A droplet-shape inspired wideband bow-tie dielectric resonator antenna for sub-6 GHz and IoT applications

Abstract

In this article, an approach to realizing a dielectric resonator based bow-tie shaped antenna for the sub-6 GHz, 5G and IoT applications is discussed that utilizes droplet-shaped radiators for its two arms. The droplet-shaped radiating element is systematically derived to obtain a wider bandwidth response by truncating the sides of an aperture-coupled cylindrical DRA operating at HE11δ mode. The proposed bow-tie dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) is a modified dipole structure that uses a balanced line to differentially feed the two radiating segments to attain an overall wideband characteristics. A wideband matching balun circuit facilitates the antenna feeding which produces equal amplitude signals with 180° phase difference at its two output ports throughout the band of interest. The measurement of the proposed antenna confirms that it can serve several 5G bands like n77 (3300–4200 MHz), n78 (3300–3800 MHz), n48 (3550–3700 MHz) and n79 (4400–5000 MHz) with an overall wide bandwidth of 42.7% in the sub-6 GHz range. This planar configuration has a realized gain value ≥7.5 dBi within 3.37–3.91 GHz and it remains higher than 6 dBi almost throughout the working bandwidth of 3.18–4.91 GHz with considerably wide beamwidth. This broadband DRA has a consistent broadsided radiation pattern with cross-polarization discrimination (XPD)> 20 dB and its radiation efficiency varies between 60%–70% within 3.2–4.8 GHz. The antenna occupies a volume 1.2λ×1.2λ×0.1λ corresponding to its lower frequency of operation and it can support many more significant applications including WiMAX (3.3–3.8 GHz), Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) (3.55–3.7 GHz) and LTE (3.41–3.5 GHz uplink/3.51–3.6 GHz downlink). All these characteristics make this antenna a suitable candidate for use in transceiver modules for indoor communication, base stations, and vehicular communication.