A Low-Profile, Single-Ended and Dual-Polarized Patch Antenna for 5G Application

In this communication, a single-ended, dual-polarized patch antenna of extremely low profile is proposed. It consists of three substrates, which are, respectively, responsible for radiation, energy coupling, and feeding. A patch is printed on the top layer of the upper substrate. Four triangular slots are etched on the patch to direct the current in the slant direction and reduce the occlusion of the patch to other structures. Then two coupled lines are crosswise placed on the top layer of the medium substrate to improve the structural symmetry and couple the energy to the patch. The transition lines on the bottom side of the lowermost substrate are connected to the coupled lines plated through holes. The antenna can achieve high isolation and acceptable cross polarization discrimination (XPD) without complex differential feed network. Its size is only 0.257 × 0.257 × 0.06 λ
₀
³
(λ
₀
is the free space wavelength at center frequency). To verify the design, the antenna element and its 1 × 2 subarray is processed and tested. Results show that the proposed antenna has a great deal of potential for 5G new radio (NR) application.