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-
functionality. This multi functionality and reconfigurability
provides users with options of connecting to different kinds of
wireless services for many purposes at different times by
providing additional degrees of freedom in the system e.g.
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
frequency from 1 to 5 GHz. The designed phase shifter gives
reconfigurable phase shift for different application i.e. at 1.8 GHz
(GSM), 2.4GHz (Wi-Fi), 3GHz (traffic control and collision
avoidance radars), 3.6GHz (WLAN) by appropriate settings of the
8 switch positions. As designed phase shifter can be used for 360
0
beam steering in phased array antenna.
KEYWORDS: Switched line phase shifter, Phased array antenna,
Beam-steering, Reconfigurable.

I. INTRODUCTION
Beam-steering antennas are the ideal solution for a variety of
system applications including traffic control, regulation and
collision avoidance radars (S-band 3 GHz) installed on most
ocean going ships to provide better detection of ships in rough
sea and heavy rain condition[1,2], Beam-steering antennas
also used in smart base station antennas for WLAN and
cellular communication. Beam-steering is most commonly
achieved through phased arrays, where phase shifters are used
to control the relative main-beam of antenna array. Many
antenna system applications require that the direction of the
beam's main lobe be changed with time, or scanned. This is
usually done by mechanically rotating a single antenna or an
array with fixed phase to the element. However, mechanical
scanning requires a positioning system that can be costly and
scan too slowly. For this reason, electronic scanning antennas
which are known as phased array antennas are used. It can
Sweep the direction of the beam by varying electronically the
phase of the radiating element, thereby producing a moving
Pattern with no moving parts. Phased array antennas are
electrically steerable, which means the physical antenna can be
stationary [3, 4]. For this by placing a phase shifter on each
radiating element allows the antenna beam to be electronically
steered without physically moving the antenna element as
shown Fig1.











Fig1: A Standard phased array antenna system

A. Phase shifter
The fundamental function of a phase shifter circuit is to
produce a replica of the signal applied at its input, but with a
modified phase [6, 7]. Its performance is characterized by its
insertion loss, bandwidth, power dissipation, power handling
capability, and insertion phase. Depending on the nature of the
insertion phase (i.e., whether switchable continuously or in
discrete steps), phase shifters are further classified into analog
and digital, respectively [7, 8, 9]. Analog phase-shifters change
the output phase by means of an analogue signal (e.g. voltage)
to provide a continuously variable phase. Digital phase shifters
use a digital signal to change the output phase, providing a
discrete set of phase states that are controlled by two-state
phase bits. The highest order bit is 180 degrees, the next
highest is 90 degrees, then 45 degrees, etc, as 360 degrees is
divided into smaller and smaller binary steps. For instance, a
six bit digital phase shifter would have a 5.625 degree least
significant bit. Phase shifters can be controlled electrically,
magnetically or mechanically etc. Electrically controlled
analog phase shifters can be realized using varactor diodes that
change capacitance with voltage, or nonlinear dielectrics such
as barium strontium titanate, or Ferro-electric materials such as
yttrium iron garnet [5]. A mechanically-controlled analog
phase shifter is just a mechanically lengthened transmission
line, often called a trombone line. In order to understand
various design method to implement a phase shift we need to
review different methodology used for phase shifter such as
loaded line phase shifter, reflection type phase shifter, switched
line phase shifter etc. All the above three techniques have been
2012 1st International Conference on Emerging Technology Trends in Electronics, Communication and Networking
978-1-4673-1627-9/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE
tried in past to design phase shifter for various application to
achieve system compactness, high quality factor etc.
B. Switched Line Phase Shifter
Switched Line Phase shifter [8, 10] is the most straight forward
approach for microstrip phase shifter because it uses the simple
time delay difference between two direct paths to provide
desired phase shift. The simplest switched line Phase Shifter is
dependent only on the lengths of microstrip line used. One of
the two transmission lines is labeled as a reference line, and
the other as a delay line. An important advantage of this
circuit is that the phase shift will be approximately a linear
function of frequency, getting a wideband frequency range of
the circuit. In the switched line phase shifter, the incoming
input signal is routed/ switched through one of many alternate
paths to the output, so as to introduce specific phase shifts with
minimum loss [10, 11]. The fundamental unit (1 bit) of the
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 =
[(l
Iong
-l
shot
). 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.










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
interconnected through RF MEMS switches as shown by Fig 3.
Proposed phase shifter is simulated on a substrate having
permittivity
r
=2.6, height h=1.27mm, characteristic
impedance Z
0
=50 ohm, width of microstrip line =3.513mm.
Reconfigurable switched-line microstrip Phase Shifter which
uses eight switches and four transmission lines i.e. upper
microstrip line section of length l
0
=83.206mm; lower U shaped
microstrip line section of length l
1
=59.034mm; circular
transmission line section of length l
2
=40.264mm

; straight
microstrip line section of length l
3
=24.18mm. Only one arm
should be ON at a time and any line can be chosen as reference
line and rest are delay lines. Any reconfigurable differential
phase value from 0 to 360 can be achieved by appropriate
settings of the 8 switch positions as listed in table 1,2,3,4.
Typically, to avoid the phase errors the isolation of the
switches must exceed -20dB in the required frequency band.
By switching the signal between two pre-determined lengths of
transmission lines when the incoming input signal is routed/
switched through the reference and any one of the delay line
with appropriate switches position, it is possible to realize a
specific phase shift () at a given frequency
= [(l
c]ccncc
-l
dcIu
) where [ = 2n z and is the
guided wavelength.

















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
shown in Fig 4 and 5.









The phase shift obtained from the Fig 6 at 1.8GHz, 2.4GHz,
3GHz, 3.6GHz are tabulated in table 1, 2, 3, 4. In order to
obtained reconfigurable phase shift we can choose from any
Fig 2: Different configurations of switched-line phase shifters
Fig 4: Insertion loss |S21| (dB) vs. frequency (GHz)
Fig 3: Reconfigurable switched line phase shifter
2012 1st International Conference on Emerging Technology Trends in Electronics, Communication and Networking
978-1-4673-1627-9/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE
one of them l
0
, l
1
, l
2
, and l
3
as a reference line and rest are the
delay line. At 1.8 GHz for GSM application we obtained 12
different reconfigurable phase shift by appropriate setting of
switches. By choosing l
0
, l
1
,l
2
, and l
3
as a reference line one
by one and rest of other are delay line we can obtain no of
different phase shift as shown in table 1.
At 2.4 GHz, 3GHz and 3.6GHz for WI-FI, Traffic control and
collision avoidance Radar and for WLAN applications we
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
integrated with phased array in order to change the direction of
main beam without altering phased array parameters such as
gain, resonating frequency, directivity etc.













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
(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-
Cost Microstrip-Line-Based Ferrite Phase Shifter Design for Phased Array
Antenna Applications, IEEE, Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters,
Vol. 6, 2007.
[6] David M. Pozar, Microwave Engineering, 3
rd
edition, John Wiley and
Sons.
[7] Bahl Inder, Lumped Elements for RF and Microwave Circuits, Artech
House, 2003.
[8] Hector J. De. Los. Santos, RF Circuit Design for Wireless Applications
Artech house, Boston, London.
[9] K.Gupta, R.Garg, I.Bahl, P.Bhartia, Microstrip lines and Slotlines
[10] Leo G. Maloratsky, Electrically Tunable Switched- Line Diode Phase
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
Components Letters, Vol. 14, No.9, September 2004.

TABLE 4
Phase shift obtained 3.6 GHz
Ref.
line
l
0
(S0,S00=0N)
l1
(S1,S11=0N)
l2
(S2,S22=0N)
l3
(S3,S33=ON)
l0
--
-172.5
0
134.2
0
15.4
0
l1 172.5
0
-- 187.9
0
306.7
0
l2 -15.4
0
-187.9
0 --
118.8
0
l3 -134.2
0
-306.7
0
-118.8
0 --

TABLE 1
Phase shift obtained at 1.8 GHz taking l0,l1, l2, l3 each as reference line
Ref.
line
l0
(S0,S00=0N)
l1
(S1,S11=0N)
l2
(S2,S22=0N)
l3
(S3,S33=ON)
l0
-- 71.4
0
155
0
97.2
0
l1
86.8
0
-- -83.6
0
-25.8
0
l2
170.4
0
83.6
0
-- 57.8
0

l3
112.6
0
25.8
0
-57.8
0
--

TABLE 2
Phase shift obtained 2.4 GHz
Ref.
line
l0
(S0,S00=0N)
l1
(S1,S11=0N)
l2
(S2,S22=0N)
l3
(S3,S33=ON)
l0
--
-116.3
0
-150.8
0
-228.8
0
l1
116.3
0
-- -112.5
0
-34.5
0
l2
228.8
0
112.5
0
-- 78
0
l3
150.8
0
34.5
0
-78
0
--
TABLE 3
Phase shift obtained at 3GHz

Ref.
line
l0
(S0,S00=0N)
l1
(S1,S11=0N)
l2
(S2,S22=0N)
l3
(S3,S33=ON)
l0
--
212.14
0
170.24
0
70.94
0
l1 -212.1
0 --
-141.2
0
-41.9
0
l2 -70.9
0
141.2
0 --
99.3
0
l3 -170.2
0
41.9
0
-99.3
0
--
Fig 5: Return loss |S11|(dB) vs. frequency (GHz)
Fig 6: Phase angle |S21| (degree) vs. frequency (GHz)
2012 1st International Conference on Emerging Technology Trends in Electronics, Communication and Networking
978-1-4673-1627-9/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE