2012 1st International Conference on Emerging Technology Trends in Electronics, Communication and Networking

Design of Compact Reconfigurable Switched Line

Microstrip Phase Shifters for Phased Array Antenna
Puneet Anand, Sonia Sharma*, Deepak Sood, C.C.Tripathi**
ECE Department, University Institute of Engineering and Technology,
Kurukshetra University Kurukshetra, Haryana, India
tripathiuiet@gmail.com**, sonia990@gmail.com*, anandpuneet88@yahoo.com

Wireless communication systems are evolving toward multi- electrically steerable, which means the physical antenna can be
functionality. This multi functionality and reconfigurability stationary [3, 4]. For this by placing a phase shifter on each
provides users with options of connecting to different kinds of radiating element allows the antenna beam to be electronically
wireless services for many purposes at different times by steered without physically moving the antenna element as
providing additional degrees of freedom in the system e.g.
shown Fig1.
cognitive radio, MIMO systems and high performance phased
arrays. Although Phase shifters are important component in
many RF microwave subsystems e.g. radar, phased array
antennas, beam forming networks, frequency translators yet the
reconfigurable phase shifter provides additional degree of
freedom in these systems by reconfiguring the phase shift at a
given frequency.
In this paper design and simulation of reconfigurable switched
line phase shifter for phased array antenna using Ansoft HFSS 14
is presented. The reconfigurability is achieved by
loading phase shifter using high frequency PIN diodes which acts
as microwave switches. A compact reconfigurable phase shifter
has been designed which gives a very low insertion loss ≈ -1 dB
and wide range of linear reconfigurable phase shift over Fig1: A Standard phased array antenna system
frequency from 1 to 5 GHz. The designed phase shifter gives
reconfigurable phase shift for different application i.e. at 1.8 GHz A. Phase shifter
(GSM), 2.4GHz (Wi-Fi), 3GHz (traffic control and collision
avoidance radars), 3.6GHz (WLAN) by appropriate settings of the The fundamental function of a phase shifter circuit is to
8 switch positions. As designed phase shifter can be used for 3600 produce a replica of the signal applied at its input, but with a
beam steering in phased array antenna. modified phase [6, 7]. Its performance is characterized by its
insertion loss, bandwidth, power dissipation, power handling
KEYWORDS: Switched line phase shifter, Phased array antenna, capability, and insertion phase. Depending on the nature of the
Beam-steering, Reconfigurable. insertion phase (i.e., whether switchable continuously or in
discrete steps), phase shifters are further classified into analog
I. INTRODUCTION and digital, respectively [7, 8, 9]. Analog phase-shifters change
the output phase by means of an analogue signal (e.g. voltage)
Beam-steering antennas are the ideal solution for a variety of to provide a continuously variable phase. Digital phase shifters
system applications including traffic control, regulation and use a digital signal to change the output phase, providing a
collision avoidance radars (S-band 3 GHz) installed on most discrete set of phase states that are controlled by two-state
ocean going ships to provide better detection of ships in rough phase bits. The highest order bit is 180 degrees, the next
sea and heavy rain condition[1,2], Beam-steering antennas highest is 90 degrees, then 45 degrees, etc, as 360 degrees is
also used in smart base station antennas for WLAN and divided into smaller and smaller binary steps. For instance, a
cellular communication. Beam-steering is most commonly six bit digital phase shifter would have a 5.625 degree least
achieved through phased arrays, where phase shifters are used significant bit. Phase shifters can be controlled electrically,
to control the relative main-beam of antenna array. Many magnetically or mechanically etc. Electrically controlled
antenna system applications require that the direction of the analog phase shifters can be realized using varactor diodes that
beam's main lobe be changed with time, or scanned. This is change capacitance with voltage, or nonlinear dielectrics such
usually done by mechanically rotating a single antenna or an as barium strontium titanate, or Ferro-electric materials such as
array with fixed phase to the element. However, mechanical yttrium iron garnet [5]. A mechanically-controlled analog
scanning requires a positioning system that can be costly and phase shifter is just a mechanically lengthened transmission
scan too slowly. For this reason, electronic scanning antennas line, often called a trombone line. In order to understand
which are known as phased array antennas are used. It can various design method to implement a phase shift we need to
Sweep the direction of the beam by varying electronically the review different methodology used for phase shifter such as
phase of the radiating element, thereby producing a moving loaded line phase shifter, reflection type phase shifter, switched
Pattern with no moving parts. Phased array antennas are line phase shifter etc. All the above three techniques have been

978-1-4673-1627-9/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE

 2012 1st International Conference on Emerging Technology Trends in Electronics, Communication and Networking

tried in past to design phase shifter for various application to uses eight switches and four transmission lines i.e. upper
achieve system compactness, high quality factor etc. microstrip line section of length l0 =83.206mm; lower U shaped
microstrip line section of length l1 =59.034mm; circular
B. Switched Line Phase Shifter transmission line section of length l2=40.264mm ; straight
microstrip line section of length l3=24.18mm. Only one arm
Switched Line Phase shifter [8, 10] is the most straight forward should be ON at a time and any line can be chosen as reference
approach for microstrip phase shifter because it uses the simple line and rest are delay lines. Any reconfigurable differential
time delay difference between two direct paths to provide phase value from 0° to 360° can be achieved by appropriate
desired phase shift. The simplest switched line Phase Shifter is settings of the 8 switch positions as listed in table 1,2,3,4.
dependent only on the lengths of microstrip line used. One of Typically, to avoid the phase errors the isolation of the
the two transmission lines is labeled as a “reference” line, and switches must exceed -20dB in the required frequency band.
the other as a “delay” line. An important advantage of this By switching the signal between two pre-determined lengths of
circuit is that the phase shift will be approximately a linear transmission lines when the incoming input signal is routed/
function of frequency, getting a wideband frequency range of switched through the reference and any one of the delay line
the circuit. In the switched line phase shifter, the incoming with appropriate switches position, it is possible to realize a
input signal is routed/ switched through one of many alternate specific phase shift (ΔΦ) at a given frequency
paths to the output, so as to introduce specific phase shifts with ∆ where 2 ⁄ and λ is the
minimum loss [10, 11]. The fundamental unit (1 bit) of the guided wavelength.
switched-line phase shifter is shown in Fig 2. Switches S1, S2,
S3, S4, are single-pole double-throw (SPDT) switches. By their
proper activation, the incoming signal is routed either through
the short-length path, via S1 and S3, or through long-length
path, via S2 and S4, thus endowing it with commensurate
delays. The differential phase shift is given by ∆
. The switching elements in digital phase
shifters are: mechanical switches (or relays), PIN diodes, Field
Effect Transistors (FET), or microelectromechanical switches
(MEMS). PIN diodes are common used in Phase Shifters due
to their fast switching time, low loss, and relative simple bias
circuits, which provides changes of PIN resistance
approximately from 10 kilo-ohms to 1 ohm.

Fig 3: Reconfigurable switched line phase shifter

III. RESULT AND DISCUSSION

The value of insertion loss has been observed to nearly -1dB

and return loss is below -20dB from the simulated results as
Fig 2: Different configurations of switched-line phase shifters
shown in Fig 4 and 5.
II. DESIGN
The proposed design is simple and compact as compared to
conventional cascaded 3stage switched line microstrip phase
shifter. In this design phase shifter functionality has been
achieved without using any impedance matching network, as
entire structure has been built in single stage by using semi
circular arc section, U-shaped microstrip line and straight line
microstrip line with diode switching reconfigurability. There is
restriction in designing the number of microstrip section based
upon the consideration of mutual coupling effect between
adjacent section and area minimization. Schematic of
reconfigurable switched-line microstrip Phase Shifter that is
Fig 4: Insertion loss |S21| (dB) vs. frequency (GHz)
interconnected through RF MEMS switches as shown by Fig 3.
Proposed phase shifter is simulated on a substrate having
The phase shift obtained from the Fig 6 at 1.8GHz, 2.4GHz,
permittivity ε =2.6, height h=1.27mm, characteristic 3GHz, 3.6GHz are tabulated in table 1, 2, 3, 4. In order to
impedance Z0=50 ohm, width of microstrip line =3.513mm. obtained reconfigurable phase shift we can choose from any
Reconfigurable switched-line microstrip Phase Shifter which

978-1-4673-1627-9/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE

 2012 1st International Conference on Emerging Technology Trends in Electronics, Communication and Networking

one of them l0, l1, l2, and l3 as a reference line and rest are the TABLE 3
delay line. At 1.8 GHz for GSM application we obtained 12 Phase shift obtained at 3GHz
different reconfigurable phase shift by appropriate setting of Ref. l0 l1 l2 l3
switches. By choosing l0 , l1 ,l2, and l3 as a reference line one line (S0,S00=0N) (S1,S11=0N) (S2,S22=0N) (S3,S33=ON)
--
by one and rest of other are delay line we can obtain no of
l0 212.140 170.240 70.940
0 --
different phase shift as shown in table 1. l1 -212.1 -141.20 -41.90
At 2.4 GHz, 3GHz and 3.6GHz for WI-FI, Traffic control and l2 -70.90 141.20 --
99.30
collision avoidance Radar and for WLAN applications we l3 -170.20 41.90 -99.30 --
obtained 48 different reconfigurable phase shift; 12 for each
application by appropriate setting of switches as shown in
table 2, 3 and 4. As designed phase shifter can be easily TABLE 4
Phase shift obtained 3.6 GHz
integrated with phased array in order to change the direction of
Ref. l0 l1 l2 l3
main beam without altering phased array parameters such as line (S0,S00=0N) (S1,S11=0N) (S2,S22=0N) (S3,S33=ON)
gain, resonating frequency, directivity etc. l0 --
-172.50 134.20 15.40
0
l1 172.5 -- 187.90 306.70
l2 -15.40 -187.90 --
118.80
l3 -134.20 -306.70 -118.80 --

IV.CONCLUSION
Reconfigurable switched line Microstrip phase shifters has
been successfully designed and simulated which have many
advantages like compact structure, reconfigurable linear phase
shift over wide range of frequency. The designed
reconfigurable phase shift is used for beam steering in phased
array antenna at 1.8 GHz (GSM), 2.4GHz (Wi-Fi), 3GHz
(traffic control and collision avoidance radars), and 3.6 GHz
Fig 5: Return loss |S11|(dB) vs. frequency (GHz)
(WLAN) application.

V. References
[1] Blackman, Samuel ,”Multitarget Tracking with Radar Applications”,
Artech House, 1986.
[2] “Intersection Collision Avoidance Using IVHS Countermeasures”, Task 5
Interim Report: Design of Testbed Systems, Vol 1, Calspan Report No. 8169-8
Jan. 29, 1997
[3] Ehmouda J., Briqech Z. & Amer A., “Steered Microstrip Phased Array
Antennas”, World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology 49,
2009.
[4] Ramesh Garg, Prakash Bhartia, Inder Bahl, Apisak Ittipiboon “Microstrip
Antenna Design Handbook”, Artech house, Boston, London.
[5] William W. G. Hui, Jodie M. Bell, Magdy F. Iskander and J. J. Lee, “Low-
Fig 6: Phase angle |S21| (degree) vs. frequency (GHz) Cost Microstrip-Line-Based Ferrite Phase Shifter Design for Phased Array
Antenna Applications”, IEEE, Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters,
Vol. 6, 2007.
TABLE 1 [6] David M. Pozar, “Microwave Engineering”, 3rd edition, John Wiley and
Phase shift obtained at 1.8 GHz taking l0,l1, l2, l3 each as reference line Sons.
Ref. l0 l1 l2 l3 [7] Bahl Inder, “Lumped Elements for RF and Microwave Circuits”, Artech
line (S0,S00=0N) (S1,S11=0N) (S2,S22=0N) (S3,S33=ON) House, 2003.
l0 -- 71.40 1550 97.20 [8] Hector J. De. Los. Santos, “RF Circuit Design for Wireless Applications”
Artech house, Boston, London.
l1 86.80 -- -83.60 -25.80 [9] K.Gupta, R.Garg, I.Bahl, P.Bhartia, “Microstrip lines and Slotlines”
l2 170.40 83.60 -- 57.80 [10] Leo G. Maloratsky, “Electrically Tunable Switched- Line Diode Phase
l3 112.60 25.80 -57.80 -- Shifters”, High Frequency Electronics, April 2010.
[11] Zhang Jin, Ortiz Sean & Mortazawi Amir, “Design And Performance of a
New Digital Phase Shifter at X-Band”, IEEE, Microwave And Wireless
TABLE 2 Components Letters, Vol. 14, No.9, September 2004.
Phase shift obtained 2.4 GHz
Ref. l0 l1 l2 l3
line (S0,S00=0N) (S1,S11=0N) (S2,S22=0N) (S3,S33=ON)
--
l0 -116.30 -150.80 -228.80
0
l1 116.3 -- -112.50 -34.50
l2 228.80 112.50 -- 780
l3 150.80 34.50 -780 --

978-1-4673-1627-9/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE