IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 61, NO.
8, AUGUST 2013
Communications
Single-Layer Single-Patch Dual-Band and Triple-Band
Patch Antennas
Wing Chi Mok, Sai Hoi Wong, Kwai Man Luk, and Kai Fong Lee
AbstractRecently, it was shown that a dual- or triple-band patch an-
tenna can be designed by cutting U-slots in the patch of a broadband an-
tenna, and the method was applied to the L-probe fed patch, the M-probe
fed patch, coax-fed stacked patches, and aperture coupled stacked patches.
All these cases involve either a rather complicated feed, or more than one
patch, or more than one layer. In this communication, this method is ap-
plied to a broadband U-slot patch antenna. When one additional U-slot
patch is cut in the patch, a dual-band antenna results. When two additional
U-slot patches are cut in the patch, a triple-band antenna results. The ad-
vantages of the resultant configurations are (1) the feed is simple and (2) the
structures remain single-layer and single-patch. Both simulation and mea-
surement results are presented to demonstrate the feasibility of this design.
Index TermsDual-band antennas, multi-band antennas, patch an-
tennas.
I. INTRODUCTION
In some applications in wireless communications, it is desirable to
design a patch antenna covering two or three frequency bands which
are close to each other. For example, a base station antenna may be
required to simultaneously provide wireless access services for both
WCDMA (1.92 2.17 GHz) and WiMAX (2.50 2.69 GHz), while
rejecting most of the frequencies between the two bands. The ratio of
the center frequencies in this example is 1.27. If the antenna is to cover
the middle band of WiMAX (3.33.7 GHz) as well, a triple band an-
tenna is desirable. The frequency ratios in this second example are 1.27
and 1.71.
For dual-band patch antennas with small frequency ratios, an effec-
tive design is that of stacked patches, first reported by Long and Walton
[1]. By adjusting the relative sizes of the upper and lower circular discs,
a dual band antenna with frequency ratios ranging from 1.11 to 1.18
was demonstrated. The radiation at the two bands are of the same linear
polarization and the patterns are similar.
The stacked patch design can be extended to more than two bands.
In [2], a five band patch antenna was demonstrated using five stacked
patches. The frequency ratios of successive bands to the first band were:
1.113, 1.195, 1.280, 1.4.
Recently, a new approach to designing dual and triple band patch an-
tenna with small frequency ratios was introduced [3], [4]. The method
starts with a broadband antenna. When a suitably located U-slot of the
appropriate dimensions is cut in the patch, it introduces a band notch
at a frequency within the original broadband. The broadband antenna
is turned into a dual-band antenna. When a second U-slot is cut in the
Manuscript received August 15, 2012; revised March 10, 2013; accepted
April 19, 2013. Date of publication May 16, 2013; date of current version July
31, 2013.
W. C. Mok, S. H. Wong, and K. M. Luk are with the Department of Electronic
Engineering, City University of Hong Kong.
K. F. Lee is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, The University
of Mississippi, University, MS 38677 USA (e-mail: leek@olemiss.edu).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this communication are avail-
able online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2013.2260516
0018-926X/$31.00 2013 IEEE
4341
patch, two band notches can be introduced and a triple-band antenna
results.
In [4], this new method was applied to the cases when the original
broadband antennas was (1) a L-probe fed patch; (2) a M-probe fed
patch; (3) coax-fed stacked patches; and (4) aperture coupled stacked
patches. All these cases involve either relatively complicated feeds or
more than one layer or more than one patch.
In this communication, we apply the method to the case when the
original broadband antenna is a coax-fed U-slot patch. This design has
the advantages of simplicity of the feed as well as having only one layer
and only one patch.
II. SIMULATION RESULTS
We first show simulation results to illustrate the main features of the
method. Experimental results are presented in Section III.
The first step in the design is to come up with the U-slot which pro-
vides the broadband characteristics, using existing information avail-
able in the literature [5], [6]. For the U-slots that provide the notches,
the total lengths of the slots are about half the wavelengths of the re-
spective notch frequencies, which was established in [3]. The locations
of these U-slots do not affect the notch frequencies, and are chosen to
give the best impedance matches arrived at by using the simulation
software Mentor Graphics IE3D.
Following the above procedure, we arrive at the geometry of the
broadband U-slot patch antenna shown in Fig. 1(a), with the dimen-
sions given in Table I, Antenna 1a. Air is used as the substrate, with
the patch supported by the probe. Simulation results of reflection coef-
ficient and gain of this antenna are given by the solid curves in Fig. 2
and Fig. 3 respectively. This antenna has an impedance bandwidth of
about 33%.
A second U-slot is now cut on the patch (Fig. 1(b)). The purpose
of this U-slot is not for broadbanding purposes, but to introduce a
band notch within the broadband antenna. With dimensions of the an-
tenna shown in Table I, Antenna 1b, simulation results of reflection
coefficient and gain are given by the starred curves in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3
respectively. Note that several of the dimensions of the first slot has
been slightly modified. The antenna is now a dual-band antenna, with
a band from 3.75 GHz to 4.05 GHz and another band from 5.0 GHz to
5.75 GHz. The ratio of the two center frequencies is 1.38. Simulation
radiation patterns of the broadband antenna (one U-slot) and the dual-
band antenna (two U-slots) are given in Figs. 4 and 5 respectively.
Next, a third U-slot is cut on the patch (Fig. 1(c)). The purpose of this
U-slot is to introduce a second band notch within the broad band. With
dimensions of the antenna shown in Table I, Antenna 1c, simulation
results of reflection coefficient and gain are given by the dashed curves
in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 respectively. The antenna is now a triple-band an-
tenna: 3.53.75 GHz, 4.855.2 GHz, 5.55.7 GHz.
The center frequency ratios are and .
Simulation radiation patterns are shown in Fig. 6.
The results of Fig. 3 verify the relationship that the total lengths of
the notch slots are about half the wavelengths of the respective notch
frequencies. Our results (not shown for brevity) also show that the fre-
quency ratios are insensitive to the widths of these slots. However, we
have not yet been able to obtain design formulas relating the frequency
ratios to the various dimensions. This is due to the complicated interac-
tions between the slots. An extensive data base obtained from numer-
ical solutions of these structures is needed to obtain design formulas,
4342 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 61, NO. 8, AUGUST 2013
Fig. 1. (a) Geometry of the broadband U-slot patch antenna; (b) geometry of
the dual-band patch antenna; (c) geometry of the triple-band patch antenna.
TABLE I
DIMENSIONS OF THE PROPOSED ANTENNAS (UNIT: mm) GROUND PLANE SIZE:
71 mm 52 mm THICKNESS OF PATCH METAL; 1 mm
most likely by curve fitting techniques. This is a subject for further in-
vestigation.
Fig. 2. Simulated reflection coefficient of antennas 1(a), (b) and (c).
Fig. 3. Simulated gain of antennas 1(a), (b) and (c).
It is noted that the E-plane co-polar patterns are slightly asymmetric
and slightly off boresight. This is due to the asymmetry of the design.
The squints are very small and are not of concern in many applica-
tions. Symmetry can be restored by using an additional set of U-slots in
the manner described in [4]. However, this introduces additional com-
plexity and results in a larger patch.
It is also noted that cross-polarization in the E-plane is missing
in Figs. 4, 5 and 6(a) because the cross-polar levels are extremely
small in the simulation model. However, they do show up as very
tiny loops in Fig. 6(b) and (c). It will be seen in Section III that
there are noticeable cross-polarized fields in the E-plane due to the
measurement system.
III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The dual-band and triple-band antennas with dimensions shown in
Table I (Antennas 1b and 1c respectively) were fabricated and mea-
sured. Fig. 7 shows the photos of the antennas. The measured results
are shown in Figs. 811. There is good agreement between measured
and simulation results. Twenty cells per wavelength were used in the
simulation and we found that the results did not change significantly
when this was varied to thirty five cells. We have simulated the gains
using both finite and infinite ground plane and found that the results
are not noticeably different. The lower measured gains compared to
the simulated gains could be due to the conductivities and loss tangents
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 61, NO. 8, AUGUST 2013 4343

Fig. 7. Pictures of the (a) dual-band and (b) triple-band antenna.

Fig. 4. Simulated radiation patterns of the broadband antenna at 4.57 GHz.

( H-Co, H-x, E-Co, E-x).

Fig. 5. Simulated radiation patterns of the dual band antenna: (a) 3.8 GHz and
(b) 5.2 GHz. ( H-Co, H-x, E-Co, E-x).

Fig. 8. Measured and simulated return loss.

Fig. 9. Measured radiation patterns of antenna 1(b): (a) 3.8 GHz and (b) 5.2
Fig. 6. Simulated radiation patterns of the triple-band antenna: (a) 3.7 GHz, GHz. (H: , , E: , Co-pol: blue lines
(b) 4.95 GHz and (c) 5.5 GHz ( H-Co, H-x, E-Co, E-x). and X-pol: red lines).
4344 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 61, NO. 8, AUGUST 2013

In addition to the principal planes, radiation patterns were also mea-

sured in the 45 degree plane. It is noted that the cross-polarized fields
are not symmetrical in this plane but the levels are similar to those in
the H planes.

IV. CONCLUDING REMARKS

In this communication, we applied the method of using U-slots to
design a dual- and a triple-band antennas. Because the original broad-
band antenna is the coax-fed single-layer single-patch U-slot antenna,
the resulting antenna does not involve a complicated feed such as the
L-probe and the M-probe. It also does not require more than one patch
and more than one layer, as in the case of the coax-fed stacked patches
and the aperture-coupled stacked patches. In summary, this proposed
method for the design of dual- and triple-band patch antennas results in
a structure which is simpler and easier to fabricate than the structures
described previously in references [3] and [4].

Fig. 10. Measured radiation patterns of antenna 1(c): (a) 3.7 GHz, (b) 4.95 GHz
and (c) 5.55 GHz. (
lines and X-pol: red lines).
, ,
REFERENCES
[1] S. A. Long and W. D. Walton, A dual-frequency stacked microstrip
circular-disc antenna, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. AP 27, no.
3, pp. 270273, 1979.
[2] J. Anguera, G. Font, C. Puente, C. Borja, and J. Soler, Multifre-
quency microstrip patch antenna using multiple stacked elements,
, Co-pol: blue IEEE Microw. Wireless Compon. Lett., vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 123124,
2003.
[3] K. F. Lee, S. L. S. Yang, and A. Kishk, Dual- and multi-band U-slot
patch antennas, IEEE Antennas Wireless Commun. Lett., vol. 7, pp.
645648, 2008.
[4] K. F. Lee, K. M. Luk, K. M. Mak, and S. L. S. Yang, On the use of
U-slots in the design of dual-and triple-band patch antennas, IEEE
Antennas Propag. Mag., vol. 53, pp. 6074, Jun. 2011.
[5] S. Weigand, G. H. Huff, K. H. Pan, and J. T. Bernhard, Analysis and
design of broad-band single-layer rectangular U-slot microstrip patch
antenna, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 51, no. 3, pp. 457468,
2003.
[6] K. F. Lee and K. M. Luk, Microstrip Patch Antennas. London, U.K.:
Imperial College Express, 2010, ch. 10.

Fig. 11. Measured and simulated gains of antennas 1(b) and 1(c).

used in the simulation are slightly different from the actual values of
antenna. Some of the discrepancies could also be attributed to the tol-
erances associated with the fabrication process, as well as to measure-
ment errors.