12][15]. Since varactor diodes have the
advantages of continuously frequency tuning ability, they can
simplify the circuit complexity in the applications where a large
number of operating bands are required. Nevertheless, varactor
diodes own the disadvantages of nonlinearity, low dynamic
range and high power losses.
Some frequency-reconfigurable antennas were recently
developed based on monopole antennas using PIN diodes
[7], MEMS switches [11], or varactor diodes [14], [15]. A
compact printed monopole antenna was presented in [7] with
switchable operating band between UMTS band and WLAN
band. The frequency reconfiguration was realized by inserting
a PIN diode as a switch in the middle of the monopole. In
[11], a frequency-reconfigurable antenna for mobile terminals
was proposed to cover all frequency bands between 640 MHz
and 5.85 GHz. Four different operating modes were achieved
by inserting three MEMS switches in a double folded rectan-
gular monopole. In [14], a frequency-reconfigurable monopole
antenna was demonstrated by inserting a varactor-based recon-
figurable filter in the input port of a planar wideband monopole
antenna. Five continuous narrow bands and a wide band were
achieved to make the antenna operated for different wireless
standards. Although so many designs have been proposed in the
literature, neither can own a low-profile structure nor achieve
stable radiation patterns.
Monopolar patch antenna has been extensively studied
[16][21] because of its monopole like radiation patterns and
its low-profile structure (less than 0.1 free-space wavelengths
at the center operating frequency). Han and Huang presented
a reconfigurable monopolar patch antenna in [22] to meet the
demand of modern mobile communication services. The design
had a rectangular patch with two shorting pins. Four open
stubs were attached to the rectangular patch through four PIN
diodes, and eight different operating bands were achieved by
controlling the states of the diodes. However, the design was
complicated and the radiation patterns at different frequency
3444
Fig. 1. Geometry of the proposed antenna: (a) Top view; (b) Side view. The
parameters for the antenna are , ,
, , , , .
bands were varied because of the unsymmetrical antenna struc-
ture. In this paper, a novel frequency-reconfigurable antenna
is proposed. The antenna is composed of a center-fed circular
patch surrounded by four sector-shaped patches. Eight varactor
diodes are introduced to bridge the gaps between the circular
patch and the sector-shaped patches. By tuning the reverse bias
voltage of the varactor diodes, the antenna is able to be operated
at a continuously tunable frequency band. Stable monopole like
radiation patterns can be achieved at all operating frequencies.
To demonstrate its functionality, a prototype with tunable op-
erating frequency from 1.64 GHz to 2.12 GHz was fabricated
and measured.
II. ANTENNA GEOMETRY
Fig. 1 shows the geometry of the proposed antenna with
detailed dimensions. The antenna is printed on a 6.34 mm
thickness Rogers dielectric which is realized by
stacking two 3.17 mm thickness substrates and removing the
middle two copper layers. A circular patch surrounded by four
sector-shaped patches is printed on the top side, while a circular
ground with radius is printed on the bottom side.
A SMA connector is located underneath the substrate while its
inner conductor connects to the center of the circular patch.
The gaps between the circular patch and the four sector-shaped
patches are bridged by four pairs of varactor diodes which
are placed along the edges of the sector-shaped patches. The
varactor diodes are SMV2019 from Skyworks where the ca-
pacitance of the diodes changes from 2.22 pF to 0.30 pF when
the reverse bias voltage increases from 0 V to 20 V [23]. This
specific varactor diode is chosen due to the required capacitance
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 62, NO. 7, JULY 2014
Fig. 2. One-eighth of the antenna (one sector).
,
Fig. 3. Equivalent circuit model of one sector of the proposed antenna:
(a) Model with actual varactor; (b) Model with varactor operated as a short
circuit; (c) Model with varactor operated as an open circuit.
tuning range and its low series resistance. The anodes of the
varactors are soldered to the circular patch while the cathodes
of the diodes are soldered to the sector-shaped patches. A
shorting pin is used to connect the circular patch with the
ground for DC signal. Then the anodes of all the varactors can
be supplied with a 0 V DC voltage by connecting the ground
plane of the antenna to the ground terminal of the DC power
supply. On the other hand, four thin DC lines with the width
of 1 mm are printed around to provide the cathodes of the
varactors with a tunable positive DC voltage as described
in Fig. 1(a). The connection from the thin DC lines and the
ground plane to the terminals of DC power supply is realized
by DC cables placed underneath the ground plane, which can
avoid the DC cables from the influence of the RF single. The
DC lines and the shorting pin are isolated from the RF signal
by 47 nH inductors.
III. PRINCIPLE OF OPERATION
The DC lines, shorting pin and all the inductors have negli-
gible effect on the antenna performance and are eliminated in the
following analysis of antenna characteristics. Due to the sym-
metric property of the structure in Fig. 1, only one-eighth of
the patch as the sector described in Fig. 2 needs to be analyzed
and the edges of each sector are perfect magnetic symmetric
planes as Fig. 2 shows. Therefore, the total impedance of the
antenna is equal to one-eighth of the impedance of one sector.
The impedance of one sector can be approximately calculated
by the equivalent circuit model as shown in Fig. 3(a). It should
GE AND LUK: FREQUENCY-RECONFIGURABLE LOW-PROFILE CIRCULAR MONOPOLAR PATCH ANTENNA 3445

Fig. 4. Simulated reflection coefficients when the varactors replaced by short

circuits or open circuits.

be noted that the equivalent circuit is given just for explaining

the principle of operation, and therefore the values for elements
on the circuit are not calculated. is the coupling capacitance
between the circular patch and the sector-shaped patches. The
varactor diode is modeled as a series RLC circuit with
2.22 pF, , from [23], and the RLC
circuit is set as boundary sheet in our simulations with Ansoft
HFSS [24]. and are small and not considered in the anal-
ysis of impedance characteristics. Different changes the an-
tenna impedance, which leads to variable impedance matching.
The theoretical frequency tuning range can be obtained if
can be any positive capacitance value. Very large makes the
varactor as a short circuit as Fig. 3(b) describes which products Fig. 5. Current distribution of the antenna at different frequency bands:
the lowest operating frequency, while very small leads the (a) Band 1 (1.64 GHz); (b) Band 3 (1.84 GHz); (c) Band 5 (2.12 GHz).
varactor to be an open circuit as Fig. 3(c) describes which prod-
ucts the highest operating frequency. Therefore, the theoret-
ical frequency tuning range is determined by the circular patch,
sector-shaped patches and the coupling between them. Fig. 4
gives the simulated return losses of the proposed antenna when
the varactors are replaced by short circuits and open circuits,
where the theoretical frequency tuning range is from 1.3 GHz
to 2.4 GHz. However, as the capacitance of the actual varactor
can only be tuned within certain range, the practical frequency
tuning range is only some part within the theoretical range.
On the other hand, by tuning the capacitance of the varactors,
the current distribution of the antenna can be changed. Fig. 5
shows the current distribution of the antenna operated at dif-
ferent frequencies. When the capacitance of the varactors is as
large as 2.22 pF, the antenna is worked as a large circular patch
at mode with the operating frequency at 1.64 GHz as
Fig. 5(a) describes. When the capacitance of the varactors is as
small as 0.3 pF, the antenna is worked as a small circular patch
at mode with the operating frequency at 2.12 GHz as
Fig. 5(c) describes. When the capacitance of the varactors varies Fig. 6. Photo of the fabricated antenna.
from 2.22 pF to 0.3 pF, the antenna is always worked at
mode with increasing operating frequency. Consequently, the
antenna has the advantage of stable monopole like radiation pat- results of reflection coefficient , antenna gain, radiation
terns over the frequency tuning range. efficiency and far-field radiation patterns were obtained by an
Agilent N5230A network analyzer and a Satimo Starlab near-
IV. SIMULATED AND MEASURED RESULTS field measurement system.
A prototype of the antenna as depicted in Fig. 6 was fabricated
to verify the proposed design. Four plastic screws were used, A. Impedance Matching
surrounding the circular patch, to fix the two substrates firmly. Table I gives five operating bands within the continuous fre-
Simulation was accomplished using Ansoft HFSS. Measured quency tuning range, achieved by choosing five different re-
3446
TABLE I
MEASURED OPERATING BANDS AT DIFFERENT REVERSE BIAS VOLTAGE
Fig. 7. Simulated (dashed lines) and measured (solid lines) reflection coeffi-
cients of different bands.
Fig. 8. Frequency-voltage curve.
verse bias voltages. In Fig. 7, the simulated and measured an-
tenna reflection coefficients are compared over the five bands
with good agreement. Good impedance matching is observed at
each band. The reflection coefficient increases with the rise of
the operating frequency and will be above 10 dB if the oper-
ating frequency keeps rising to more than 2.2 GHz. Fig. 8 de-
scribes the frequency-voltage curve, where the measured op-
erating frequency is obtained by tuning the bias voltage and
the simulated results are realized in the simulation software by
varying the values of in the equivalent circuit according to
the data sheet. It can be observed that the center operating fre-
quency varies from 1.64 GHz to 2.12 GHz as the reverse bias
voltage increases from 0 V to 20 V.
B. Gain and Radiation Efficiency
Table II shows the simulated and measured peak gains of
the antenna operated at the five bands. It can be observed that
the measured gain rises from 1.5 dBi to 5.9 dBi as the oper-
ating frequency increases from 1.64 GHz to 2.12 GHz. This is
mainly due to the different power losses at different operating
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 62, NO. 7, JULY 2014
TABLE II
SIMULATED AND MEASURED PEAK GAINS AND POWER LOSSES
Fig. 9. Simulated (dashed lines) and measured (solid lines) radiation efficiency.
frequency. As described in Table II, the measured power losses
decrease from 3.2 dB to 0.6 dB as the operating frequency in-
creases from 1.64 GHz to 2.12 GHz. On the other hand, Fig. 9
describes the radiation efficiency of the five bands, where the
measured efficiency rises from about 45% to about 85% as the
operating frequency increases from 1.64 GHz to 2.12 GHz. This
is because when the antenna is operated at lower frequency
(e.g., Band 1), more RF signal goes through the varactors than
that at higher frequency (e.g., Band 5) as observed from Fig. 5.
Thus more ohmic losses of the varactors are introduced
at lower frequency. It should be mentioned that ohmic losses
of the varactors (with series resistance ) dominate
the power losses, since the metal losses and dielectric losses
(with ) are negligible com-
pared with the ohmic losses. The significant effect of varactors
on the antenna efficiency as the proposed antenna shows is a
common drawback when varactors are used to implement the
tunable capacitors in the reconfigurable antennas [12][14]. Be-
cause the variation of varactor capacitance changes the strength
of current that goes through the varactors, which hence changes
the power losses introduced by varactors.
C. Radiation Patterns
The simulated and measured radiation patterns of the five par-
ticular bands are shown in Fig. 10. Good agreement between
simulated and measured radiation patterns is achieved. In the el-
evation plane, conical radiation patterns are obtained with cross
polarization levels below 20 dB. Results show that the eleva-
tion patterns at all the bands are similar. In the azimuth plane,
the antenna owns omnidirectional radiation patterns with cross
polarization levels below 15 dB. The azimuth patterns at all
the bands are also uniform. To sum up, the proposed antenna has
GE AND LUK: FREQUENCY-RECONFIGURABLE LOW-PROFILE CIRCULAR MONOPOLAR PATCH ANTENNA
Fig. 10. Radiation patterns of different bands: (a) Band 1 at 1.64 GHz; (b) Band
2 at 1.72 GHz; (c) Band 3 at 1.84 GHz; (d) Band 4 at 1.96 GHz; (e) Band 5 at
2.12 GHz.
stable monopole like radiation patterns over the whole tuning
range of frequency.
3447
Fig. 11. Effect of on reflection coefficients of Band 1 and 5 and radiation
efficiency of Band 1 (in mm).
V. PARAMETRIC STUDY
To understand how the dimensions of the antenna affect the
performances, a parametric study was performed using HFSS.
When one parameter is studied, the others are kept constant. The
results provide a useful guideline for practical design.
The first parameter studied was the height of the antenna .
Fig. 11 shows the reflection coefficients of Band 1 and Band 5
and radiation efficiency of Band 1. As we can observe, when
decreases from 9.51 mm to 3.17 mm, Band 1 shifts slightly
to higher frequency, while Band 5 shifts substantially to higher
frequency. On the other hand, the radiation efficiency of Band 1
decreases enormously with the decrease of . Thus, two stacked
substrates were utilized to supply the an-
tenna with large frequency tuning range and low profile while
avoiding from low efficiency.
The second parameter studied was the radius of the circular
patch while keeping constant, as is important for
the antenna performance known from Section III. Fig. 12 shows
the reflection coefficients of the antenna operated at Band 1 and
Band 5 as examples to state the effect of . As we can observe,
the operating frequency of Band 1 almost maintains fixed with
different . On the other hand, the operating frequency of Band
5 shifts to high frequency when increases from 26 mm to 46
mm, and then shifts back to low frequency when continues
increasing to 66 mm. At the same time, a small or large
leads to the reflection coefficient above 10 dB, and another
resonance emerges within the band of interest when is too
large at both Band 1 and Band 5. Thus, was
selected for large frequency tuning range and good impedance
matching without the emergence of another resonance.
The third parameter studied was the central angle of the
sector-shaped patches . Band 1 is taken as an example to state
the effect of . It is seen from Fig. 13(a) that the radiation
efficiency is sensitive to the variation of . A small or large ,
such as or 70 , results in the decrease of efficiency
compared with the result of . At the same time, as
strong current concentrates around the varactors from Fig. 5,
small makes the current distribution inhomogeneous and
hence leads to fluctuant co-polarization pattern in the azimuth
plane as described in Fig. 13(b). Thus, was selected
for high efficiency and stable radiation patterns.
3448
Fig. 12. Effect of : (a) Simulated reflection coefficients of Band 1;
(b) Simulated reflection coefficients of Band 5 (in mm).
Fig. 13. Effect of : (a) Simulated radiation efficiency of Band 1 with different
; (b) Comparison of azimuth radiation patterns of Band 1 with different .
The fourth parameter studied was the number of sector-
shaped patches, where Band 5 is taken as an example to state its
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 62, NO. 7, JULY 2014
Fig. 14. Comparison of azimuth radiation patterns of Band 5 with different N.
effect. For convenience, the number of sector-shaped patches
is expressed as N, accordingly the number of varactor diodes is
2N. When N decreases, such as , is set to be around
60 for the 6 varactors placed uniformly. These few varactors
lead the current distribution varying greatly around the circular
patch and hence result in fluctuant co-polarization pattern and
high cross polarization level in azimuth plane as illustrated in
Fig. 14. When N increases, such as , is set to be around
30 for the 12 varactors placed uniformly. The co-polarization
pattern is more stable and the cross-polarization level is smaller
compared with the results of . On the other hand, large N
increases the number of varactor diodes and inductors, which
makes the antenna more complicated and expensive. Thus,
four sector-shaped patches are fabricated to briefly demonstrate
the proposed design with acceptable radiation patterns. More
sector-shaped patches and more varactor diodes can be used to
achieve better antenna performance without the consideration
of complexity and costs.
VI. CONCLUSION
A novel frequency-reconfigurable monopolar patch antenna
with low-profile structure is proposed. The antenna is composed
of a center-fed circular patch surrounded by four sector-shaped
patches. Eight varactor diodes are introduced to bridge the gaps
between the circular patch and the sector-shaped patches. The
large number of varactors required in the antenna makes the de-
sign complicated and expensive, which is brought by the an-
tenna geometry and is the sacrifice of stable radiation patterns. A
prototype is fabricated and measured which shows the antenna
with a continuous frequency tuning range from 1.64 GHz to 2.12
GHz by changing the reverse bias voltage of the varactor diodes
from 0 V to 20 V. Stable monopole like radiation patterns are
achieved at all operating frequencies. A design guideline is pro-
vided for practical applications. With the frequency reconfigu-
ration and stable radiation patterns, the proposed antenna can
find potential applications for future wireless communications.
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[23] SMV2019 Varactors Datasheet.
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com/
Lei Ge (S11) was born in Jiangsu, China, in 1987.
He received the B.S. degree in electronic engi-
neering from Nanjing University of Science and
Technology, Nanjing, China, in 2009. Currently, he
is working toward the Ph.D. degree in electronic
engineering at City University of Hong Kong.
From September 2010 to July 2011, he was a
Research Assistant with the City University of
Hong Kong. His recent research interest focuses
on wideband antennas, patch antennas, base station
antennas, reconfigurable antennas and the antennas
for cognitive radio.
Mr. Ge received Honorable Mention at the student contest of the 2012
IEEE APS-URSI Conference and Exhibition held in Chicago, IL, USA.
Kwai-Man Luk (M79SM94F03) was born
and educated in Hong Kong. He received the B.Sc.
(Eng.) and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering
from The University of Hong Kong, in 1981 and
1985, respectively.
In 1985, he joined the Department of Electronic
Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, as a
Lecturer. Two years later, he moved to the Depart-
ment of Electronic Engineering, Chinese University
of Hong Kong, where he spent four years. He
returned to the City University of Hong Kong in
1992, and is currently Chair Professor of Electronic Engineering and Director
of the State Key Laboratory in Millimeter waves (Hong Kong). He is the author
of three books, nine research book chapters, over 290 journal papers and 220
conference papers. He has received five US and more than 10 PRC patents. His
recent research interests include design of patch, planar and dielectric resonator
antennas, and microwave measurements.
Prof. Luk is a Fellow of the Chinese Institute of Electronics, China, the In-
stitution of Engineering and Technology, U.K., the Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers, USA, and the Electromagnetics Academy, USA. He is
Deputy Editor-in-Chief of PIERS journals. He was a Chief Guest Editor for a
special issue on Antennas in Wireless Communications in Proceedings of the
IEEE in July 2012. He was Technical Program Chairperson of the 1997 Progress
in Electromagnetics Research Symposium (PIERS), General Vice-Chairperson
of the 1997 and 2008 Asia-Pacific Microwave Conference (APMC), General
Chairman of the 2006 IEEE Region Ten Conference (TENCON), Technical
Program Co-chairperson of the 2008 International Symposium on Antennas and
Propagation (ISAP), and General Co-chairperson of the 2011 IEEE International
Workshop on Antenna Technology (IWAT). He received the Japan Microwave
Prize at the 1994 Asia Pacific Microwave Conference held in Chiba in December
1994, and the Best Paper Award at the 2008 International Symposium on An-
tennas and Propagation held in Taipei in October 2008. He was awarded the
very competitive 2000 Croucher Foundation Senior Research Fellow in Hong
Kong and the 2011 State Technological Invention Award (2nd Honor) of China.