See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/304286895

A compact millimeter-wave slot antenna array for 5G standards

Conference Paper · June 2015

DOI: 10.1109/APCAP.2015.7374281

CITATIONS READS
34 1,952

4 authors:

Ali Alreshaid Oualid Hammi

Georgia Institute of Technology American University of Sharjah
8 PUBLICATIONS 297 CITATIONS 139 PUBLICATIONS 2,280 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Mohammad S. Sharawi K. Sarabandi

Polytechnique Montréal University of Michigan
419 PUBLICATIONS 6,554 CITATIONS 922 PUBLICATIONS 21,789 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Mohammad S. Sharawi on 02 January 2017.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

A Compact Millimeter-Wave Slot Antenna Array for
5G Standards

Ali T. Alreshaid, Oualid Hammi Kamal Sarabandi

and Mohammad S. Sharawi Electrical Engineering Department
Electrical Engineering Department University of Michigan
King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
Dhahran, 31261, Saudi Arabia. Email: saraband@umich.edu
Email: {Alreshaid, ohammi, msharawi}@kfupm.edu.sa

Abstract—A millimeter wave (mm-wave) two-dimensional slot than [3] and can be easily fit into the upper or lower edges of
antenna array, operating at 28 GHz, is designed and presented current handheld devices compared to [4] due to its compact
in this paper. The antenna array consists of 8 elements in a size of 29.9×28.7×0.13 mm3 .
2×4 configuration. A 1-to-4 power divider is feeding the 2×4
slot antenna array in both schemes; parallel and series. The
bandwidth achieved for the integrated system was almost 5% II. S YSTEM D ESIGN
with a center frequency at 28.2 GHz. The occupied size was The system design is accomplished in two steps; coming
29.9×28.7×0.13 mm3 , making it easier to fit within handheld
devices for the upcoming 5G cellular standards.
up with a 1-to-4 power divider with a capability of feeding a
planar array and the 2×4 planar slot antenna array. The feed
Keywords—Slot Antenna, planar arrays, millimeter-waves. network was implemented on the top layer of the PCB while
the slot array was etched out from the bottom ground layer.
I. I NTRODUCTION
A. 1-to-4 Power Divider Feed Network
After revealing the potentials of the 28 GHz band as a
The power divider was constructed by microstrip lines. It
powerful candidate to be the carrier frequency for the next
operated at 28 GHz and implemented on an RO3003 substrate
5th generation in cellular networks [1], many designers started
(r = 3) of thickness of 0.13 mm, the realized line widths
proposing antenna systems to be used for this frequency.
were found to be 0.35 mm and 0.18 mm corresponding to
Different designs were reported in literature where researchers
50Ω and 70.7Ω, respectively. This network will drive the 2×4
proposed using patches etched on PCBs, parasitic patches
slot antenna array through parallel and series feedings. This
on LTCC [2], mesh-grid antenna arrays [3] and tapered slot
network, shown in Fig. 1, consumed 5.6×22.7 mm2 of space.
antenna fed by surface integrated waveguide [4].
In [2], two designs based on patch antenna array were B. 2×4 Slot Antenna Array
proposed to operate at 28 GHz. The BW was 1.59 GHz with
a gain of 13 dB. A third patch antenna design was presented The slot antenna has several advantages, such as ease of
and based on Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramic to enhance fabrication and the ability to be fit into most places (Since it
the bandwidth, which was increased to 2.85 GHz. On the is etched out of the ground plane). On the other hand, it has
other hand, Gain had become 10.5 dB, instead. The use of low gain relative to other types of antennas, and that would be
multi-layer LTCC substrates resulted in having a substrate of compensated by using it in an antenna array. The feeding point
thickness of 0.508 mm. A complex antenna system based on where the microstrip line passes across the slot is calculated
mesh-grid antenna array was proposed in [3] where 16 antenna and found to be 5% of a wavelength. After integrating and
elements provided a gain of 10.9 dBi at bore sight. The band- optimizing the slot antenna array with the feed network to
width acquired in simulation and measurements was greater operate at the desired band, the slot length and width were
than 3 GHz. A novel design based on tapered slot antenna array found to be 3.15 mm and 0.45 mm, respectively. A pad
was fed by a surface integrated waveguide was provided in [4]. surrounding the input port and connected to the bottom ground
The system offered a very wide bandwidth of 10 GHz; from
23 to 33 GHz with a flat gain of 14.5 dB over wide spectrum.
The overall size of the system was 83.5×10.25×0.508 mm3 ,
eliminating the chance for this design to be placed at the
upper edge of the current handheld devices, since most of the
current handheld devices are less than 80 mm in width. It is
undesirable to fit it in the side edges where they are of high
probability to get blocked by the hand-grip.
In this paper, a mm-wave antenna system operating at Figure 1: mm-Wave 1-to-4 Power Divider
28 GHz is proposed that is smaller than [2], less complex

978-1-4799-8897-6/15/$31.00 2015
c IEEE 84

Figure 2: mm-wave Slot Array System Layout
plate through several vias is introduced to accommodate the
mini-SMP connector (PE44489) [5]. A layout of the complete
system is shown in Fig. 2.
III. S IMULATION R ESULTS
The power levels detected at the output ports of the feed
network alone (i.e. power divider) were varying from -6.65 to
-6.4 dB (i.e. 0.25 of the input power). The feed network had
wide band operation with below -20 dB reflection coefficient
levels between 27 to 31 GHz, as shown in Fig. 3. Fig. 4 shows
that the 2×4 slot antenna array alone has a resonance centered
at 28.1 GHz with -10 dB BW of 950 MHz, while the complete
integrated system is resonating at 28.2 GHz and the -10 dB
BW achieved is 1.38 GHz. The antenna system provides a
maximum gain of 9 dB directed towards 0 and 180 from the
z-axis as can be noted from Fig. 5. Such a design can be very
attractive to be integrated in future mobile terminals for short
range 5G communications. The complete model was designed
and simulated using HFSST M
Figure 3: Reflection Coefficient and output power levels for
the mm-wave power divider
2015 IEEE 4th Asia-Pacific Conference on Antennas and Propagation (APCAP)
View publication stats
Figure 4: Reflection Coefficients for the slot antenna array
and the complete integrated system
Figure 5: Two views of the 3D Gain Pattern of the antenna
system
IV. C ONCLUSIONS
A simple compact design for antenna systems is proposed,
designed and simulated. The antenna provided a gain of 9 dB
and 1.38 GHz BW, and occupied a volume of 29.9×28.7×0.13
mm3 , which can be easily fit into current mobile devices for
the coming 5G short range communication standards.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to acknowledge the funding pro-
vided by DSR at KFUPM through project no. RG1332.
R EFERENCES
[1] T. S. Rappaport, S. Sun, R. Mayzus, H. Zhao, Y. Azar, K. Wang, G.
N. Wong, J. K. Schulz, M. Samimi and F. Gutierrez, “ Millimeter Wave
Mobile Communications for 5G Cellular: It Will Work!,” IEEE Access,
pp. 335 - 349, 2013.
[2] K.-S. Chin, H.-T. Chang, J.-A. Liu, H.-C. Chiu, J. S. Fu and S.-H.
Chao, “ 28-GHz Patch Antenna Arrays with PCB and LTCC Substrates,”
in Cross Strait Quad-Regional Radio Science and Wireless Technology
Conference, Harbin, 2011.
[3] W. Hong, K. Baek, Y. Lee and Y. G. Kim, “ Design and Analysis
of a Low-Profile 28 GHz Beam Steering Antenna Solution for Future
5G Cellular Applications,” in Microwave Symposium (IMS), 2014 IEEE
MTT-S International, Tampa, FL, 2014.
[4] K. Phalak, Z. Briquech and A. Sebak, “ Surface Integrated Waveguide fed
Antipodal Fermi-Linear Tapered Slot Antenna at 28 GHz,” in Antenna
Technology and Applied Electromagnetics (ANTEM), Victoria, BC,
2014.
[5] “www.pasternack.com,” 2013. [Online]. Available:
http://www.pasternack.com/images/ProductPDF/PE44490.pdf. [Accessed
25 11 2014].
85