A Corrugated All-Metal Vivaldi Antenna for 5G Phased Array Applications

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel corrugated all-metal Vivaldi phased array antenna operating at 28 GHz, offering broad bandwidth, beam steering, reduced mutual coupling, and improved efficiency for 5G applications.

Contribution

It presents a new corrugated Vivaldi antenna design with enhanced performance features specifically tailored for 5G phased array systems.

Findings

Broad bandwidth of 26-30 GHz achieved.

Beam steering capability from -30° to +30° demonstrated.

Reduced mutual coupling and increased radiation efficiency.

Abstract

In this paper, a corrugated Vivaldi phased array antenna in the 28 GHz frequency band is proposed for 5G communication applications. The presented configuration features an all-metal antipodal antenna structure with a broad bandwidth ranging from 26 to 30 GHz and beam steering capabilities from -30 to +30 degrees. The proposed antenna consists of a 4x4 array configuration, where each element has dimensions of 6.46x6.46x14.25 mm, resulting in an overall antenna structure with dimensions of 25.84x25.84x14.25 mm. The corrugation method is applied to minimize surface currents, resulting in a reduction in interelement mutual couplings. Therefore, the return loss in the array structure for central elements is decreased, and the antenna gain and radiation efficiency are improved. Moreover, the improved radiation efficiency allows for higher power transmission and reception from an antenna, resulting in potentially higher data rates and better performance.