A Compact Broadband Circularly Polarized Wide-Slot Antenna with Axial Ratio Bandwidth Encompassing LTE 42 and LTE 43 Standards of 5G Mid-Band

Abstract

This study presents a compact broadband wide-slot antenna with broadband left-hand circular polarization compatible with both LTE 42 and LTE 43 standards of 5G mid-band applications. The proposed antenna is fabricated on an FR4 dielectric substrate with overall dimensions of 0.41 0.36 0.02, where is the free space wavelength at the resonant frequency of the antenna. The antenna ground plane is etched to form a square radiating slot with a pair of rectangular ground stubs that are diagonally placed inside the slot. On the other side of the antenna, the feed line is loaded by horizontal and vertical stubs to improve the coupling between the feed line and the square slot. To generate a circular polarization, the feeding stubs cooperate with the pair of rectangular ground stubs to excite the radiating slot of the antenna at two different feeding points whose currents have approximately equal amplitude and 90° phase shift. The measured impedance bandwidth (BW) of the proposed wide-slot antenna is 16.2% (580 MHz along the band 3.3-3.88 GHz), while the observed axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW) is 12.2% (440 MHz in the 3.4-3.84 GHz band). The measured gain values are found to be larger than 2.5 dB along both standards of the 5G mid-band applications.