2012 International Conference on Communication, Information & Computing Technology (ICCICT), Oct.

19-20, Mumbai, India

Design and Optimization of Microstrip Hairpin-Line

Bandpass Filter using DOE Methodology
Tanvi Singh, Jesseena Chacko, Neha Sebastian, Roshni Thoppilan, Ashwini Kotrashetti and Sudhakar Mande
Department of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering
Don Bosco Institute of Technology
Mumbai, India

AbstractThis paper proposes a novel methodology for the

optimization of Hairpin-Line bandpass filter. The proposed
methodology is based on well-known Plackett-Burman Design of
Experiment technique. First, a five section hairpin resonator is
designed to operate at a center frequency of 2.4GHz with a
bandwidth of 300MHz using Genesys software. Plackett-Burman
Design of Experiment methodology is then applied to this filter
for further optimization. Implementation of proposed approach
shows 61% improvement in return loss and 15% improvement in
insertion loss of the filter as compared to the filter designed using
Genesys software.
Keywords-bandpass filter; hairpin resonator; Plackett-Burman

I.

INTRODUCTION

The use of microstrip in the design of microwave

components and integrated circuits has gained tremendous
popularity in the last few decades because microstrip can
operate in a wide range of frequencies. Microstrip is a good
candidate for filter design due to its advantages of low cost,
compact size, light weight, planar structure and easy
integration with other components on a single circuit board
[1].
Microstrip band pass filters are essential high frequency
components in microwave communication systems. Modern
systems require microstrip bandpass filters with improved
performance for out-of-band and in-band responses, reduced
size, high rejection and low insertion loss [1]. Bandpass filters
are used as frequency selective devices in many RF and
microwave applications. A design of a microstrip hairpin
bandpass filter with centre frequency of 2.4GHz is proposed in
this paper. This frequency is useful for wireless LAN
application and operates in the ISM band (Industrial, Scientific
and Medical). The contribution of this paper is to provide a
design of hairpin-line bandpass filter using DOE
Methodologies and to discuss its characteristics as they pertain
to filter implementation. In section II we discuss the microstrip
filter design methodology, followed by the simulation
technique and result in section III. In section IV we present the
optimization using DOE following which section V depicts the
testing of PCB.

978-1-4577-2078-9/12/$26.002011 IEEE

II.

DESIGN METHODOLOGY

A. Design Equations
To design a coupled band pass filter a low pass filter
prototype is selected. For better rejection a five order filter is
selected. The designed topology is converted into bandpass
using standard transformation equations [2]. Further lumped
sections are converted into distributed elements using
Richard's transformation and Kurodas criteria. The required
coupling co-efficient is found using the equation (1) [3]:
K=

fl fh

(1)

f0

For basic conventional bandpass filter design, J-inverter

concept is used to convert from low-pass filter to bandpass
filter after obtaining the low pass prototype element values.
Inverters have the ability to shift impedance or admittance
levels depending on the choice of K or J parameters. Making
use of these inverters enables us to convert a filter circuit to an
equivalent form that would be more convenient for
implementation with microwave structures [4]. The inverter
constants are found using equations (2) (3) & (4):
Zo J1 =

(2)

2g1

Zo Jn =
Zo Jn+1 =

(3)

2gn 1 gn
K

(4)

2gn gn+1

where g1,g2,g3.....gn are coefficients of Chebyshev filter design

and J1,Jn,Jn+1 are the characteristic admittances of J-inverters
and Zo is the characteristic impedance of the terminating lines
[4]. From the obtained results the even and odd impedances
can be found using equations (5) & (6):
Z0e = Zo [1+ JZo

(JZo )2 ]

(5)

Z0o = Zo [1+ JZo

(JZo )2 ]

(6)

2012 International Conference on Communication, Information & Computing Technology (ICCICT), Oct. 19-20, Mumbai, India
To maintain the compact dimensions of the filter a hairpin
line structure is adopted [4]. They are conceptually obtained
by folding the resonators of parallel-coupled, half-wavelength
resonator filters into a U shape [5]. This type of U shape
resonator is the called hairpin resonator which is as shown in
Fig.1. The coupling between the resonator sections in the
hairpin topology is mainly inductive [2]. The external quality
factor is computed using (7) and (8) and coupling coefficients,
which determine the space required between adjacent hairpins,
is computed using (9). The external quality factors of the
resonators at the input and output are given by Qe1 and Qen as
in (7) and (8) [4].
Qe1 =
Qen =

go g1

(7)

FBW
gn gn+1

III.

SIMULATION

The Genesys simulation software is used to simulate the

schematic of the microstrip hairpin filter [6]. The
corresponding response is obtained after feeding in the desired
specifications. A return loss (S11) of -42.5 dB and an insertion
loss (S21) of -2.5dB is obtained at 2.4 GHz. The simulation
results are as shown in Fig.2.

(8)

FBW

Mi,i+1 =

B. Design Specifications
The filter is required to radiate at a centre frequency of
2.4GHz with a bandwidth of 300MHz. The acceptable
insertion loss & passband ripple is 1dB and 0.5dB
respectively. A fifth order hairpin-line filter is to be
implemented on an FR4 substrate having dielectric constant
4.4.

FBW
gi gi+1

(9)

Figure 2. Simulated Return loss and Insertion loss Response of Bandpass

Filter

IV.

OPTIMIZATION USING PLACKETT-BURMAN DOE

(10)

Plackett-Burman Design of Experiment (PB-DOE)

methodology is widely used to investigate the impact of input
factor on the response of a system with minimum number of
experimental runs. For example, to investigate the impact of
N input parameters, N+1 experimental runs are required. PBDOE methodology uses concept of orthogonal arrays in which
dot product of any two columns is zero. Table I shows the PBDOE matrix for 7 factor using 8 runs. P1-P7 indicates input
factors while Y indicates response of the system and R1- R8
indicates experimental run. In Table I, + indicates high level
value of input factor while indicates low level value of
the input factor. In this work, we have taken high value of a
factor as +10% of the nominal value and low value as -10% of
the nominal value.

In which Zr is the characteristic impedance of the hairpin line,

Zo is the terminating impedance, and L is about go/4 long. The
characteristic impedances and dimensions of the coupled lines
can thus be attained [4].

List of input factors along with their nominal values are

shown in Table II. In order to find the impact of the input
parameters on the output response, eight simulation
experimental runs are performed as per PB-DOE matrix and
the corresponding response is obtained as given in Table III.

Figure 1. Layout of a Hairpin-Line Bandpass Filter

The filter is designed to have a tapped line input and

output that is configured for characteristic impedance that
matches the terminating impedance Zo = 50 ohms. The tapping
location is denoted by t (10) as shown in Fig.1. The input
and output resonators are slightly shortened to compensate for
the effect of the tapping line and the adjacent coupled
resonator.
The length of the tapped input of the hairpin filter is given
as:
t=

2L

sin-1

Zo Zr
2 Qe

978-1-4577-2078-9/12/$26.002011 IEEE

2012 International Conference on Communication, Information & Computing Technology (ICCICT), Oct. 19-20, Mumbai, India
In this work, we have considered insertion loss and return loss
as the response parameters.

means that going from the low level to the high level increases
the response.

To find impact of input parameters on the response, Sum

of Squares (SS) due to each input parameter is calculated
using equations from (11) to (13). Once SS due to each input
factor is obtained, then (14) is used to find the effect each
input parameter has on the output response that is, return loss
and insertion loss.

For the optimization of the designed filter, the factors

which affect the filter response the great are selected and the
required calculations are performed using the above given
formulae as shown for best possible result.

SS P1 = P1

P1

(11)

Y1 +Y4 +Y6 +Y7

Y2 +Y3 +Y5 +Y8

SS(P1)
SS P1 +SS P2 +

(14)

+SS(P7 )

PLACKETT-BURMAN DOE ORTHOGONAL MATRIX

YA

YB

R
R1

R2

R3

R4

R5

R6

R7

R8

NAME

NOTATIO
N

ORIGINALVA
LUES (mm)

Length of the coupling leg

(1st & 4th)

LC1

13.679

P2

Length of the coupling leg

(2nd & 3rd)

LC2

13.501

P3

Tap length 1

LTap1

8.991

P4

Tap length 2

LTap2

1.191

SC1

0.804

SC2

1.382

SC3

1.891

P5
TABLE I.

THE PARAMETERS CHOSEN FOR OPTIMIZATION

P1

(13)

% variation due to P1 =

PARAME
TERS

(12)

P1

P1

TABLE II.

P6
P7

Spacing between
hairpins
(1st & 2nd,4th & 5th)
Spacing between
hairpins
(2nd & 3rd ,3rd & 4th)

the
the

Spacing between two legs

of a hairpin

In Table III, YA and YB mean the following:

YA = Insertion loss
YB = Return loss
The chosen parameters are shown on the hairpin layout in
Fig.3.

Seven parameters were chosen for optimization on

observing a desirable effect in the simulated response on
varying them by fixed amount as given in Table II.

Figure 3. Pictorial Representation of Parameters Chosen

The effect for a factor is always described as the change in

the response in going from the low level of that factor to the
high level. A negative sign means that going from low level to
high level for a factor decreases the response. A positive sign

978-1-4577-2078-9/12/$26.002011 IEEE

2012 International Conference on Communication, Information & Computing Technology (ICCICT), Oct. 19-20, Mumbai, India
TABLE III.
P

CALCULATED VALUES

P1

P2

P3

P4

P5

P6

P7

YA

YB

R1

13.779

13.601

9.091

1.091

0.904

1.282

1.791

2.419

29.716

R2

13.579

13.601

9.091

1.291

0.704

1.482

1.791

2.48

32.552

R3

13.579

13.401

9.091

1.291

0.904

1.282

1.991

2.496

26.698

R4

13.779

13.401

8.891

1.291

0.904

1.482

1.791

2.589

39.913

R5

13.579

13.601

8.891

1.091

0.904

1.482

1.991

2.59

29.091

R6

13.779

13.401

9.091

1.091

0.704

1.482

1.991

2.486

33.491

R7

13.779

13.601

8.891

1.291

0.704

1.282

1.991

2.293

48.071

R8

13.579

13.401

8.891

1.091

0.704

1.282

1.791

2.268

37.576

Table IV gives the effect of 10% variation of each chosen

parameter on the return loss and insertion loss. The variations
which produce a desirable effect are retained for the final
design.

The designed hairpin-line filter was simulated again by

using Genesys software by replacing the original values of the
seven parameters chosen by the new optimized values as given
in Table V. for obtaining the best possible results.

The optimized values for the new design are:

P1= 13.779mm
P2= 13.501mm
P3= 8.891mm
P4= 1.291mm
P5= 0.704mm
P6= 1.282mm
P7= 1.891mm

The optimized design of the filter provides the following

improved values of the return loss and insertion loss as
compared to the previously obtained values for the same as
observed in the simulated graph Fig.4.
Return loss = -61.092 dB
Insertion loss = -2.286 dB
Centre frequency fC = 2392.5MHz

The effect each parameter has on the desired response

parameter is given in Table IV.

Both the optimized and the nonoptimized filter designs are

implemented on an FR4 substrate with a relative dielectric
constant (r) of 4.4 as shown in Fig.5 and Fig.6.

TABLE IV.

IMPACT OF VARIOUS PARAMETERS ON INSERTION LOSS AND

RETURN LOSS

Impact

YA(Insertion loss)

YB (Return loss)

Impact of P1

0.513%

23.44%

Impact of P2

0.397%

0.106%

Impact of P3

2.438%

38.07%

Impact of P4

1.103%

11.308%

Impact of P5

39.32%

25.33%

Impact of P6

54.77%

1.785%

Impact of P7

1.4%

0.223%

978-1-4577-2078-9/12/$26.002011 IEEE

V.

TESTING

The variations in the dimensions of the optimized filter as

compared to the designed filter are as shown in Table V. The
dimensions of the filter are, length= 65mm and width= 23mm,
without the patches.
The fabricated filter is tested and measured on a network
analyser. The optimized filter response and the Genesys
results are compared. The response from the optimized filter is
better than the nonoptimized filter response.
The graphs in Fig.7 and Fig.8 show the improvement in
return loss and insertion loss of optimized filter compared to
the nonoptimized filter. The bandwidth of both the filters are
approximately in agreement. Some further tuning needs to be
performed to achieve an improved return loss and insertion
loss.

2012 International Conference on Communication, Information & Computing Technology (ICCICT), Oct. 19-20, Mumbai, India
TABLE V.

PARAME
TERS
P1
P2

COMPARISON BETWEEN THE ORIGINAL AND OPTIMIZED

VALUES

NAME

Length of the
coupling leg
(1st & 4th)
Length of the
coupling leg
(2nd & 3rd)

NOTATION

ORIGINAL
VALUES
(mm)

OPTIMIZE
D VALUES
(mm)

LC1

13.679

13.779

LC2

13.501

13.501

P3

Tap length 1

LTap1

8.991

8.891

P4

Tap length 2

LTap2

1.191

1.291

SC1

0.804

0.704

SC2

1.382

1.282

SC3

1.891

1.891

P5

P6

P7

Spacing
between the
hairpins
(1st & 2nd,4th
& 5th)
Spacing
between the
hairpins
(2nd & 3rd ,3rd
& 4th)
Spacing
between two
legs of a
hairpin

Figure 5. Etched Hairpin Microstrip Bandpass Filter

Figure 6. Etched Optimized Hairpin Microstrip Bandpass Filter

The test results are as summarized in Table VI.

TABLE VI.

FINAL VALUES

Figure 4. Optimized Hairpin Filter Response

TYPE OF FILTER

978-1-4577-2078-9/12/$26.002011 IEEE

Return loss
( dB )

Insertion loss
( dB )

Hairpin bandpass filter

-17.61

-1.6

Optimized bandpass hairpin filter

-28.4

-1.35

2012 International Conference on Communication, Information & Computing Technology (ICCICT), Oct. 19-20, Mumbai, India
has significant effect on return loss only. The dimension
values are chosen accordingly and the observed responses
have a better insertion loss and return loss with a percentage
improvement of 15.62% and 61.27% respectively.
ACKNOWLEGDEMENT
We wish to express our gratitude to the management of
Don Bosco Institute Of Technology for providing the
necessary resources and facilities.
REFERENCES
[1]

Figure 7. Return Loss of Optimized and NonOptimized Microstrip Hairpin

Bandpass Filter

Thomas M. Weller, Edge-Coupled Coplanar Waveguide Bandpass

Filter Design, IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory and Techniques, vol.
48, NO. 12, Dec. 2000.
[2] Kamaljeet Singh et al., Coupled Microstrip Filters: Simple
Methodologies for Improved Characteristics, Communication Systems
Group., ISRO Satellite Center, Bangalore, India.
[3] G.L Matthaei, L.Young and E.M.T Jones, Microwave Filters,
Impedance-Matching Networks, and Coupling structures, Artech
House, Dedham, MA, 1980.
[4] J. S. Hong and M. J. Lancaster, Microstrip Filters for RF/Microwave
Applications, New York, John Wiley and Sons, Inc, 2001.
[5] Cristal, E. G. and S. Frankel, Hairpin-line and hybrid hairpin line halfwave parallel-coupled line filters, IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory
Tech vol. 20, no. 11, pp. 719 728, 1972.
[6] Pozar, D. M. Microwave Engg. John Wiley, 2000.
[7] Joseph S. Wong, Microstrip Tapped Filter Design, IEEE Trans, vol.
MTT-27, No. 1, January 1979, pp. 4450.
[8] Agilent Technologies, Inc. information. Available:
http //www.agilent.com
[9] M. Abdipour et al., Design and Simulation of Microstrip Bandpass
Filter, presented at the International Conference on Signal, Image
Processing and Applications, IACSIT Press, Singapore, 2011.
[10] H. Adam et al., X-band Miniaturized Wideband Bandpass Filter
Utilizing Multilayered Microstrip Hair-pin Resonator, Centre of
Excellence for Wireless and Photonic Networks, Department of
Computer and Communication Systems Engineering, Faculty of
Engineering University, Putra Malaysia 43400 UPM Serdang Selangor,
Malaysia, 2009

Figure 8. Insertion Loss of Optimized and NonOptimized Microstrip Hairpin

Bandpass Filter

VI.

CONCLUSION

Two hairpin-line bandpass filters are presented in this

paper; simulated using Genesys simulation software and one
of them is optimized by using Plackett-Burman Methodology.
Both filters have been successfully designed, simulated,
implemented and tested at 2.4GHz frequency with a
bandwidth of 300MHz at the desired specifications. A
comparison between the optimized and the nonoptimized filter
is made with respect to both the simulated and tested results.
By the optimization technique, 7 critical parameters of the
hairpin design are identified and the effect of each parameter
on the insertion loss and return loss of the filter is calculated
manually by inserting 10% variation with respect to the
original designed value. It is observed that the spacing
between each hairpin has significant effect on insertion loss as
well as return loss, whereas resonator length and tapping point

978-1-4577-2078-9/12/$26.002011 IEEE