Broadband dual-polarized base station antenna for fifth-generation (5G) applications

Abstract

A broadband dual-polarized base station antenna with special designed feeding structures is investigated in this paper. The proposed antenna contains two pairs of crossed dipoles, two specially designed feeding connectors, two pieces of dielectric pads, a supporter (also a balun), and a reflector. To verify the designed antenna, a prototype is fabricated and measured. The antenna attains a bandwidth of around 46.5% operating over 3.14–5.04 GHz under reflection coefficient lower than –15 dB, and the port-to-port isolation is higher than 32.5 dB. It also achieves very stable radiation patterns with half power beam widths of 71.8° ± 2.5° in both the horizontal and vertical planes and gains of around 8 dBi over its operating band. Besides, the mechanism of the obtained good performances is clearly explained from the angle of current. All of the features ensure that the proposed antenna is suitable for the fifth-generation (5G) mobile communications.