Novel Compact High-Gain Differential-Fed Dual-Polarized Filtering Patch Antenna

A novel compact differential-fed dual-polarized filtering patch antenna is proposed. Specific filtering response with radiation nulls is firstly realized for the dual-polarized antenna element by symmetrically loading defected ground structures (DGSs), a cross slot, and eight shorting pins without extra circuits. The DGS with pins can generate a lower edge radiation null for a sharp roll-off rate and simultaneously introduce extra in-band resonance for wide passband. Meanwhile, the cross slot with pins can offer an upper edge null and an in-band resonance. Combining with inherent higher order-mode null of the patch itself, the skirt selectivity and stopband suppression at upper band can be significantly improved. Meanwhile, the |Sdd11| at the upper and lower stopbands is close to 0 dB to achieve high stopband suppressions. As a result, a compact high-gain dual-polarized filtering patch antenna is readily constructed. Thanks for complete symmetry of above structures, the proposed method is very suitable for dual-polarized antennas, where all the performance for both polarizations are identical. For demonstration, a prototype of the proposed antenna is fabricated and measured. Good agreements between the measured and simulated results are observed, indicating good performance with a large bandwidth of about 23% and a peak gain of up to 8.9 dBi within the passband, as well as out-of-band suppression levels of more than 20 dB. Compared with other reported filtering antennas, the proposed filtering patch antenna not only exhibits good wideband dual-polarization radiation but also features high gain in a compact structure for very high aperture efficiency and ultralow cross-polarization level due to the differential feeding and complete symmetry.