AMC-Loaded Millimeter-Wave CPW-Fed Monopole Antenna for 5G Wearable Applications

In this paper, a new millimeter-wave (mmWave) co-planar waveguide (CPW) fed monopole antenna backed by artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) is presented. A novel AMC unit cell has been designed and a 2×2 array is used below the antenna to increase the gain and achieve low specific absorption rate (SAR) values below 1.6 W/Kg. Novelty of AMC unit cell lies in the fact that single or dual band operation of the unit cell can be achieved by only adjusting the inner patch size without changing the outer dimensions of the unit cell. Presented AMC unit cell has zero reflection phase at 28GHz for single band operation. Proposed design has been designed using semi-flexible substrate making it suitable for 5G mmWave wearable applications.

I. Introduction

For the past few years, system designers and researchers are trying to apply the millimeter wave (mmWave) frequency band to a number of different wireless networks including wireless body area networks (WBANs) [1]. High data-rates along with availability of abundant frequency spectrum make the mmWave band suitable for future 5G wireless communication systems. In fact, one of the major advantages of mmWave frequency band is the size miniaturization of different RF components including antennas. However, biggest short-coming of higher frequencies is they suffer from high propagation loss due to atmospheric absorption, which results in reducing the wireless range [2]. High gain antennas are considered as a simple, effective and low-cost solution to overcome millimeterwave propagation losses [3].