Design of Vivaldi antenna array with end-fire beam steering function for 5G mobile terminals

This manuscript proposes a new design of phased array antenna for future fifth generation (5G) cellular communications. The proposed phased array antenna is designed on a low-cost N9000 PTFE substrate with overall size of 60×130×0.8 mm
³
. It consists of eight 28-GHz Vivaldi antenna elements used to form a linear phased array in the edge region (top-side) on a mobile phone PCB. The simulated results show that the antenna has the reflection coefficient (S11) less than -10 dB in the frequency range of 27.4 to 28.6 GHz. The proposed phased array antenna has good gain, efficiency, and 3D beam steering characteristics in the entire operation band, which makes it suitable for millimeter-wave 5G communications. In addition, the performance of the antenna in the vicinity of user's hand has been investigated in this study.