SIW Cavity Backed Self-Diplexing Tunable Antenna

Abstract

This communication presents a compact quarter-mode substrate integrated waveguide (QMSIW) cavity-backed self-diplexing tunable antenna. An open-ended slot is used to split the circular half-mode SIW (HMSIW) cavity resonator into two QMSIW cavity resonators. A varactor diode-loaded stub is added with each QMSIW resonator to achieve miniaturization and resonant frequency tuning. The miniaturization and tunability technique is demonstrated in a stand-alone QMSIW resonator and also in a QMSIW based self-diplexing antenna. The antenna is simulated, optimized, and subjected to practical testing inside a rectangular device. The device is treated as a quasi-receiver/transmitter, which consists of electronic circuitry and the proposed antenna. The resonant frequencies can be independently tuned by changing the values of the varactor diodes connected with each resonator. The simulated and measured results confirm that the proposed antenna can be tuned from 3.77 to 4.59 and from 4.96 to 6.1 GHz in the lower and higher frequency bands, respectively. The isolation between the two resonators in both bands is always better than 21 dB. The measured gains vary from 4.85 to 5.87 and 4.87 to 6.5 dBi in the lower and higher frequency bands, respectively. The proposed design shows stable and unidirectional radiation patterns in all tuning cases in both bands. The proposed self-diplexing tunable antenna is a competitive choice in compact and spectral-efficient radio frequency (RF) front ends where tuning is necessary for the efficient use of the frequency spectrum.