Wideband Dual-Polarized Endfire Phased Array Antenna With Small Ground Clearance for 5G mmWave Mobile Terminals

Abstract

A dual-polarized endfire phased array antenna is presented for 5G mmWave mobile terminal applications. The antenna element combines a pair of top-hat dipoles with an open slot in two substrate layers. The dipole is excited by an open-ended substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) for vertical polarization, and the slot is coupled by a bent stripline for horizontal polarization. Both radiators can provide wide bandwidth, and share a small ground clearance of merely 1.6 mm. A $1\\times4$ phased array is designed with an element spacing of 6 mm. Decoupling vias and decoupling slots are added between elements to improve port isolation. The simulated and measured overlapped bandwidth of the two polarizations are 21.4% and 14.6%, respectively. The isolation between any two ports is higher than 18 dB. The measured scanning beams of both polarizations are capable of covering ±42° within 3-dB gain variation.