A Transmission Line Transition to Extend the Transmission-Line-Excited Magnetoelectric Dipole Antenna Array

A differentially driven transmission-line-excited magnetoelectric dipole (ME-dipole) array antenna is designed for fifth-generation (5G) applications. It is derived from our previous work using a single-layered printed circuit board (PCB) with plated-through-hole technology. The proposed antenna is composed of a 2 × 4 ME-dipole array surrounded by a rectangular cavity. A pair of differential ports feed the antenna. Experiments show that the proposed antenna presents an impedance bandwidth of 26.8% from 55.3 to 72.4 GHz, a 3 dB gain bandwidth of 25% from 55.4 to 71.2 GHz, and a peak gain of 15.3 dBi at 62 GHz. Moreover, the proposed antenna retains all the salient features of the ME-dipole in symmetric radiation patterns and low cross-polarization and back radiation levels.