Int. J. Electron. Commun.

(AEÜ) 70 (2016) 738–742

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International Journal of Electronics and

Communications (AEÜ)
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/aeue

A novel two section branch line coupler employing different

transmission line techniques
K.V. Phani Kumar ∗ , Rusan Kumar Barik, S.S. Karthikeyan
Department of Electronics Engineering, Indian Institute of Information Technology Design and Manufacturing, Kancheepuram, Chennai 600127, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this paper, a 3 dB wideband branch line coupler with reduced size and harmonic suppression is pre-
Received 30 July 2015 sented. New multiple asymmetric -shaped, cross and T-shaped transmission line techniques are used
Accepted 26 February 2016 to reduce the physical size of the coupler. At the operating frequency of f0 = 0.9 GHz, the fabricated
coupler achieves 15 dB return loss bandwidth of 44.4% with a size reduction of 76.3%. The designed
Keywords: coupler has insertion loss better than 3.6 dB with a magnitude balance of 0 ± 1 dB over the frequency
Compact
band 0.67–1.05 GHz. In addition to compact design, the unwanted harmonics are well suppressed up to
Wideband
4f0 with a level better than 20 dB by maintaining good agreement between the measured results and
Harmonic suppression
Branch line coupler
theoretical predictions.
Multiple asymmetric -shaped © 2016 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.
transmission line

1. Introduction governed by a truncated Fourier series, but the reported design is

Branch line coupler is one of the basic circuit components
in microwave and millimeter wave communication systems
and widely used in many applications such as power dividers,
power combiners, balanced mixers, image rejection mixers and
balanced amplifiers. Modern communication systems require com-
pact, broadband and cost-efficient components. Therefore, size
reduction, bandwidth enhancement, cost reduction and high per-
formance are the essential requirements for the design of branch
line couplers (BLCs). The bandwidth of single section branch line
coupler comprises of four quarter wavelength transmission line
sections is very less. In order to improve the bandwidth, several
sections have been cascaded [1,2]. But the cascaded sections occupy
larger area at lower microwave frequencies. To design a compact
BLC, several size reduction techniques have been proposed, such as
high impedance transmission lines and interdigitated shunt capac-
itors [3], partially meandered lines and dual transmission lines [4],
recursively loaded stubs [5], meander T- shaped lines [6], folding
technique and surrogate-based optimization (SBO) [7], etc. A com-
pact broad band branch line coupler using parallel capacitance and
stepped impedance transmission line is reported in [8]. Quarter
wavelength open circuited coupled lines are used to realize a wide-
band 3 dB branch line coupler with a fractional bandwidth of 49%
[9]. In [10], a wideband BLC is proposed using nonuniform lines
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 9789084959.
E-mail address: edm13d001@iiitdm.ac.in (K.V. Phani Kumar).
occupying a large area of 0.25g × 0.75g . Mixed type branch line
couplers utilizing T-shaped and Pi-shaped structures with shunt
capacitors and open stubs are reported in [11]. The 15 dB return
loss bandwidth of the demonstrated mixed type three-branch cou-
pler is 26.3% only and the 3 dB power division is also very poor. A
three-branch hybrid designed using lumped distributed elements
obtained a fractional bandwidth of 45% [12]. By combining various
size reduction techniques like meander line, cross and two step
stubs, a compact BLC with fractional bandwidth of 50% is proposed
in [13]. A transmission line consisting of single stepped impedance
and multiple stepped impedance structures is utilized to design a
two section branch line coupler with a fractional bandwidth of 31%
and offers size reduction above 60% [14]. Recently, a three section
branch line coupler is realized using triple open complementary
split ring resonator and open stubs [15]. The proposed coupler occu-
pied an area of 17.46% of the conventional one and the fractional
bandwidth obtained is 53%.
In this work, a new multiple asymmetric -shaped structure
is proposed to reduce the size and improve the performance of
microwave devices like power dividers and couplers. To validate
the size reduction capability of the proposed unit, the horizon-
tal quarter wavelength transmission lines of the conventional two
section BLC are replaced using multiple asymmetric -shaped
structure. The designed BLC obtained a size reduction of 72.2%.
Furthermore, to reduce the size of the coupler, T-shaped and
cross-shaped equivalent lines are used to replace the side vertical
branches and the center vertical branch respectively. A wideband
branch line coupler operating at 0.9 GHz is simulated, fabricated

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aeue.2016.02.011
1434-8411/© 2016 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.
 K.V. Phani Kumar et al. / Int. J. Electron. Commun. (AEÜ) 70 (2016) 738–742 739

Fig. 1. Layout of (a) conventional transmission line, (b) asymmetric -shaped trans-
mission line and (c) multiple asymmetric -shaped transmission line.

Fig. 2. Design curves for (a) Z1 versus  1 and (b) Z2 versus  2 (Z0 = 50  and  = 90◦ ).
and tested. The measured results shows that the 2nd , 3rd and 4th
harmonics are suppressed with a level better than 20 dB and the Now the ABCD matrix of the quarter wavelength transmission line
prototype occupies only 23.7% area of the conventional one. can be written as
  ⎡ ⎤
0 jZ0
2. Proposed multiple asymmetric -shaped structure A0 B0
=⎣ j ⎦ (5)
analysis and design of BLC C0 D0 0
Z0
2.1. Multiple asymmetric -shaped transmission line Then by equating (1) and (5), Z1 and Z2 can be solved as

Fig. 1(b) shows the layout of a asymmetric -shaped trans- Z0

Z1 = (6)
mission line. It consists of two shunt open stubs (Z2 ,  2 ) and (Z3 , sin 21 − 2Ksin2 1 tan 3
 3 ) separated by a series transmission line (Z1 ,  1 ). The multi-
Z0 tan 2
ple asymmetric -shaped transmission line is obtained by back to Z2 = (7)
cos 21 − K sin 21 tan 3
back connection of two asymmetric -shaped transmission lines as
shown in Fig. 1(c). To replace the conventional quarter wavelength where K=Z1 /Z3
transmission line with the proposed unit, the ABCD matrices of the The transcendental Eqs. (6) and (7) are solved graphically. These
conventional and the proposed transmission lines must be equated provide the design curves for the impedances and electrical lengths
to obtain the equivalent impedance relations. of the equivalent multiple asymmetric -shaped structure. For a
The ABCD matrix of the structure in Fig. 1(c) can be represented 90◦ transmission line with impedance 50 , Fig. 2(a) represents
as Z1 plotted against electrical length  1 for three different values of
   3 and likewise Fig. 2(b) shows Z2 versus  2 for a ratio of  2 / 1
A B and three different values of  3 . From (6), considering K = 1 and
= T1 T2 T3 T3 T2 T1 (1)
C D  3 = 45◦ , the equivalent impedances of the multiple asymmetric 
shaped structure for Z0 = 50  are obtained as Z1 = Z3 = 141.9  for
where  1 = 14◦ and Z2 = 64.3  is obtained from (7) by choosing  1 = 14◦
  and  2 = 28◦ . The proposed unit electrical length is 28◦ and is 68.89%
1 0
smaller than the conventional 50  quarter wavelength transmis-
T1 = j tan 2 (2)
1 sion line.
Z2
⎡ ⎤ 2.2. Design of wideband BLC
cos 1 jZ1 sin 1
T2 = ⎣ j sin  ⎦ (3)
1
cos 1 Fig. 3 shows the schematic diagram of the traditional two section
Z1 wideband branch line coupler. The optimized impedance values are
  ZA = 38 , ZB = 106  and ZC = 50  [2]. All transmission lines are
1 0 quarter-wavelength long at the operating frequency.
T3 = j tan 3 (4) To make this circuit compact, the conventional quarter
1
Z3 wavelength transmission lines are replaced by their equivalent
740 K.V. Phani Kumar et al. / Int. J. Electron. Commun. (AEÜ) 70 (2016) 738–742
Fig. 3. Schematic diagram of the conventional two-section BLC.
structures. The proposed unit is utilized to replace the 38 
horizontal transmission line. In order to avoid overlapping or
intersection of stubs at the junctions, the shunt stubs should be
meandered and also to accommodate all the stubs within the
unused space of BLC geometry, the width of the stubs should
be less. By fixing 45  is the minimum shunt stub impedance
feasible for meandering using Rogers RT/duroid 5870 substrate
with r = 2.33 and height 0.787 mm, following the analysis in Sec-
tion 2.1, from (6), considering K = 1 and  3 = 45◦ , the equivalent
impedances are obtained as Z1 = Z3 = 115.5  for  1 = 12.5◦ . The
impedance Z2 = 45.36  is obtained from (7) by choosing  1 = 12.5◦
and  2 = 30◦ . The total series electrical length of the equivalent unit
is 25◦ only. Table 1 shows the comparison of the proposed multiple
asymmetric -shaped structure in terms of series electrical length
with other reported structures.
In order to obtain harmonic suppression up to 4f0 , the mini-
mum electrical length of the open stubs are considered as 30◦ .
From the table it is observed that the proposed structure is hav-
ing less series electrical length. Therefore, the multiple asymmetric
-shaped transmission line is a better choice for realizing trans-
mission lines with lower characteristic impedance and to reduce
the size of the multi section BLCs to a great extent. The layout of
the wideband BLC after replacing the horizontal transmission lines
with the proposed unit is shown in Fig. 4. The layout occupies only
27.7% area of the conventional coupler.
2.3. Cross and T-shaped transmission lines
To make the circuit further compact, the center vertical trans-
mission line (ZC ,  C ) and the outer vertical branches (ZB ,  B ) are
replaced using its equivalent cross and T-shaped transmission lines.
Table 1
Comparison with other reported structures (Z0 = 38 ).
Ref. Equivalent unit
[11]
[17]
This work
Fig. 4. Layout of the two-section BLC using multiple asymmetric -shaped struc-
ture.
The layouts of cross and T-shaped transmission lines are shown in
Fig. 5.
The equivalent impedance relations between the conventional
transmission line and the cross and T-shaped transmission lines are
obtained by following the analysis in [16]. The design parameters
of the three transmission line techniques to complete the design of
the compact wideband branch line coupler are listed in Table 2 and
the circuit simulated magnitude response is shown in Fig. 6.
3. Fabrication and measurement
Based on the circuit analysis in Section 2, a compact wide-
band branch line coupler operating at 0.9 GHz is designed,
simulated using a full-wave simulator and fabricated on a Rogers
RT/duroid 5870 substrate having dielectric constant 2.33 and
substrate thickness of 0.787 mm. The layout and the fabri-
cated prototype are shown in Fig. 7. The dimensions in mm
are W1 = 0.45, W2 = 2.67, W3 = 0.45,W4 = 1.28, W5 = 2.2, W6 = 0.2,
W7 = 0.55, L1 = 33.39, L2 = 19.67, L3 = 20.95, L4 = 9.9, L5 = 17.06
and L6 = 44.69. The electrical size of the proposed coupler is
0.2g × 0.16g and it is smaller than a conventional single sec-
tion BLC. The area of the whole circuit is 47.9 × 39.6 mm2 , which
Parameters Total series length
Z1 = 43.49 , 60.9◦
Z2 = 45.11 ,
 2 = 30◦
Z1 = 56.4 , 56.9◦
Z2 = 90.07 ,
Z3 = 45.04 ,
 2 =  3 =30◦
Z1 = 115.5 , 25◦
Z2 = 45.36 ,
Z3 = 115.5 ,
 2 = 30◦ ,  3 = 45◦
 K.V. Phani Kumar et al. / Int. J. Electron. Commun. (AEÜ) 70 (2016) 738–742 741

Fig. 5. Layout of (a) cross shaped and (b) T-shaped transmission line.

Table 2
Design parameters of the proposed branch line coupler.

Structure Impedance () Electrical length (deg)

Z1 = 115.5  1 = 12.5
Multiple asymmetric
Z2 = 45.36  2 = 30
␲-shaped
Z3 = 115.5  3 = 45

Z4 = 71.41  4 = 35
Cross shaped
Z5 = 52.57  5 = 15

Z6 = 150  6 = 35.25
T-shaped
Z7 = 107.9  7 = 27

Fig. 7. Proposed branch line coupler (a) layout and (b) fabricated prototype.

respectively. The measurement shows that the 15 dB return loss

Fig. 6. Circuit simulated scattering parameters of the proposed BLC.
is only 23.7% of the traditional two section branch line coupler. The
fabricated BLC is tested using R&S ZVL vector network analyzer.
Fig. 8 shows the comparison of simulated and measured scatter-
ing parameters of the proposed compact BLC. The measured |S11 |
and |S41 | at the operating frequency are −23.15 dB and −20.34 dB,
(isolation) is from 0.66 (0.68) to 1.06 (1.09) GHz and the fractional
bandwidth is 44.4% (45.5%).
The measured amplitudes at the through and coupled ports
are −3.68 dB and −3.28 dB, respectively. The measured and sim-
ulated magnitude balance and phase difference between ports 2
and 3 are shown in Figs. 9 and 10 respectively. The measured mag-
nitude balance (|S21 | − |S31 |) bandwidth with in 0 ± 1 dB is from
0.67 GHz to 1.05 GHz. The phase difference between through and
coupled port is approximately 92.5◦ at 0.9 GHz. In addition to signif-
icant size reduction, the 2nd , 3rd and 4th harmonics are suppressed
by 45.1 dB, 53.7 dB and 20.9 dB respectively using the proposed

Table 3
Comparison with reported two section BLCs.

Ref Design frequency (GHz) % Fractional B.W. (S11 ≤ −15 dB) Electrical size (g × g )a % Size reductionb Harmonic suppression

Conventional 0.9 47.7 0.27 × 0.50 – –

[9] 5.9 56.1 0.25 × 0.75 – –
[10] 3 38 0.25 × 0.75 – Up to 4th
[11] 0.91 26.3 0.26 × 0.44 15.2 –
[12] 2 45 0.28 × 0.40 17 –
[13] 2.45 33.4 0.32 × 0.35 17 –
[14] 1.8 32.7 0.16 × 0.29 65.6 –
Proposed BLC 0.9 44.4 0.20 × 0.16 76.3 Up to 4th
a
g is the guided wavelength computed for Z0 = 50 .
b
% size reduction is calculated based on the electrical size of conventional two section BLC of this work.
742 K.V. Phani Kumar et al. / Int. J. Electron. Commun. (AEÜ) 70 (2016) 738–742
Fig. 8. Circuit, full-wave simulated and measured S-parameters of the proposed
wideband coupler (a) S11 and S21 and (b) S31 and S41 .
Fig. 9. Circuit, full-wave simulated and measured result of the magnitude balance
between S21 and S31 .
Fig. 10. Circuit, full-wave simulated and measured result of the phase difference
between port2 and port3.
techniques. Table 3 summaries the comparison of the major fea-
tures of proposed and other reported designs.
4. Conclusion
A two section branch line coupler is designed using multiple
asymmetric -shaped, cross-shaped and T-shaped structures. The
proposed coupler occupies only 23.7% area of the conventional one.
In addition to compact size, 2nd , 3rd and 4th harmonics are sup-
pressed due to the band stop characteristics of open stubs which
will resonate when they are quarter wavelength long. A prototype
is fabricated and tested. The measured frequency response shows
that the proposed coupler has a fractional bandwidth of 44.4%. The
measured and simulated results are in good agreement with each
other.
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