Design of Efficient Microstrip Linear Antenna Array for 5G Communications Systems

This paper presents design of an efficient microstrip antenna array for 5G communication systems. The antenna operates at 28 GHz and it is formed of 16 elements of rectangular patches arranged in a linear configuration. The single element has gap-coupled feeder and the antenna is designed on low-loss Teflon based RT/duroid 5880 substrate with dielectric constant of 2.2 and substrate thickness of 0.381 mm. A defected ground structure (DGS) in the form of rectangular slots is employed in the array design to reduce the mutual coupling between adjacent elements. The antenna is simulated using CST microwave studio and the results show that the 16-element array has a 10-dB bandwidth greater than 2 GHz and a maximum gain of 17.4 dBi at 28.4 GHz. The performance of the proposed antenna satisfies the requirements of 5G communications systems in terms of high gain, high radiation efficiency and adequate bandwidth.