Design and testing of a millimeter-wave beam-steering mesh-grid array for 5th generation (5G) mobile communication handset devices

The steady advancement of silicon and compound semiconductor technologies has triggered the possibility of utilizing millimeter-wave frequencies for next-generation cellular data networks (“5G”). In comparison to 4G networks, the millimeter-wave 5G network offers significant advantage in data throughput due to the much wider RF bandwidth. Recent publications by other authors in (T.S. Rappaport, Y. Qiao, J.I. Tamir, J.N. Murdock, and E. Ben-Dor, Radio and Wireless Symposium, 2012, IEEE, pp. 151–154) have successfully demonstrated the possibility of a millimeter-wave cellular network by characterizing the propagation and angle-of-arrival for an adaptive beam-steering system operating at 38 GHz with full consideration of obstructions by foliage and other structures. However, the advent of an affordable, low-profile beam steering antenna remains one of the most critical issues for future 5G devices.