Novel Compact Ultra-Wideband Bandpass Filter by Application of Short-Circuited Stubs and Stepped-Impedance-Resonator

Abstract

To realize the compact ultra-wideband (UWB) bandpass filters, a novel filter prototype with two short-circuited stubs loaded at both sides of a stepped-impedance resonator (SIR) via the parallel coupled lines is proposed based on a distributed filter synthesis theory. The equivalent circuit of this filter is established, while the corresponding 7-pole Chebyshev-type transfer function is derived for filter synthesis. Then, a distributed-circuit-based technique was presented to synthesize the elements' values of this filter. As an example, a FCC UWB filter with the fractional bandwidth (FWB) @ -10 dB up to 110% was designed using the proposed prototype and then re-modeled by commercial microwave circuit simulator to verify the correctness and accuracy of the synthesis theory. Furthermore, in terms of EM simulator, the filter was further-optimized and experimentally-realized by using microstrip line. Good agreements between the measurement results and theoretical ones validate the effectiveness of our technique. In addition, compared with the conventional SIR-type UWB filter without short-circuited stubs, the new one significantly improves the selectivity and out-of-band characteristics (especially in lower one -45 dB@1-2 GHz) to satisfy the FCC's spectrum mask. The designed filter also exhibits very compact size, quite low insertion loss, steep skirts, flat group delay and the easily-fabricatable structure (the coupling gap dimension in this filter is 0.15 mm) as well. Moreover, it should be noted that, in terms of the presented design technique, the proposed filter prototype can be also used to easily realize the UWB filters with other FBW even greater than 110%.