A compact lowpass filter for satellite communication systems based on transfer function analysis

This paper presents a very efficient design procedure for a high-performance microstrip lowpass filter (LPF). Unlike many other sophisticated design methodologies of microstrip LPFs, which contain complicated configurations or even over-engineering in some cases, this paper presents a straightforward design procedure to achieve some of the best performance of this class of microstrip filters. The proposed filter is composed of three different polygonal-shaped resonators, two of which are responsible for stopband improvement, and the third resonator is designed to enhance the selectivity of the filter. A holistic performance assessment of the proposed filter is presented using a Figure of Merit (FOM) and compared with some of the best filters from the same class, highlighting the superiority of the proposed design. A prototype of the proposed filter was fabricated and tested, showing a 3-dB cut-off frequency (fc) at 1.27 GHz, having an ultrawide stopband with a suppression level of 25 dB, extending from 1.6 to 25 GHz. The return loss and the insertion loss of the passband are better than 20 dB and 0.25 dB, respectively. The fabricated filter has a high FOM of 76331, and its lateral size is 22.07 mm × 7.57 mm.