A broadband pattern reconfigurable patch antenna for 60GHz wireless communication

Abstract

60GHz wireless communication technology has become one of the most potential technologies for the future wireless communication because of its high speed and high bandwidth free spectrum resources. In this paper, a broadband pattern reconfigurable stacked patch antenna with IEEE 802.11ad standard (WiGig) is designed. The pattern reconfigurable antenna consists of a substrate integrated cavity-backed slot coupled driven patch antenna and a parasitic layer placed above it. The surface of the parasitic layer has a grid of 9 square-shaped patches. The pattern reconfigurability property is realized by connecting the nine parasitic patches to change the geometry of the parasitic surface, which in turn changes the current distribution on the parasitic layer. Simulation results show that the antenna is aimed to steer nine directions in the semisphere space over the 57–64GHz frequency band. The beam shift has a stable radiation pattern and the realized gain is above 8.1dB in each mode of operation, which meets the requirements of 60GHz wireless communication system.