A Miniaturized Dielectric-Resonator Phased Antenna
Array with 3D-Coverage for 5G Mobile Terminals
Xiongzhi Zhu1, Jinling Zhang1,2, Tong Cui1
1）School of Electronic Engineering
Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications
Beijing, China
2）Beijing Key Laboratory of Space-ground
Interconnection and Convergence
Beijing, China
Abstract—This paper presents a miniaturized Dielectric
resonator antenna (DRA) array of 3D-coverage for the 5G mobile
terminal applications. To realize 3D-coverage beam scan with a
less linear array, two subarrays are used which are placed at
both ends of the substrate, respectively. Here, one subarray has 8
antenna elements and works as a phased array, and then these
two subarrays are responsible for radiation on two different
regions, which are vertical with the substrate. And each antenna
element is a miniaturized DRA whose size is reduced to be the
half of the size of the original antenna by loading the metal sheet.
The simulated results show that the proposed design covers over
5 GHz bandwidth in the band of 26 GHz, and the subarray has
stable gain and good directivity, and as well realizes 3D-coverage.
Keywords—5G antenna; miniaturized DRA; phased array; 3D
coverage
I. INTRODUCTION
In recent years, there has been a considerable amount of
researches on the DRA application for 5G mobile
communications [1-4]. DRAs are made from dielectric
materials with low loss tangent and a high dielectric constant.
DRAs have well-known advantages over other antenna
structures, for example, they have small size, high radiation
efficiency, low coupling, wide bandwidth, multiple feeding
methods, and 3-D structure to bring flexible design [5].These
advantages can meet the miniaturized and the high-quality
requirements for antenna design in the next generation mobile
communication system.
With the development of wireless communication
technology, the frequency spectrum below 6 GHz has become
very congested, meanwhile, the explosive growth of mobile
Internet and Internet of things services makes more and more
equipment access and thus increases data traffic as well.
Therefore, one of the key technologies is to use the gigantic
bandwidth of the millimeter wave band (e.g.26 GHz) to
improve the capacity of the system channel for the next
generation of communication network 5G [6-7]. However, in
mm-wave bands, the free-space path loss is much larger than
that of the conventional mobile communication system below
6 GHz [8]. The use of phased array antenna on both mobile
terminals and base stations increased antenna gain and offset
larger free-space path loss [9].The phased array antenna has
the high gain but its beam width is narrow. For mobile
antennas, it is difficult to design a phased array antenna in a
1. National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61771063)
2. Director Fund of Beijing Key Laboratory of Space-ground
Interconnection and Convergence
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Zhanqi Zheng3
3）Institute of Microelectronics
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Beijing, China
limited space and ensure this antenna to achieve coverage in
all directions.
Recently, the 3D full covered phased array antennas are
investigated by many researchers [10-13]. The authors used a
probe to feed the patch antenna with the resonance 22 GHz,
which is the element of the array, to realize a 2GHz bandwidth
[10]. There, the phased array antenna package constituted by
the patch element, and it included three subarrays toward
different directions to realize full coverage of 3D space. In
[11], a capacitively coupled patch antenna array was proposed.
There are three subarrays of patch antennas in three different
directions at one of the edge regions and a subarray was
placed at the other end of the circuit board to cover the other
direction. The three subarrays technique was also used in
reference [12] to realize 3D-coverage. But the antenna was
placed at the same plane and occupied a smaller space.
In this paper, a miniaturized probe fed DRA array with
3D-coverage is proposed for 5G mobile terminal applications.
The main advantage of the proposed design compared with
other works is that the design only consists of two subarrays to
realize 3D-coverage. And this design takes up a smaller space
so that the location of the antenna can be more flexible to be
integrated into the mobile terminal. The corresponding
simulated S-parameters and radiation pattern of the
miniaturized DRA element are shown in Section II,
respectively. While in Section III, both the structure and the
performance of the antenna array are discussed. All the
simulations were obtained by the 3-D electromagnetic package
High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS). And at the last
Section, we conclude the presented study.
II. MINIATURIZED DRA ELEMENT
A. DRA design
Fig. 1 shows the proposed DRA’s structure. The substrate
uses a very common material FR4 where the dielectric
constant, loss tangent and thickness H are 4.4, 0.02, and 1 mm,
respectively. The full ground plane is put on the bottom of the
substrate is with the same size in which the width and the
length are both 5.5 mm. While the half-cylindrical dielectric
resonator, coming from the cut of a total cylinder with a height
Hd equals to 2 mm and radius Rd 1.25 mm, is placed above
the dielectric plate. Its material is Al2O3 with a dielectric
constant 9.8. And a copper sheet with the same size (2 × Rd ×
 Hd) as that of the cutting planar plane is loaded in the cutting 5.7 mm to ensure adequate isolation. On the back of each
section. This plane can be equivalent to an ideal conducting subarray, there is a small separate ground plane with an area
one. In this way, the antenna is miniaturized by reducing the of 60 mm × 6 mm.
half of the antenna size without changing the performance of
the antenna. The DRA is fed by a coaxial probe. The
cylindrical probe is connected to the dielectric resonator
through the dielectric substrate. The radius of the cylindrical
probe Rp is 0.25 mm and the height above the substrate Hp 1
mm. The extension length affects the impedance matching of
the antenna.
DR

copper
coaxial
sheet
probe

substrate
Rd Rp
(a) Fig.2. Simulated S parameters and maximum realized gain of the DRA

Hd
Hp
H

L W
(b)
Fig1. Geometry of the proposed miniaturized DRA: (a) Front view, (b) 3D-
view

B. DRA Performance simulation

Figure 2 shows the simulation results of the antenna for
both S parameters and the maximum radiation gain. As shown,
the impedance bandwidth of the proposed DRA under -10 dB
is from 23.2 GHz to 28.6 GHz, and the maximum realized
Fig.3. 2D-polar radiation patterns of the DRA
gain over 3.5 dBi in the operating frequency band with low
variations has been obtained. In addition, a greater impedance
bandwidth can be obtained by changing the structure of the
DR and adjusting the length of the feed probe. Meanwhile,
because there is no conductor loss in the DA, this antenna has subarray A
a high efficiency with minimum losses.
Figure 3 shows the simulated radiation patterns for the E-
plane and the H-plane at 26 GHz. The simulated realized gain
subarray B
of the antenna is 4.9 dBi. feed
GND z

III. CONFIGURATION OF PHASED ANTENNA ARRAY

A. Phased Antenna Array Configuration
Here we use material FR4 as a substrate with an area of 60
mm × 120 mm to imitate the mobile terminal. In order to
cover the space for the 5G mobile terminal as much as
possible, two line subarrays are set on both ends of the
substrate in two different sides, respectively. The structure is
shown in Figure 4. Each set of the linear array antenna is
composed of 8 antenna elements. According to the λ/2 of 26
GHz, the distance between the antenna adjacent elements is
x y
(a) (b)
Fig.4. Proposed phased antenna array configuration on the board: (a) front, (b)
back
B. Phased Antenna Array Performance simulation
As shown in Figure 5, the simulated radiation pattern at 0°
scanning angle of the two subarrays covers the upper and the
lower half space, respectively. As you can see clearly in

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 Figure 6, each subarray covers 180 degrees, and thus the two
subarrays of the antennas cover the entire space on the theta
plane. The coverage of phi plane space can be realized through
the array antenna beam scanning by shifting the phase of each
element. The beam scanning simulated results of the two
subarrays are shown in Figure 7. It can be seen that the two
subarrays can complete the range of at least 60 degrees for the
beam scanning, and the gain of the main lobe in the subarray
is almost invariably at the scanning range of 40 degrees.
impedance bandwidth and stable radiation characteristics. In
addition, the proposed arrays had a low profile and can be well
integrated with mobile terminal devices. All these properties
make it possible as a strong candidate for the future 5G mobile
terminal services. Further work can be carried out in exploring
a higher gain and a larger scanning angle. Furthermore, the
arrays are expected to be done at the same end of the terminal
which is not the end held by the hand to reduce the impact on
the device.

x
subarray B

subarray A

Fig.5. Radiation patterns of the 2 subarrays for 3D-coverage

(a)

Fig.6. Converge space of the two subarrays with realized gain

Figure 8 shows the S parameter of simulation results for

(b)
the array antenna. As illustrated, the couplings among antenna
Fig.7. Realized gains of the subarrays at different scanning angles: (a)
elements of the same subarray are acceptable in the impedance subarray A, (b) subarray B
bandwidth where the worst isolation between the two elements
is -15 dB. And the coupling between the two subarrays is only
-40 dB. As seen, the subarray has good impedance matching
performance and low mutual coupling among different
elements.

IV. CONCLUSION
A novel Miniaturized Dielectric Resonator Antenna with
high dielectric constant has been proposed. The antenna
element was fed by a coaxial probe. The working frequency
band is from 23.2 GHz to 28.6 GHz which is suitable for the
future 5G mobile terminal applications. Two groups of 1 × 8
line array antennas were placed, respectively, at both ends of a
mobile terminal, and each subarray covers half space through
beam scanning. Finally, the two subarrays as a whole terminal
antenna achieved the effect of the 3D-Coverage. The
simulation results illustrated that the design exhibited good Fig.8. Simulated S-parameters of the array antenna

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