High Gain Array Antenna Using Electromagnetic Band Gap Structures for 5G Applications

Abstract

This paper proposes a high gain array antenna operating in the Ku-band at 17.5 GHz for 5G applications. This new antenna is printed on an FR-4 substrate of thickness h = 0.8 mm and realized by changing the geometric shape of a rectangular patch, obtained by inserting an L-shaped slot to enlarge the bandwidth (1.5 GHz) and to increase the gain. To further enhance the gain, we used a 1 × 2 patch antenna array closely spaced and powered by a 1-to-2 Wilkinson power divider. We inserted two high-impedance surface (HIS) structures between the radiating elements and added two electromagnetic band gap (EBG) layers above the antenna. The antenna gain increases from 7.56 dB to 14.8 dB. The design and simulation have been performed by CST Microwave. A minor difference was noted between the measured and simulated data, where a slight shift was observed in the antenna’s resonance frequency, which can be caused by fabrication tolerances or measurement error, uncertainty of the thickness of the FR4 substrate, and quality of SMA connector used. The final array antenna shows a directional radiation pattern with a gain of 14.8 dB and good radiation efficiency over the operating band.