Wide Solid Angle Beam-Switching Conical Conformal Array Antenna With High Gain for 5G Applications

Abstract

This letter presents a design for three-dimensional polymeride printing, printed circuit board fabrication, and a full experimental verification of a conical conformal array antenna (CCAA) with wide solid angle switching beam by a radio frequency semiconductor switch (RFSS) configuration. The CCAA consists of eight linear array antennas (LAAs) with uniform circumferential arrangement around a conical surface. Only one LAA out of the eight arrays is individually excited, operating each time by the RFSS connected to the ports of 1–8 power dividers in order to achieve the requirement of beam switching. The CCAA with beam-switching feeding network operates at 4.8 GHz according to the fifth-generation (5G) band requirements. Both a wide solid scanning angle of 0°–218° in the H-plane and a half-power bandwidth less than 16° in the E-plane are achieved. When the realized gain of each LLA is over 10 dBi, the measured peak gain of the final antenna can reach about over 11 dBi and the average radiation efficiency can reach 59.5%. This CCAA with wide solid angle beam switching and high-gain property has the potential to reduce the signal-to-noise ratio and integrate with 5G communication systems.