Design of compact frequency agile filter-antenna using reconfigurable ring resonator bandpass filter for future cognitive radios

In this paper, a new miniaturized frequency agile filter-antenna with a wide reconfigurable frequency band is proposed for interweave cognitive radios (CRs). A tunable bandpass filter (BPF) composed of a symmetrical ring resonator is cascaded to the feed line of an ultra-wideband planar antenna. The structure of the proposed ring resonator BPF is simple and compact so that the total size of the proposed filter-antenna is smaller than that of a conventional system made of a separate antenna and BPF. The reconfigurability of the proposed filter-antenna is achieved by changing the operating frequency of the BPF by loading the ring resonator with a single varactor diode at its center. The fabricated prototype has successfully achieved a wide operational bandwidth of 1.43 GHz which covers continuous narrow bands from 4.65 to 6.08 GHz. Moreover, the operating tunable narrow bands have stable radiation characteristics. Good agreement between measurement and simulation results is demonstrated.