Utilization of Split Ring Resonator for

Compact Narrowband Microstrip Bandpass Filter

Muhammad Ammar Wibisono and Achmad Munir
Radio Telecommunication and Microwave Laboratory
School of Electrical Engineering and Informatics, Institut Teknologi Bandung
Bandung, Indonesia
munir@ieee.org

AbstractA utilization of split ring resonator (SRR) for

developing compact narrowband microstrip bandpass filter (BPF)
is presented. The proposed BPF is intended to work at center
frequency of 880MHz implementable for intermediate frequency
(IF) radar application. The BPF is designed on a 1.9mm thick
R 6010 dielectric substrate with the substrate
Roger RT/Duroid
dimension of 30mm 25mm. Some parametric studies to obtain
the optimum design of BPF are carried out by varying the gap
width of rings and the radius of inner ring, as well as the
cutting angle of outer strips connected to the input/output feeding
lines. The simulation result shows that the center frequency
of proposed BPF is 880MHz with -3dB bandwidth response
of 75MHz ranges from the frequency of 835MHz to 910MHz.
Meanwhile, the measured result shows that the fabricated BPF
has center frequency of 884.5MHz and -3dB bandwidth response
of 25MHz ranges from the frequency of 872MHz to 897MHz.
Although some discrepancies occur between the simulated and
measured results, however the frequency response of fabricated
compact narrowband microstrip BPF still complies with the
specification required for the application.
KeywordsBandpass filter (BPF); split ring resonator (SRR);
microstrip; narrowband.

I.

I NTRODUCTION

In many radio frequency (RF) and microwave applications

including wireless communication and radar, the signals need
to be maintained to comply with certain criteria by using
a filter. Without adequate filtering system, the signals will
be deviated which degrade the performance of the overall
system. To fulfill these requirements, a bandpass filter (BPF)
becomes an essential part in the systems particularly for
microwave application. As weather radar applications, a BPF
is necessary for optimizing the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)
of radar signal by filtering it in a certain bandwidth and
rejecting signal interference at neighboring bands to improve
the radar detection [1]. Therefore, a narrowband BPF with high
frequency band selectivity and high quality factor is preferred
for the system. In actual, a cavity or waveguide filter with air
dielectric can be employed for this case. However, the filter
has physically large in dimension, heavy in weight, and usually
complex in fabrication process [2]. An alternative solution for
this issue can be implemented using microstrip technology
with split ring resonator (SRR) structure.
This work is partially supported by the research incentive program of
national innovation system (Insentif Riset SINas) with the contract No.
0821j/I1.C07.2/PL/2016 from the Ministry of Research, Technology, and
Higher Education, The Republik of Indonesia.

Recently, researches related SRR structure and its

applications for microwave devices have been intensively
investigated. The SRR structure which is also known as a
type of metamaterials is commonly used as an additional
structure for planar technology implementation [3][5]. Mainly
the SRR is made of nonmagnetic conductor and composed of
a pair of concentric enclosed-loops with splits at the opposite
ends. The construction of SRR loops usually takes a shape
of circle or square. Due to the unique features of SRR such
as having capability to produce large value of capacitance,
the SRR is oftentimes used to improve the performance of
wireless communication devices including transmission line,
antenna, and directional coupler [6][8]. It is also often applied
to improve the performance of BPF without significantly
changing its characteristics [9]. One type of existing SRR
structures which is frequently implemented for manufacturing
a compact microstrip BPF is open split ring resonator (OSRR).
This is due some advantages of OSRR which is workable as
lumped LC series and has strong coupling connection between
the loops [10].
In this paper, the development of compact narrowband
microstrip BPF is proposed by utilizing an SRR structure.
The proposed BPF which is designed on a 1.9mm thick
R 6010 dielectric substrate is intended to
Roger RT/Duroid
have center frequency of 880MHz. The design of BPF is
inspired by the successful utilization of SRR structure as
a main part of compact BPF for wireless communication
[11]. In obtaining an optimum design of overall structure,
the performance of compact narrowband microstrip BPF is
investigated intensively during the design process. Whilst to
gain the optimum geometry of SRR with the desired frequency
response, some parametric studies upon the SRR structure are
conducted by varying the physical parameters of SRR structure
including the gap width of rings, the radius of inner ring, and
the cutting angle of outer strips connected to the input/output
feeding lines. Here, some basic parameters of filter such as
return loss, insertion loss and bandwidth response are used to
evaluate the performance characteristics of BPF.
II.

D ESIGN OF C OMPACT NARROWBAND M ICROSTRIP

BPF U SING S PLIT R ING R ESONATOR

Basically, the structure of SRR which takes circle shapes

is shown in Fig. 1. It consists of 2 truncated rings of
non-magnetic conductor deployable on a dielectric substrate.
When the SRR structure is exposed by electromagnetic (EM)

EM wave

EM wave

inner ring

split

outer ring

gap

1.4

25

1.2

1.2

6.8

1.2

8.2

1.2

9.6

EM wave

Fig. 1.

1.4

EM wave
1.2

Structure of SRR in circle shape and its electric current flow.

34o
30

C
R

(a) top view

L
25

C
Simple equivalent circuit for SRR structure.

waves, charges at the surface of each ring are excited and the
electric current is then flowing on the surface of each ring
as well as from one ring to another one. The split between
rings which is usually narrow behaves as capacitors makes the
wavelength larger than the diameter of the ring at its resonant
frequency. The resonant frequency of SRR structure becomes
lower as the split is narrower due to the increase of capacitance
value. Fig. 2 illustrates the simple equivalent circuit for SRR
structure used in analysis. It shows that , , and represent
inductance of SRR rings, the capacitance between SRR rings,
and the resistance of SRR rings, respectively [12].
Furthermore, the inductance is determined by the length of
SRR rings. The inductance of SRR rings becomes larger for
the longer dimension of rings. The capacitance is defined by
the spacing between the rings called as split which depends
on the outer diameter of the inner ring and the inner diameter
of outer ring. The narrower the space between the rings, the
capacitance becomes larger. Meanwhile, the resistance of SRR
represents the losses caused by the conductivity of rings as
well as the losses from the used dielectric substrate. From the
equivalent circuit, the resonant frequency of SRR structure can
be expressed in (1).
0 =

(1)

For the proposed narrowband microtsirp BPF, the SRR

R 6010 dielectric
structure is designed on a Roger RT/Duroid
substrate as shown in Fig. 3. The dimension of dielectric
substrate is 30mm 25mm with the thickness of 1.9mm. The
radiuses of outer and inner rings which take circle shapes are
8.2mm and 6.8mm, respectively, with the gap width of each
of 1.4mm. The strip width of each ring and the separation
between the rings are 1.2mm and 0.2mm, respectively. The
rings and the feeding lines are made from copper conductor
with thickness of 0.035mm and positioned at the top of
dielectric substrate. While the groundplane of proposed BPF
is placed at the bottom side of dielectric substrate made also
from copper conductor with the same thickness.

30

(b) bottom view

Final design of compact narrowband microstrip BPF (unit in ).

Fig. 3.

III.

C HARACTERIZATION AND R EALIZATION

A. Characterization of BPF
In the design process to obtain an optimum geometry
of BPF, some parametric studies are conducted through
simulation by varying the physical parameters of SRR
structure, i.e. the gap width of rings, the radius of inner
ring, and the cutting angle of outer rings. These attempts
are performed based on the characteristic of SRR structure
that produces larger capacitance in connection with the ratio
between the gap width of rings and the width of rings. The
results of parametrical studies are plotted in Figs. 4, 5, and 6
for variation of the gap width of rings, the radius of inner ring,
and the cutting angle of outer rings, respectively.
0
return loss and insertion loss (dB)

Fig. 2.

groundplane

-10

-20
gap
width
1.0mm
1.4mm
1.8mm
-30
0.7

return insertion
loss
loss

0.8
0.9
frequency (GHz)

Fig. 4. Simulated results of frequency response for compact narrowband

microstrip BPF with varied gap width of rings.

0
return loss and insertion loss (dB)

return loss and insertion loss (dB)

-10

-20
inner ring
radius
6.7mm
6.75mm
6.8mm
-30
0.7

return insertion
loss
loss

0.8
0.9
frequency (GHz)

Fig. 5. Simulated results of frequency response for compact narrowband

microstrip BPF with varied radius of inner ring.

return loss and insertion loss (dB)

-20
return loss
insertion loss

-30
0.7

0.8
0.9
frequency (GHz)

Fig. 7. Simulated result of final design of compact narrowband microstrip

BPF based on SRR

B. Realization and Measurement

-10

-20

-30
0.7

-10

cutting
angle
33.8oo
33.9
34o
34.1o

return insertion
loss
loss

0.8
0.9
frequency (GHz)

Fig. 6. Simulated results of frequency response for compact narrowband

microstrip BPF with varied cutting angle of outer rings.

From the characterization results, effects of the radius of

each ring and the gap width of rings to the frequency response
of narrowband microstrip BPF can be determined precisely.
Wider radius of rings produces lower center frequency, whilst
wider gap of rings produces higher center frequency. Based
on the result of parametric studies, the width of each ring
of 1.2mm and the gap width of each ring of 1.4mm are
implemented in the final design.
Furthermore, as shown in Fig. 3, feeding networks made
of microstrip line with the width of 1.2mm are used as the
input/output ports to connect the SRR structure. Since the
input and output signals for microstrip BPF are obtained from
SubMiniature version A (SMA) connectors, therefore the width
of feeding lines can be calculated theoretically to have the line
impedance of 50. Fig. 7 depicts the characterization result
of final design of proposed compact narrowband microstrip
BPF. It shows that the proposed BPF has center frequency of
880MHz ranges from the frequency of 835MHz to 910MHz
with the values of return loss and insertion loss of -23.713dB
and -0.696dB, respectively.

Based on the simulation result above, fabrication of

compact narrowband microstrip BPF based on SRR is carried
out to verify the characterization result from the simulation.
The filter is fabricated through wet etching technique on a
R 6010 dielectric substrate.
1.9mm thick Roger RT/Duroid
Figure 8 shows pictures of fabricated narrowband microstrip
BPF based on SRR with the substrate dimension of 30mm in
length and 25mm in width. Two SMA connectors are soldered
at input and output ports of fabricated BPF for experimental
characterization. Figure 9 shows the measured results of BPF
with the simulated results plotted together as comparison.
From the measured results, the center frequency of fabricated
BPF is 884.5MHz with the values of return loss and insertion
loss of -15.5dB and -2.14dB, respectively. The measured -3dB
bandwidth response is 25MHz ranges from the frequency of
872MHz to 897MHz. It should be noted that the measured
bandwidth is narrower than the simulated one.
The discrepancy between simulated and measured results
is mostly evoked by the erroneous of ring dimension of
fabricated compact narrowband microstrip BPF. It is also
probably caused by the difference in relative permittivity
R 6010 dielectric substrate set
value of Roger RT/Duroid
in the simulation and the fabrication. Nevertheless, the
measured results of BPF have similar responses with the
simulated results which has been confirmed to comply with

Fig. 8. Pictures of fabricated narrowband microstrip BPF based on SRR; top

side (left); bottom side (right).

return loss and insertion loss (dB)

884.5MHz and -3dB bandwidth response of 25MHz ranged

from the frequency of 872MHz to 897MHz.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT

-10

The authors wish to thank Mr. Zenal Aripin from the

Radio Telecommunication and Microwave Laboratory, School
of Electrical Engineering and Informatics, Institut Teknologi
Bandung for supporting experimentation.

-20
return insertion
loss
loss

R EFERENCES

measured
simulated
-30
0.7

0.8
0.9
frequency (GHz)

Fig. 9. Measured frequency responses of compact narrowband microstrip

BPF with simulated results as comparison.

the specification required for the application. Furthermore,

the proposed compact narrowband microstrip BPF has some
advantages particularly in the simplicity of design process in
determining the center frequency and the bandwidth response
by varying the physical parameters of SRR structure. In
addition, the filter could be fabricated in smaller and compact
size compared with other filter structures. Therefore, these
results will provide benefits to realize low cost filter for radar
and other microwave applications.
IV.

C ONCLUSION

The utilization of SRR structure for developing compact

narrowband microstrip BPF has been presented. Some
parametric studies upon the SRR structure have also been
explored in obtaining the optimum design. The proposed
narowband microstrip BPF has been implemented using a
R 6010 dielectric substrate
1.9mm thick Roger RT/Duroid
with dimensions of 30mm 25mm. It has been shown from
parametric studies that the wider rings produced the lower
center frequency of BPF. In other hand, the wider gap affected
the higher center frequency. From the characterization, the
simulation results of narrowband microstrip BPF have satisfied
the requirements with 880MHz center frequency and -3dB
bandwidth response of 75MHz ranged from the frequency of
835MHz to 910MHz. Meanwhile, the measured results have
shown some discrepancies due to the erroneous in fabrication
process and the possibility of different parameter values of
dielectric substrate between simulation and fabrication. It has
been shown that the fabricated BPF has center frequency of

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