1-D Wideband Phased Dielectric Resonator Antenna Array With Improved Radiation Performance Using Characteristic Mode Analysis

A 1-D wideband phased array of the rectangular ring dielectric resonator antenna (RRDRA) is presented for millimeter-wave (mmWave) applications. By using the characteristic mode analysis, it is found that the unwanted higher order mode (HOM) of the RRDRA results in severe gain degradation and high cross-polarization when the array scans. To remedy the problem, each RRDRA is loaded with a pair of silver strips. They can suppress unwanted HOM and enable good scanning performance in a wide frequency range. To demonstrate the idea, a
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4 phased RRDRA array was designed, fabricated, and measured for the licensed mmWave bands (24.25–29.5 GHz). Reasonable agreement between the measured and simulated results is observed.