Wideband High-Gain Stacked Patch Antenna Array on Standard PCB for D-Band 6G Communications

In this letter, we propose a wideband high-gain array antenna approach for 6G communications in
D
-band (110–170 GHz) wholly using industry-standard printed circuit board (PCB), based on the aperture coupled stacked patch structure. Notably, to enhance array gain, bandwidth and meanwhile to meet the low-cost PCB standard, we propose an antenna structure on a six-layers PCB in which two metal layers are placed between the top and bottom patch layers functioned as null ground layers and via connection to form via fences for the suppression of surface waves between all antenna elements. To characterize the antenna, a wideband WR6 waveguide to microstrip transition is designed to interface with the microstrip line feeding. Simulated designs and measurements of the fabricated antennas and test structures are described and analyzed. Measurements well agree with the simulations, achieving excellent results with 35 GHz bandwidth ranging from 123 to 158 GHz, and a peak measured array gain of 17.5 dBi for 16 antenna elements. The design approach is therefore a low-cost solution to meet the expected requirements of 6G communications in terms of bandwidth, gain, scalability, and ease of integration to radio frequency integrated circuits.