Gap Waveguide Technology for Millimeter-Wave Antenna Systems

Millimeter-wave communication systems require many innovative antennas adapted for future application scenarios such as the upcoming 5G cellular networks. Due to the strong path loss in free space at the millimeter-wave frequency range, high gain and low-cost antennas are in great demand. Also, advanced features such as multi-beam for multiple user, dual-polarization, or even complete phased arrays with enormous degrees of freedom in beamforming are some of the key research lines for antenna designers nowadays. In this article an overview of a new type of family of low-loss antennas and components based on the recently developed gap waveguide technology is presented. With the advent of new millimeter-wave applications, this low-cost and low-loss waveguide technology can be considered as a good candidate to be used as the core RF building block.