Electromagnetic and Thermal Analysis of Finned Heatsink Active mm-Wave Linear Array Antennas: Invited Paper

The electromagnetic and thermal performance of the linear arrays of finned heatsink antenna elements are jointly studied for the first time, with a focus on the active integrated mm-wave phased array technology. An original element integrating a heatsink on top of a patch is designed at 28 GHz with significant improvements in directivity, bandwidth and radiation efficiency, as compared to a conventional low-cost patch antenna. A novel computational fluid dynamics (CFD) based thermal model is proposed for reliable natural convection simulations. The powerful ability of the heatsink antennas in enhancing passive cooling is demonstrated, which highlights their dual-functionality.