Dielectric Rod Antenna Array with Planar Folded Slot Antenna Excitation

Abstract

A dielectric rod antenna array fed by slot antenna radiators without the use of metallic waveguide is presented here. Communication systems, especially those related to 5G, are moving up into mm-wave bands where metal losses can become significant and many traditional fabrication and manufacturing techniques become more difficult. Dielectric rod antennas (DRA) are entirely made of dielectric and may be injection-molded or 3D-printed as solid rods, layered rods, or tubes. While the normal approach to feeding DRAs involves some version of metallic waveguide, we show here that the DRA may be integrated with a planar radiator feed and used effectively in an array configuration. The array demonstrated is a 2 × 2 array designed for operation at 15 GHz. Each DRA is 6 λ long. The array is fabricated on a 100 mm × 100 mm substrate with 52 mm separation between elements. The array radiation efficiency is 80% for an array gain of 19 dBi.