A Broadband Dual-Polarized Base Station Antenna With Sturdy Construction

A broadband dual-polarized base station antenna with sturdy construction is presented in this letter. The antenna mainly contains four parts: main radiator, feeding baluns, bedframe, and reflector. First, two orthogonal dipoles are etched on a substrate as main radiator forming dual polarization. Two baluns are then introduced to excite the printed dipoles. Each balun has four bumps on the edges for electrical connection and fixation. The bedframe is designed to facilitate the installation, and the reflector is finally used to gain unidirectional radiation. Measured results show that the antenna has a 48% impedance bandwidth with reflection coefficient less than -15 dB and port isolation more than 22 dB. A four-element antenna array with 6° ± 2° electrical down tilt is also investigated for wideband base station application. The antenna and its array have the advantages of sturdy construction, high machining accuracy, ease of integration, and low cost. They can be used for broadband base station in the next-generation wireless communication system.