Lluís Pradell i Cara

Tunable dual-band resonators for communication systems

This paper proposes the design of tunable dual-band resonators for multi-band multi-standard systems. The main objective is to provide frequency tunability in the second resonance while maintaining the first resonance fixed. To this end, two tunable resonators are proposed: the capacitive-loaded stepped-impedance resonator and the capacitive-loaded hole resonator. The work is divided into two main parts. In the first part, an in-depth analysis of the capacitive-loaded stepped-impedance resonator (SIR) structure is done; it provides analytical closed-form design equations that ease the resonator design in contrast to the several approaches available in the literature to date. The analysis is also particularized to the case of the capacitive-loaded constant-section resonator and extended to the capacitive-loaded hole resonator. In addition, a study of the quality factor in capacitively tuned SIRs is also provided. In the second part, resonators are integrated in three dual-band tunable filters, one based on the capacitive-loaded constant-section resonator, another one on the capacitive-loaded SIR, and finally on the capacitive-loaded hole resonator. Two of these filters demonstrate operation in wireless local-area network frequency bands, with a fixed first band at 2.45 GHz and a second band which can be tuned between 5.75 and 5.25 GHz.