On the Design of Millimetre-Wave Antennas for 50

Menna El Shorbagyl, Raed M. Shubair2 ,3, Mohamed I. AIHajri3 , Nazih Khaddaj Mallat4
1 Information Engineering Technology Department, German University in Cairo, Egypt
2 Electrical & Computer Engineering Department, Khalifa University, UAE
3 Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
4 Al Ain University of Science and Technology, UAE
Email: rshubair@kustar.ac.ae; rshubair@mit.edu

Abstract-This paper addresses the millimeter-wave antenna
design aspect of the future 5G wireless systems. The paper
reviews the objectives and requirements of millimeter-wave
antennas for 5G. Recent advances in mm-wave antenna are
reported and design guidelines are discussed. In particular, four
different designs are identified from the recent literature based
on their attractive characteristics that support 5G requirements
and applications. The first design employs a dual-band slotted
patch antenna operating at 28 GHz and 38 GHz. The antenna has
circular polarization and is excited by a single-feed microstrip
line. The present design is desirable for high-gain antenna array
implementation in the mm-wave band, in order to compensate
for the mm-wave propagation loss. The second design that is
presented employs a compact planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA)
with single layer dielectric load of a superstrate to enhance
the gain and achieve a wide impedance bandwidth resulting in
high efficiency. The third design that operates in the mm-wave
band is a T-Shaped patch antenna. The proposed antenna a
wideband range from (26.5 GHz - 40 GHz) of the Ka band.
The PET substrate was used as it offers some advantages;
low cost, high flexibility, harmless to human body and resistive
towards environmental effects. The last mm-wave antenna design
presented employs two MIMO arrays each composed of 2x2
antenna elements. The two MIMO array configurations are
spatially orthogonal to each other which results in polarization
diversity.
Index Terms-Millimeter-wave antenna, 5G.
I. INTRODUCTION
There have been dynamic research activities around the
world in advancing the next-generation 5G wireless networks.
More than five billion devices demand wireless connections
that run voice, data, and other applications in todays wire-
less networks. The amount of mobile data has expanded
dramatically throughout the years due to the availability of
smart handheld devices, which support broadband wireless
applications such as multimedia and interactive gaming. The
efficient deployment of the 5G systems requires the design
of compact yet efficient antennas. There has been much
interest within the antenna research community to develop
efficient antenna designs for the future 5G specifically design
to operate in two 5G-frequency bands: 28 GHz band and
38 GHz band. Antenna design for mm-wave 5G must take
into account the high propagation loss due to atmospheric
absorption at millimetre waves [1]. Moreover, mm-wave an-
tennas must be compact in size to fit into handheld devices.
978-1-5090-2586-2/16/$31.00 @2016 IEEE
Hence, various miniaturization techniques must be employed
including slotting, stacking, grounding, and material properties
[2],[3],[4],[5]. This paper describes and compares four antenna
designs in recent literature for mm-wave 5G applications.
II. 5G TECHNOLOGY
Up till now 5G standards are not available for us. However,
some researchers have started to put the base for the technol-
ogy that will provide these standards. This technology mostly
consists of wireless access systems, frequency utilization,
power consumption, antenna and propagation [6].
A. 5G Spectrum
There is an enormous expanse in the millimeter wave
spectrum, more specifically 28 GHz and beyond that is largely
overlooked until now. On October 22nd 2015, FCC proposed
new rules (FCC 15138) for wireless broadband frequencies of
28 GHz, 37 GHz, 39 GHz and 64 - 71 GHz bands. Researchers
are targeting these frequencies for 5G applications. Internet
of Things (loT). loT is a system of physical items to gather
and exchange information. For a more direct incorporation
between the physical world and computer-based frameworks,
loT enables these devices to be detected and controlled re-
motely to enhance the efficiency. The terms loT and 5G are
used conversely because of the shared traits in the intents of
both.
B. 5G Objectives
The fundamental goals of 5G will be focused on towards
enhancing the limit of the systems with better coverage at a
lower cost. With a more prominent push for greener advances
every year, diminished force utilization will likewise be an
essential goal of 5G. The most essential and exceptionally
basic target of all is the "capacity" as it straightforwardly
identifies with the developing client interest for speedier and
higher information rates. The innovation is being researched to
meet these high information rate targets is the massive MIMO.
III. DUAL-BAND MM-WAVE ANTENNA
A dual-band slotted patch antenna shown in Fig. 1 was
presented in [7] which operates at 28 GHz and 38 GHz. The
antenna has circular polarization and is excited by a single-
feed microstrip line. The presented design is desirable for
 TABLE I
DESIGN PARAMETERS OF PROPOSED ANTENNA (MM)

Ll L2 tl t2 t3
3.1 2.5 0.1 0.7 0.4
t4 ts LJ WJ DJ
0.4 0.5 1.5 0.2 0.9

high-gain antenna array implementation in the mm-wave band,

in order to compensate for the mm-wave propagation loss. As
shown in Fig. 1, the antenna design is based on a squared
patch that comprises L-shaped slots close to the patch edges.
This arrangement adds capacitive and inductive effects, which
result in desirable two distinct resonant mm-wave frequencies.
The antenna was fabricated using optical photolithography on Fig. 2. Measured and simulated axial ratio of the CP patch antenna at the
bore sight
an RT/Duroid 5880 with a thickness of 254 um, dielectric
constant of 2.2, and loss tangent of 0.0009. The optimized
parameters for the proposed antenna are shown in Table. 1.
The antenna has been prototyped and the measured results
show that the antenna can simultaneously provide circular
polarization in the two bands (28 GHz and 38 GHz). The
left hand circular polarization gain is 15 dB less than the right
hand circular polarization gain in the bore sight direction; the
proposed antenna operates at right hand circular polarization
in two bands [7]. The measured and simulated axial ratio is
shown in Fig. 2 while the measured reflection coefficient is
shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3. Measured reflection coefficient of the dual-band antenna

thickness of 0.035mm. The proposed antenna intended to

Fig. 1. Geometry (top and side view) and main geometrical parameters of
the proposed mm-Wave patch antenna
IV. COMPACT PLANAR INVERTED-F ANTENNA
Another successful application that utilizes mm-wave an-
tennas was presented in [8]. The proposed design is based on
a compact planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA) with single layer
dielectric load of a superstrate to enhance the gain and achieve
a wide impedance bandwidth which has the advantage of high
efficiency was used in [8]. It covers the 28 GHz millimeter
wave frequency bands with size of 15mm x 15mm. The
antenna, which is shown in Fig. 4, is printed on a Rogers5870
substrate with a thickness of 0.635mm and copper-cladding
be integrated with the front end of a mobile phone using a
GSG probe or a 1.85 mm K-connector. Antenna dimensions
are optimized using parametric analyses in CST Microwave
Studio. The antenna has an impedance-matched bandwidth of
980 MHz (27.47 - 28.45 GHz) with the presence of a battery,
as shown in Fig. 5. The obtained minimum and maximum
value of the radiation efficiency, with the presence of the
battery, within the bandwidth of the antenna are 97% and
99%, at 27.47 GHz and 28.45 GHz, respectively, and the total
efficiencies are 88% and 96%, at 27.47 GHz and 28 GHz,
respectively. Both efficiencies of the antenna are unaffected
by the presence of the battery, while maximum and minimum
realized gains are 8.8 dBi and 8.25 dBi, at 28 GHz and 28.5
GHz, respectively.
V. T-SHAPED PATCH ANTENNA
The third design that operates in the mm-wave band is a
T-Shaped patch antenna that was presented in [9] as shown
in Fig. 6. The proposed antenna a wideband range from (26.5
GHz - 40 GHz) of the Ka band. The PET substrate was used as
 Fig. 6. Prototype of proposed printed antenna on PET film: (a) simulated
prototype; (b) fabricated prototype; (c) microscopic image of fabricated
prototype by DMP

Fig. 4. The top view of the radiating element without dielectric load

Fig. 7. 18111 plot of the proposed printed PET film antenna

of two x two antenna elements are used. Fig. 8 shows the two
antenna arrays embedded inside a mobile handset.
Fig. 9 shows the reflection coefficient of the patch antenna
designed for the 29 GHz 5G frequency band. The array
Fig. 5. Input reflection coefficient of the proposed antenna configurations are orthogonal to each other. This orthogonal
orientation leads to spatial diversity which in turn results in
polarization diversity. The ability to place multiple antenna
it offers some advantages; low cost, high flexibility, harmless arrays inside the mobile handset also gives the flexibility of
to human body and resistive towards environmental effects. operating in several configurations, like, exciting each arrays
The T-shaped antenna has a length of 4.7mm and is printed at a time or exciting both the arrays at the same time [6].
on 16mm x 16mm PET substrate. Feeding is achieved using
a coplanar waveguide and aperture in the ground plane. Table
2. provides the details of the optimized dimensions of the
TABLE II
proposed antenna. Fig. 7 shows the simulated and measured OPTIMIZED DIMENSIONS OF PROPOSED PRINTED ANTENNA
S11 plots of the proposed design, taking into account the effect
Dimensions of the proposed antenna
of fabric and human body on the measurements. The peak gain
Parameters Dimensions
of antenna is 8.2dBi at 38.75GHz and the gain is above 4dBi W Width of slot of ground plane 12.8 mm
in the complete range of operation L Length of slot of ground plane 7.5 mm
Wp Width of radiating patch 12 mm
VI. MIMO ANTENNA ARRAY FOR MM-WAVE Lp Length of radiating patch 4.7 mm
G Gap between patch and ground 2.4 mm
The authors in [6] presented an antenna designs that high- Lg Length of CPW ground 6.3 mm
lights the concept of massive MIMO which utilizes antenna Ls Length of the slot arrangement 2.9 mm
arrays and beamforming. Two MIMO arrays each composed Gs Gap between two symmetrical slot arrangements 5.2 mm
 VII. CHALLENGES OF MM- WAVE ANTENNA
DESIGN FOR 5G
Generating and receiving millimetre waves is a challenge,
but the biggest and most challenging factor with these high
frequencies is the traveling media. The biggest challenges
are atmospheric and free-space path loss. To combat severe
propagation loss, directional antennas are employed at both
transmitter and receiver to achieve a high antenna gain [10].
[10] Y. Niu, Y. Li, D. Jin, L. Su, and A. V. Vasilakos, ''A survey of millimeter
[5] M. I. Hussein, A. Hakam, M. Ouda, and R. M. Shubair, "Compact low-
profile planar elliptical antenna for UWB applications," in 2016 10th
European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP), pp. 1-2.
[6] G. Gampala and C. J. Reddy, "Design of millimeter wave antenna arrays
for 5g cellular applications using FEKO," in 2016 IEEEIACES Inter-
national Conference on Wireless Information Technology and Systems
(ICWITS) and Applied Computational Electromagnetics (ACES), pp. 1-
2.
[7] H. Aliakbari, A. Abdipour, R. Mirzavand, A. Costanzo, and P. Mousavi,
''A single feed dual-band circularly polarized millimeter-wave antenna
for 5g communication," in 2016 10th European Conference on Antennas
and Propagation (Eu CAP), pp. 1-5.
[8] K. M. Morshed, K. P. Esselle, and M. Heimlich, "Dielectric loaded
planar inverted-f antenna for millimeter-wave 5g hand held devices,"
in 2016 10th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation
(EuCAP), pp. 1-3.
[9] S. F. Jilani and A. Alomainy, "Planar millimeter-wave antenna on low-
cost flexible PET substrate for 5g applications," in 2016 10th European
Conference on Antennas and Propagation (Eu CAP), pp. 1-3.
wave (mmWave) communications for 5g: Opportunities and challenges."

Fig. 8. Mobile handset with two 2x2 antenna arrays

Fig. 9. Patch antenna operating at 29 GHz

VIII. CONCLUSION

This paper focused on the design of mID-wave antennas

for 5G wireless systems. The objectives and requirements of
mID-wave antennas for 5G were reviewed. Recent advances in
mID-wave antenna design were reported and design guidelines
were discussed. In particular, four different designs that were
reported recently in the literature have been identified based
on their attractive characteristics that support 5G requirements
and applications.

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