A Broadband Millimeter Wave Array Antenna

In this paper a broadband millimeter wave array antenna has been designed at 60-GHz band to be used in millimeter-wave small cell modules. An one dimensional aperture coupled patch antenna has been shown with inverted patch and air gap in between ground and patches. Some unfed patches (dummy patches) are used for performance enhancement. The performance of the antenna is dependent on the air gap, dummy patches and the thickness of the substrates. The air gap has been tuned and the performance has been compared. The antenna shows 55 GHz to 65 GHz bandwidth for /S11/ ∠-10 dB and very flat broadside gain w.r.t. frequency for a single antenna. Peak gain for the single array is obtained 10 dBi. Beamforming with 16 such antennas has been shown to steer the beam ±50 deg at a loss of less than 3 dBi.