Dual Polarized Wide-Angle Scanning Phased Array Antenna for 5G Communication System

A dual-polarized phased array antenna is presented with wide-angle scanning capability in this paper. To improve the mutual coupling in the array, a current cancellation method (CCM) is proposed by changing the current distribution on the excited unit to induce a pair of the canceled currents on the adjacent unit. Meanwhile, this current distribution broadens the beam-width of the unit in the array. Besides, the proposed method can also optimize the array unit size and achieve a small inter-unit distance for wide-angle scanning capability. A low-profile dual-polarization antenna operating in the bandwidth from 4.4 GHz to 5.0 GHz is designed as a linear array and a planar array to verify the proposed method. Regardless of the linear array or planar array, the mutual coupling in the array is below -19 dB, which is better than that in conventional arrays. Meanwhile, the antenna unit in the array can radiate a wide-beam pattern. Two arrays can scan over ±60° for both polarizations. Within the scanning range, the realized gain reduction is less than 3 dB and the side-lobe level is lower than -7.5 dB. To verify the performance, two array antenna prototypes are fabricated and tested. The experimental results agree well with the simulation.