Substrate-Integrated-Waveguide-Fed Array Antenna Covering 57-71 GHz Band for 5G Applications

A wideband linearly polarized antenna element with complementary sources is proposed and exploited for array antennas. The element covers a bandwidth of 38.7% from 50 to 74 GHz with an average gain of 8.7 dBi. The four-way broad wall coupler is applied for the 2 × 2 sub-array, which suppresses the cross-polarization of a single element. Based on the designed 2 × 2 sub-array, two larger arrays have been designed and measured. The 4 × 4 array exhibits 26.7% bandwidth, fully covering the 57 to 71 GHz unlicensed band. The 8 × 8 array antenna covers a bandwidth of 14.5 GHz (22.9%) from 56.1 to 70.6 GHz with a peak gain of 26.7 dBi, and the radiation efficiency is over 80% within the matching band. It is demonstrated that the proposed antenna element and arrays can be used for future 5G applications to cover the 22% bandwidth of the unlicensed band with high gain and low loss.