A low‐profile wideband dual‐polarized antenna with gain enhancement,low gain variations,and low cross polarization for 5G indoor communications

A low‐profile wideband dual‐polarized antenna with high gain, low gain variations, and low cross‐polarization for the fifth generation (5G) indoor distribution system is proposed. By using circular‐thread vase‐shaped structure, a low profile of 0.23λ₀ (λ₀ is the free‐space wavelength at the starting frequency) as well as low gain variation feature can be achieved by the vertically polarized (VP) radiating element. An eight‐way power divider network is employed to feed the horizontally polarized (HP) dipoles so that wideband performance is obtained. Here, eight pairs of arc‐shaped parasitic strips are used to broaden the bandwidth, and eight pairs of director elements are introduced to enhance the gain and reduce the gain variations. In addition, the protruded stubs that are extended from the circular ground plane will help to reduce the cross polarization in the VP direction. Measured results show that a bandwidth of 46.5% (3.3‐5.3 GHz) (S₁₁ < ?10 dB) with a gain of 0.85 ± 0.35 dBi, and another bandwidth of 85.0% (2.5‐6.2 GHz) with a gain of 4.75 ± 1.75 dBi can be realized in the HP and VP directions, respectively. Furthermore, high isolation (>27 dB) and low cross polarization (<?24 dB) can also be attained. Therefore, the proposed antenna is a good candidate for 5G indoor distributed system.     

Circularly polarized high efficiency wideband reflectarray using rectangle‐shaped patch element

A single‐layer circularly polarized reflectarray using rectangle‐shaped elements in X‐band is presented in this article. The designed element is analyzed and optimized with parametrical studies to obtain good performance at the operating frequency. The phase shifts can be controlled by varying the dimensions in two orthogonal directions of the element for circular polarization. A reflectarray antenna with 27 × 27 elements has been designed, manufactured and measured. The measured results show that the proposed reflectarray antenna provides a 1‐dB gain bandwidth of 18% and a 3‐dB axial ratio of 13%. The measured peak gain at 10 GHz is 26.1 dBi, which corresponds to the high aperture efficiency of 40.3%.     

Epsilon‐shaped circularly polarized strip and slot‐loaded ultra‐wideband antenna for Ku‐band and K‐band

A compact epsilon‐shaped (ε) ultra‐wideband (UWB) antenna for dual‐wideband circularly polarized (CP) applications has been investigated in this article. It consists of a stepped stub loaded modified annular ring‐shaped radiator and modified CPW ground plane. The ground plane is loaded with two semicircular notches and a spiral‐shaped slot. The impedance bandwidth (IBW) is 97.02% (10.4‐30 GHz) along with an overall footprint of 20 × 20 mm². The fractional axial ratio bandwidth (3‐dB ARBW) for two wide bands is 38.50% (13.30‐19.64 GHz) and 6.45% (26.25‐28.00 GHz), respectively. The proposed antenna is left‐hand circularly polarized with a peak gain of about 5.09 and 5.14 dB in both 3‐dB ARBW bands. The proposed antenna is dominating other reported CP antenna structures in terms of number of CP bands, 3‐dB ARBW, IBW, peak gain, and dimensions.     

Design and evaluation of a wideband reflectarray antenna using cross dipole with double‐ring elements

This article reports the design and analysis of a wideband, single layer, and dual‐polarized microstrip reflectarray for Ku‐band applications. The array element is constructed using a crossed dipole enclosed by two cross dipole loops. The element is optimized to exhibit a linear phase response and wide reflection phase range. The reflection characteristic of the unit cell is analyzed using an infinite array approach and the results are presented. A 324‐element Ku‐band microstrip reflectarray antenna of size 20 × 20 cm² is simulated, fabricated, and experimentally evaluated. The 2.9‐dB gain‐bandwidth and aperture efficiency of the reported reflectarray are 45.3% and 35%, respectively. The reflectarray operates in the frequency range of 10.6 to 16.8 GHz.     

Wideband reflectarray antenna using logarithmic patch element

A wideband microstrip reflectarray antenna (RA) is proposed using a novel unit‐cell for X‐band applications. The unit‐cell is composed of a logarithmic toothed microstrip element and two‐variable phase‐delay lines (PDLs) for the required phase compensation in the RA. By adjusting the lengths of the PDLs, a smooth and almost linear phase variations of 627° is achieved at the frequency of 10 GHz. Based on the proposed element, a 144‐element center‐fed RA with dimensions of 216 mm × 216 mm is designed at 10 GHz and simulated using CST software. Then, a fabricated prototype RA is tested to validate the design approach. The maximum measured gain is 25.3 dB at 10.4 GHz, whereas the gain is 24.6 dB with 44.2% aperture efficiency at the design frequency of 10 GHz. Also, the measured gain frequency characteristic shows the 1 and 3‐dB gain bandwidths of 24.8% and 42.3%, respectively, and the measured radiation patterns verify the simulated ones as well.     

Circularly polarized low‐cost wide band reflectarray antenna constructed with subwavelength elements

A novel single‐layer subwavelength patch element is proposed to design the circularly polarized reflectarray in Ku band. The radiation characteristics of the phase‐shifting element are investigated. The relative linearly reflected phase response curve with 360° phase coverage is achieved. A reflectarray model constructed with the proposed element is designed and fabricated, and the angular rotation technique has been employed for obtaining reflected phase curve to compensate the spatial delay. The measurements are in good agreement with the simulations. The superior bandwidth and efficiency performance have been verified. The measured gain at the center frequency of 12.5 GHz is 26.5 dBi, corresponding to the aperture efficiency of 51.9%, and the obtained 1 dB gain and 3 dB AR bandwidth can reach 24.8% and 35.2%, respectively.     

A miniaturized ultra‐wideband planar monopole antenna with L‐shaped ground plane stubs

This article presents a miniaturized ultra‐wideband planar monopole antenna with an oval radiator. The proposed antenna is fed by a coplanar waveguide (CPW), and two L‐shaped stubs are extended from the ground plane of the CPW. This presented antenna is able to produce resonances in the lower frequency band and realize better impedance matching performance in the middle and higher frequency bands with the aid of the L‐shaped stubs. The antenna was built and tested. The total size of the proposed antenna is only 26 × 20 × 1.6 mm³. Its measured –10 dB impedance bandwidth is 10.1 GHz (3.1‐13.2 GHz). The measured far‐field radiation patterns are stable in the whole operating frequency band.     

A compact printed ultra‐wideband multiple‐input multiple‐output prototype with band‐notch ability for WiMAX,LTEband43, and WLAN systems

A compact ultra‐wideband multiple‐input multiple‐output (UWB‐MIMO) antenna with good isolation and multiple band‐notch abilities is developed in this work. It consists of two quadrant shaped monopole antennas backed by ground stubs. A good isolation is achieved due to the two proposed extended curved ground stubs. The frequency rejection for the WLAN system is realized by loading a capacitive loaded loop resonator adjacent to the feed line. The band rejection for the WiMAX and LTE band43 system is achieved by embedding a quadrant shaped CSRR on each radiator's surface. The measured bandwidth of the antenna is 3.06 GHz‐11 GHz (|S₁₁| < ?10 dB and |S₂₁| < ?18 dB) with a band rejection from 3.5 GHz‐4 GHz to 5.1 GHz‐5.85 GHz, respectively. Time domain performances are investigated in terms of group and phase delay characteristics. Diversity characteristics are evaluated in terms of the envelope correlation coefficient, mean effective gain, and channel capacity loss.     

Wideband bandpass filtering branch‐line balun with high‐isolation

The wideband bandpass filtering branch‐line balun with high isolation is presented in this paper. The proposed balun can be designed for wideband performances by choosing a proper characteristics impedance of input vertical transmission line and odd‐mode impedance of parallel‐coupled lines. The proposed balun was designed at a center frequency (f₀) of 3.5 GHz for validation. The measured results are in good agreement with the simulations. The measured power divisions are ?3.31 dB and ?3.24 dB at f₀ and ?3 ± 0.17 dB within the bandwidth of 0.95 GHz (3 GHz to 3.95 GHz). The input return loss of 24.09 is measured at f₀ and higher than 20 dB over the same bandwidth. Moreover, the measured output losses are better than 11 dB within a wide bandwidth. The isolation between output ports is 20.32 dB at f₀ and higher than 13.2 dB for a broad bandwidth from 1 GHz to 10 GHz. The phase difference and magnitude imbalance between two output ports are 180° ± 4.5° and ± 0.95 dB, respectively, for the bandwidth of 0.95 GHz.     

Novel wideband metal‐only transmitarray antenna based on 1‐bit polarization rotation element

In this article, a novel wideband metal‐only transmitarray based on 1‐bit polarization rotation element is proposed. First, a novel wideband polarization rotation element is designed, which consists of four metallic layers without any substrate layers. The element can be used to rotate polarization of the transmission wave by 90° with respect to that of the incident wave. The element and its mirror image can provide 0° and 180° phase shifts with 1‐bit phase quantization in the 9.2 to 11.2 GHz band with more than 80% polarization conversion rate. Then, by using the proposed element, a 21 × 21‐element transmitarray with a standard pyramidal horn feed is designed and fabricated. The measured results show that the transmitarray achieves 16.8% 1‐dB gain bandwidth with a peak gain of 21.6 dBi. Its cross‐polarization and side‐lobe levels are below ?20 and ?10 dB, respectively, in the operating band. The measured results agree well with the simulation ones, validating effectiveness of the transmitarray design method.     

Design and characterization of millimeter wave planar reflectarray antenna for 5G communication systems

This work provides design and characterization of millimeter wave reflectarray antenna based on unit cells as well as periodic reflectarray design at 26 GHz. Diverse unit cell design configurations have been investigated based on simulations and scattering parameter measurements for feasibility of designing an optimum performance 5G reflectarray antenna. It has been demonstrated that the rectangular patch element provided minimum reflection loss of 1.02 dB and maximum bandwidth of 560 MHz. However, the phase error for rectangular patch element was observed to be 80°, which is much higher as compared to 10° and 13° in the case of rectangular ring and circular ring elements respectively. Periodic reflectarray antennas were also designed with main beam focused at 40° in the azimuth plane achieved with tilted array instead of using an offset feed. Radiation pattern measurements were carried out for further characterization where a maximum gain of 26.7 dB was provided by reflectarray designed with circular ring elements with variable radius. On the other hand, rectangular patch element array provided higher 1 dB gain drop bandwidth of 13.6% as compared to circular ring element reflectarray, which demonstrated a bandwidth of 13.1%. However, side lobe levels were observed to be higher at ?18.4° for rectangular patch element reflectarray as compared to ?19.4° in the case of circular ring elements based reflectarray antenna.     

A broadband circularly polarized monopole antenna

A compact modified C‐shaped monopole antenna with broadband circular polarization is proposed, fabricated and measured. The antenna structure is simple and only consists of combined modified C‐shaped radiation patch and an improved ground plane with the overall size of 25 × 25 × 1 mm³. By cutting the corner on the modified C‐shaped patch and adding triangular stubs on the ground plane, the wide impedance bandwidth and axial ratio bandwidth are achieved. The design process of the antenna is given, and the circular polarization mechanism of the circularly polarized antenna is analyzed from the surface current distributions. The measured impedance bandwidth is 95.2% (4.4‐12.4 GHz) with return loss better than 10 dB, and the measured 3 dB axial ratio bandwidth is 96.8% (4.42‐12.72 GHz). The peak gain is above 3.0 dBi within the working band, which indicates that it is suitable for application of ultra‐wideband (UWB) wireless communication systems and satellite communication systems.     

Compact ultra‐wideband bandpass filter with configurable stopband based on diamond‐shape resonator

An ultra‐wideband compact bandpass filter (BPF) with configurable stopband by tuning transmission zeroes is proposed in this paper. The ultra‐wideband bandpass response is based on a diamond‐shape resonator consisting of a pair of broadside coupled diamond‐shape microstrip lines, within which a diamond shape defected ground structure (DGS) is etched in the middle. Flexible transmission zeros realized by open and short stubs can be easily adjusted to improve band selectivity and harmonic suppression. Measurement result shows that the dedicated device has a 3 dB fractional bandwidth of 148% (0.94‐6.36 GHz) with 20 dB rejection stopband from 6.87 to 9.7 GHz (77.5%) which agrees good with the simulate performance. The overall size of the proposed BPF is 0.27 λ_g × 0.23 λ_g.     

A dual‐patch polarization rotation reflective surface and its application to wideband wide‐beam low‐profile circularly polarized patch antennas

This study investigates the use of a polarization rotation reflective surface (PRRS) to construct a wideband, wide‐beam, low‐profile circularly polarized (CP) patch antenna. The device is composed of a feeding monopole antenna and a novel PRRS‐based dual‐patch artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) cell structure. The PRRS has two polarization rotation (PR) frequency points, generated by properly adjusting the width between square and L‐shaped metallic patches. A large PR band of 35.5% (5.1‐7.3 GHz) was achieved by combining two adjacent PR frequency points. The PRRS‐based patch antenna impedance bandwidth was measured to be 28.6% (5.1‐6.35 GHz), with a 3 dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth of 21.8% (4.8‐6.4 GHz) and a profile of 0.045λ₀. Additionally, the proposed antenna exhibited the largest AR beamwidth (to our knowledge) of 175° and 128° in the xoz and yoz planes, respectively. It also produced a high broadside gain of 6.7 dBic within the operational bandwidth.     

Broadband circularly polarized Z‐shaped dipole antenna with parasitic strips

A Z‐shaped dipole antenna with parasitic strips is proposed for wideband and unidirectional circular polarization operation in this article. The dipole arms are bent into L‐shape for circular polarization, and printed balun is used to achieve good impedance matching. To further extend the axial ratio bandwidth, two parasitic strips are employed to introduce an additional band of circularly polarized operation at the high frequency. Measured results demonstrate that the proposed antenna has a 10‐dB impedance bandwidth of 63.3% (1.64‐3.16 GHz) and a 3‐dB axial ratio bandwidth of 51.1% (1.72‐2.9 GHz). Stable radiation patterns with gain around 9 dBic along +z‐axis are also observed.     

Microstrip tapered traveling wave antenna for wide range of beam scanning in X‐ and Ku‐bands

In this work, a broadband traveling wave antenna (TWA) is presented as a microstrip design that is capable of a wide range of beam scanning by changing the operation frequency within 8 to 14 GHz. For this purpose, a rhombus shaped microstrip patch is used as a unit element and TWA is built as a tapered microstrip line consisting of the cascaded rhombus shaped unit elements and terminated by a rectangular antenna instead of traditional resistive termination which can be called patch loaded traveling wave antenna (PLTWA). Optimization and simulation of the PLTWA is carried out using 3‐D Microwave simulation software CST and its dimensions are resulted as 130 × 30 mm. From the simulations, it should be noted that the patch termination increases the maximum gain almost 3 dB and the total efficiency up to 90% compared to the traditional resistive load over the operation band at the expanse of a small distortion on S₁₁ characteristics. Then the PLTWA is fabricated and measured along its operation band 8 to 14 GHz and it exhibits a peak gain of 9.5 dBi at 11 GHz. The measured gain of the proposed antenna is found between 9 dB and 12 dB and its beam direction is steerable with the range of 80° (?65°‐15°) over the operation band 8 to 14°GHz.     

Wideband asymmetric microstrip‐fed circularly polarized antenna with monofilar spiral stub for WLAN application

A wideband circularly polarized printed antenna is proposed and fabricated, which employs monofilar spiral stubs and a slit in the asymmetrical ground plane which are fed by an inverted L‐shaped microstrip feedline. The CP operation is realized by embedding an inverted‐L shaped strip and modified ground plane and can be markedly improved by loading monofilar spiral stubs asymmetrically connected at the edge of the ground plane. After optimization, the measured results of the finally structure demonstrate that a 10‐dB bandwidth of 67.6% from 4.6 to 9.3 GHz and a 3‐dB axial‐ratio bandwidth (ARBW) for circular polarization (CP) of 60.1% from 5 to 9.3 GHz could be achieved which could completely cover the WLAN (5.725‐5.85 GHz) band. Therefore, the proposed antenna is suitable for circular polarization applications in C band. To explain the mechanism of broadband circular polarization operation, the analysis of magnetic fields distributions and a parametric study of the design are given. Compared to other recent works, a simpler structure, wider axial ratio and impedance bandwidths and a more compact size are the key features of the proposed antenna.     

A dual‐band and wideband omnidirectional circularly polarized antenna based on VO2

In this article, a dual‐band and wideband omnidirectional circularly polarized (CP) antenna based on the vanadium dioxide (VO₂) is investigated. The operating bandwidth of such an antenna can be regulated by altering the outside temperature (T), which is attained by the insulator‐metal transition of VO₂. The omnidirectional CP antenna is based on a loop antenna‐dipole model, which is composed of four tilted metal and VO₂ resonant units that are loaded around a cuboid and a feeding network for broadening bandwidth. The simulated results show that when T = 50°C (State I), the 10‐dB impedance bandwidth is 45.7% (1.67‐2.66 GHz), and the 3‐dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth is 40% (1.9‐2.85 GHz). When T = 80°C (State II), the 10‐dB impedance bandwidth is 13.8% (1.62‐1.86 GHz), and the 3‐dB AR bandwidth is 21.8% (1.68‐2.09 GHz). In order to further characterize the concept of the proposed antenna, the related parameters of such an antenna are studied using simulation software HFSS.     

Wideband high aperture efficiency antennas with beam switching for mmWave 5G base stations

A compact metamaterial inspired sub‐wavelength unit cells are integrated into wideband Vivaldi antenna. A high gain Vivaldi antenna with 50% impedance bandwidth is proposed. The dimensions of the antenna are 1.55 λ₀ × 3.2 λ₀ at 28 GHz. Gain enhancement of 3‐dB achieved by placing metamaterial unit cells in the aperture of the antenna. These unit cells aid in phase correction of the antenna. The 1‐dB gain bandwidth of antenna is 42% with a peak gain of 12.5 dBi indicating high pattern integrity. Corrugations of varying length are introduced in the ground plane to improve front‐to‐back ratio without altering the input impedance bandwidth. The aperture efficiency of the metamaterial loaded Vivaldi antenna is 78% at 28 GHz. The proposed element is used in a stacked module to achieve wide angular coverage of 120°.     

Compact microstrip‐via‐fed wideband circularly polarized antenna with monofilar spiral stub for C‐band applications

A wideband circularly polarized printed antenna is proposed and fabricated, which employs monofilar spiral stubs and a slit in the asymmetrical ground plane which is fed by an asymmetrical microstrip feedline using a via. The CP operation is realized by embedding an inverted‐L shaped strip and a modified ground plane and can be markedly improved by loading monofilar spiral stubs connected to the asymmetric feedline by means of a via. A parametric study of the key parameters is made and the mechanism for circular polarization is described. After optimization, the impedance bandwidth is approximately 3.6 GHz (4.4‐8 GHz) and the 3 dB axial ratio bandwidth is approximately 3.3 GHz (4.7‐8 GHz), which represent fractional bandwidths of approximately 58.1% and 52%, respectively. Therefore, the proposed antenna is suitable for circular polarization applications in C (4‐8 GHz) band. Compared with other recent works, the simpler structure, wider axial ratio, impedance bandwidths, and more compact size are the key features of the proposed antenna.