Dual-Band Base Station Array Using Filtering Antenna Elements for Mutual Coupling Suppression

This paper presents a novel dual-band base station antenna array using filtering antenna elements for size miniaturization. It consists of two 1 × 6 subarrays arranged side by side, which are designed for Digital Cellular System (DCS: 1710-1880 MHz) and Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA: 1920-2170 MHz) applications. The two subarrays are composed of filtering antenna elements with high in-band radiation efficiency and out-of-band radiation rejection levels. The radiation of the DCS subarray is suppressed in the WCDMA band and vice versa. Mutual coupling between the two subarrays, therefore, can be suppressed and high isolation can be obtained with reduced subarray spacing. For demonstration, a dual-band filtering antenna array is designed and fabricated. The overall width of the array is only 206 mm, which is much narrower than that of typical industrial products (~290 mm). An isolation of 35 dB is obtained between the two subarrays without any decoupling network. The measured antenna gains are about 14.2 and 14.5 dBi for DCS and WCDMA bands, respectively, and the 3-dB beamwidths of the horizontal radiation patterns are 65° ± 5°. In addition, null filling below the main beam in the vertical radiation patterns is realized by elaborately designing a feed network to manipulate the output magnitude and phase of each array element. The proposed array is suitable for potential base station applications.