Ultra-Wideband Hybrid Magneto-Electric Dielectric-Resonator Dipole Antenna Fed by a Printed RGW for Millimeter-Wave Applications

Abstract

Future communication standards have an increasing interest in Millimeter Wave (mm-wave) bands, where wide bandwidth and secured communication can be assured. This trend in communication standards stimulates the research community to provide novel antenna configurations in the mm-wave bands. This article proposes a novel design and analysis of hybrid magneto-electric dielectric-resonator dipole antenna that features an electrically small size with ultra-wideband operation and consistent radiation characteristics in the mm-wave band. The proposed antenna is designed based on the combination of multi-resonances produced by a Magneto-Electric (ME) dipole and stacked Dielectric Resonator Antennas (DRAs). In addition, the proposed antenna is implemented using state-of-the-art Printed Circuit Board (PCB) technology, namely, Printed Ridge Gap Waveguide (PRGW) for low loss and cost-efficiency. The combination between the ME-dipole and stacked DRA is adopted to ensure symmetric radiation characteristics in both E-and H-planes over ultra-wideband operation with a deep matching level. Both DRA and ME-dipole elements are designed and studied separately, where a systematic design procedure is presented to obtain initial design parameters. Proper integration between the radiating elements introduced an electrically small size antenna (0.64 λ × 0.48 λ) covers the full Ka-band (26-40 GHz) with a matching level beyond-20 dB and gain stability of 8± 1 dB. The antenna prototype is fabricated, where a good agreement is shown between both simulated and measured results.