This paper presents the theory, design procedure, and implementation of a dual-band planar quadrature hybrid with enhanced bandwidth. The topology of the circuit is a three-branch-line (3-BL) quadrature hybrid, which provides much larger flexibility to allocate the desired operating frequencies and necessary bandwidths than other previously published configurations. A performance comparison with other dual-band planar topologies is presented. Finally, a 3-BL quadrature hybrid for dual band (2.4 and 5 GHz) wireless local area network systems was fabricated, aimed to cover the bands corresponding to the standards IEEE802.11a/b. The measurements show a 16% and 18% bandwidth for the lower and upper frequency, respectively, satisfying and exceeding the bandwidth requirements for the above standards.Peer Reviewe
