IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 22, NO.

9, SEPTEMBER 2023 2315

Dual-Polarized Duplex Patch Antenna Based on a

Multiport Ring Feeding Structure
Xian Jing Lin , Yao Zhang , Member, IEEE, Longfang Ye , Senior Member, IEEE,
and Qing Huo Liu , Fellow, IEEE

Abstract—This letter presents a dual-polarized duplex patch

antenna using a multiport ring feeding circuit. The ring circuit
consists of four input ports and four output ports. When one input
port of the ring circuit is excited, the four output ports form two
pairs of differential ports accordingly. First, a four-port wideband
patch antenna is developed using this ring feeding circuit. The four
output ports of the ring circuit are directly connected to four metal
strips and then coupled to the patch radiator. Once any one of the
four antenna ports is excited, wide operating bandwidth covering
the base-station band 1710–2690 MHz can be obtained. Second,
a dual-polarized duplex patch antenna is realized by connecting
the four antenna input ports to two pairs of bandpass filters. For
different requirements, the center frequencies of the two duplex
operating bands can be tuned to desired ones within 1710–2690
MHz using specified filters. For demonstration, a prototype of the
dual-polarized duplex antenna operating at 2.0 and 2.6 GHz is
implemented. Better than 26 dB measured isolation between all
the four ports is realized.
Index Terms—Dual-polarized antenna, duplex antenna, filtering
antenna, multiport, ring feeding circuit. Fig. 1. (a) Diagram and (b) function of the dual-polarized duplex patch antenna
design.
I. INTRODUCTION
ITH the rapid development of the satellite commu-
W nication system, which simultaneously transmits and
receives signals between the satellite and ground base-station
with a same operating frequency band have been presented in [5],
[6], [7]. High port-to-port isolations were realized by employ-
equipment, the duplex antenna with multiple polarizations re- ing the horizontal and vertical-polarized (orthogonal) resonant
ceives increasing attention from antenna researchers. Patch ra- modes of a metasurface antenna [5], a Fabry–Perot antenna [6],
diators cascaded with different microstrp filter resonators [1] a cavity-backed slot antenna (CBSA) [7] and patch antennas [8],
or bandpass filters [2] have been developed to realize duplex [9], [10]. For base-station applications, dual-polarized antennas
antenna function. In [3] and [4], by using different resonant are highly required. To realize dual-polarized duplex antenna
modes of a SIW cavity [3] and a dielectric resonator antenna function, a novel filtering circuit [11] and a duplexer-integrated
[4], high isolation duplex antennas have been presented. Above, balun [12] were used in a patch and a cross-dipole antenna, re-
four duplex antenna designs featured two different operating spectively. Dual-polarization, high isolation, and dual-operating
frequency bands and single linear polarization. Duplex antennas bands were achieved.
This letter proposes a different dual-polarized duplex antenna
Manuscript received 18 February 2023; revised 18 April 2023; accepted 15 design method by using a multiport ring feeding circuit. The ring
June 2023. Date of publication 20 June 2023; date of current version 6 Septem- circuit has eight ports. Four of them are used as two pairs of dual-
ber 2023. This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China under Grant 62001407 and Grant U2241222; in part by the
polarized input ports while the other four are utilized as two pairs
Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation of Guangdong Province under of differential output ports. The four output ports are coupled
Grant 2020A1515110217; and in part by the Science and Technology Projects of to a patch radiator to realize a wideband antenna operating at
Guangzhou under Grant 202201011233. (Corresponding author: Yao Zhang.) 1710 MHz–2690 MHz. When any two adjacent input ports are
Xian Jing Lin is with the School of Electronic Engineering and Intelli- excited, it works as a wideband dual-polarized antenna with high
gence, Dongguan University of Technology, Dongguan 523808, China (e-mail:
[email protected]). isolation. When the four input ports are connected to two pairs
Yao Zhang and Longfang Ye are with the Institute of Electromagnet- of bandpass filters with different operating frequencies, dual-
ics and Acoustics, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China (e-mail: polarized duplex antenna function is achieved. The operating
[email protected]; [email protected]). frequencies of the duplex antenna depend on the filter used.
Qing Huo Liu is with the Eastern Institute of Technology, Ningbo 315100,
China, and also with the Institute of Electromagnetics and Acoustics, Xiamen
That means the designers can change the operating bands within
University, Xiamen 361005, China (e-mail: [email protected]). the base-station band according to different requirements, as
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2023.3287560 diagramed in Fig. 1.

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2316 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 22, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2023

Fig. 2. Evolution of the ring feeding circuit. (a) Circuit I. (b) Circuit II.
(c) Circuit III. (d) Circuit IV. (e) Circuit V.

II. MULTIPORT RING FEEDING CIRCUIT

A. Working Principle of the Ring Feeding Circuit
To better reveal the evolution of the proposed ring circuit, five
reference circuits denoted as reference circuits I, II, III, IV, and Fig. 3. Simulated phase results of the reference circuits II, III, and IV.
V are presented in Fig. 2(a)–(e), as analyzed in detail below: (a) Circuit II. (b) Circuit III. (c) Circuit IV.
1) Original Reference Circuit I: It is originated from the
conventional ring directional coupler [13], denoted as reference
circuit I shown in Fig. 2(a). As is known, this coupler has two
isolation ports 1 and 2 as input ports, and a pair of differential
ports 3 and 4 as the output ports.
2) Reference Circuit II: In order to increase the number of
output ports, the reference circuit II is developed as presented in
Fig. 2(b). The simulated phase results of some ports are shown in Fig. 4. Function of the reference circuits II, III, and IV.
Fig. 3(a). It should be mentioned that these ideal ring directional
couplers are designed at 2.4 GHz, as an example. According to
the simulation results, although the number of output ports is IV are plotted in Fig. 3(c). When port 1 is excited, two pairs of
increased, only one pair of differential ports 3 and 5 is obtained. differential output ports 3, 6, and ports 4, 5 are obtained. Once
3) Reference Circuit III: To solve this problem, the reference port 2 is excited, the output ports 3, 4, and ports 6, 5 become the
circuit III is developed, as shown in Fig. 2(c). The only difference two pairs of differential ports.
between the reference circuits II and III is that a microstrip line 5) Reference Circuit V: To increase the number of input ports
is added to connect the input port 1 to the middle point of the of the reference circuit IV, the reference circuit V is proposed in
output ports 5 and 6. The simulated phase results of circuit III Fig. 2(e). The difference between the circuits IV and V is that
are presented in Fig. 3(b). As observed, when port 1 is excited, two more input ports 7 and 8 are added at the middle point of
two pairs of differential output ports are generated (ports 3, 6, ports 4, 5 and ports 5, 6. No matter which input port 1 (2, 7, or
and ports 4, 5). 8) is excited, two pairs of differential output ports 3, 6 and ports
4) Reference Circuit IV: However, the function of port 2 of 4, 5 (ports 3, 4 and ports 6, 5, ports 4, 3 and ports 5, 6, ports 6,
the reference circuit III is not used. To solve this problem, the 3 and ports 5, 4) are realized accordingly.
reference circuit IV is designed by adding another microstrip For ease of review, the functions of the five reference circuits I,
line connecting the input port 2 and the middle point of the II, III, IV, and V are tabulated in Table I, also diagramed in Fig. 4.
output ports 4 and 5. The simulated phase results of this circuit The input port isolation parameters (S12 ) of the reference circuits

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LIN et al.: DUAL-POLARIZED DUPLEX PATCH ANTENNA BASED ON A MULTIPORT RING FEEDING STRUCTURE 2317

TABLE I
FUNCTION OF THE REFERENCE CIRCUITS I, II, III, IV, AND V

Fig. 6. Structure of the multiport ring feeding circuit antenna. (a) Top side of
sub 1. (b) Bottom side of sub 1. (c) Top side of sub 2. (d) Middle side. (e) Bottom
side of sub 3.

Fig. 7. Simulation results of the wideband antenna with two adjacent ports
excited, (a) S-parameters and (b) realized gains. (L1 = 49.5, L2 = 5.0, L3 = L4
Fig. 5. Input port isolation parameter S12 of the reference circuits II, III, and IV. = 16.0, L5 = 80.0, r1 = r2 = r3 = 3.0, r4 = 55.2, all in mm).

II, III, and IV are illustrated and compared in Fig. 5. For the realized gains are obtained within the band 1.7–2.7 GHz. Above
circuit II, the isolation between the two input ports 1 and 2 is less results verify that a wideband high isolation base-station antenna
than 10 dB, indicating a low isolation level. For the circuit III, the can be designed by exciting any two adjacent input ports of this
isolation value is increased to more than 20 dB within 2.1–2.7 four-port antenna.
GHz. That means this circuit has two isolation input ports 1
and 2. With regard to the circuit IV, it is observed the isolation III. DUAL-POLARIZED DUPLEX ANTENNA IMPLEMENTATION
is better than 35 dB, indicating a higher isolation level. Above
characteristics make the ring circuit a very promising feeding Since the wideband dual-polarized antenna shown in Fig. 6
circuit for a high isolation dual-polarized antenna design. has four input ports, it can be used to realize a duplex antenna
with two different operating bands for base-station applications.
For verification, Fig. 8 shows two bandpass filters operating at
B. Four-Port Wideband Antenna Design
2 and 2.6 GHz. These two filters are designed using the basic
Using the reference circuit V, a four-port wideband antenna quarter-wavelength and half-wavelength microstrip resonators.
is designed first by connecting the four output ports to a patch The working mechanism of these two filters has been studied in
antenna radiator, as shown in Fig. 6. It occupies three substrates our previous design [2] and thus not repeated here for brevity. It
denoted as Sub 1, 2, and 3. The radiator patch is printed on should be mentioned that these two filters operating at 2.0 and
the top side of Sub 1. To obtain wideband performance, the 2.6 GHz are used here as an example to verify the proposed
four output ports of the feeding circuit are connected to four design method. In fact, the users can design a dual-polarized
metal strips which are printed on the bottom side of Sub 1. duplex antenna with different operating bands using such a
By coupling the patch to these four metal strips, wide antenna four-port antenna and filters for different transmit/receive com-
bandwidth covering 1710–2690 MHz is realized. Since a jumper munication systems. Fig. 9 reveals the current distributions on
via is necessary to realize the ring feeding circuit, two substrates the patch radiator when two orthogonal input Ports A and C’
Sub 2 and 3 are employed. The ring circuit, the ground and are excited. As seen, the surface currents are horizontally and
the feeding microstrip lines are printed on the top, middle and vertically distributed, respectively.
bottom layers, respectively. Fig. 10 shows the antenna fabrication prototype. The sim-
Since the structures of the ring feeding circuit and the patch ulated and measured S-parameters and realized gains are pre-
radiator are almost symmetrical, the antenna results of each input sented in Fig. 11. The measurement results agree well with the
port should be the same to each other. Fig. 7 shows the simulation simulation ones. All the three substrates used in this work have
results of this antenna when two adjacent ports are excited. As a thickness of 0.81 mm and a dielectric constant 3.38. The op-
seen, better than 10 dB impedance matching (|S11 |, |S22 |< −10 timization was performed using high-frequency structural sim-
dB), more than 30 dB isolation (S12 ) and no less than 7.5 dBi ulator, the measurement was accomplished by Agilent N5227A

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2318 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 22, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2023

Fig. 8. Two filters used for duplex antenna operation [2] (Lf1 = 24.3,
Lf2 = 12.8, Lf3 = 19.6, Lf4 = 12.1, Lf5 = 15.6, Lf6 = 9.2, Wf1 = 0.3, Wf2 = 0.1,
Wf3 = 0.5, Wf4 = 1, Wf5 = 0.6, Wf6 = 1.4, all in mm). (a) Lower-band filter
Fig. 11. Antenna results including the (a) S-parameters and (b) realized gains.
structure and results. (b) Upper-band filter structure and results.

Fig. 9. Current distributions on the patch with (a) port A and (b) port C’
excited.

Fig. 12. Antenna radiation patterns (solid lines: Simulation; dashed lines:
Measurement). (a) 1.9 GHz. (b) 2.5 GHz.

IV. CONCLUSION
A multiport ring feeding circuit has been proposed and in-
Fig. 10. Antenna prototype of the proposed design. (a) Top view. (b) Bottom
view. (c) Side view.
vestigated first in this letter. The simulation results revealed
that when one of the four input ports is excited, the four
output ports provide two pairs of differential ports. Then a
four-port wideband dual-polarized antenna has been presented
network analyzer and Satimo system. As seen in Fig. 11(a), all by coupling the four output ports of this ring circuit to a patch
the measured isolation values (|Sij |, i ࣔ j, i, j < 4) between radiator. Finally, a dual-polarized duplex patch antenna has
the four antenna ports are more than 26 dB. It is noted that been proposed by cascading two pairs of bandpass filters to
the isolation values between the duplex ports (|S13 |, |S14 |, |S23 |, the wideband antenna. High isolation and stable realized gain
|S24 |) are better than 40 dB. As seen in Fig. 11(b), stable in-band have been realized. Satisfactory measurement results have been
gains are obtained and the average gains within the lower- obtained. For different applications, the center frequencies of the
and upper-bands are about 7.1 and 7.8 dBi, respectively. The two duplex operating bands can be tuned to desired ones within
radiation patterns of the proposed antenna at 1.9 and 2.5 GHz the base-station band 1710–2690 MHz using specified bandpass
are plotted in Fig. 12. As observed, low cross-polarization and filters. The proposed design method is useful for antennas and
backside radiation levels are realized. propagations community.

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LIN et al.: DUAL-POLARIZED DUPLEX PATCH ANTENNA BASED ON A MULTIPORT RING FEEDING STRUCTURE 2319

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