A Study on Millimeter-Wave Magneto-Electric Dipole Phased Arrays for 5G Dual-Band Applications

Beam steering characteristics of millimeter-wave substrate-integrated magneto-electric (ME) dipole phased arrays with large sizes are investigated in this article. The formation mechanism of the guided waves traveling along the planar ME-dipole array geometry is revealed with the use of a linear array model in simulation, which not only provides an effective method of predicting the blind angles for the ME-dipole phased arrays but also confirms the superior wide-angle scanning performance of the arrays. An 8 × 8 ME-dipole phased array is then designed, fabricated, and tested, whose measured beam scanning range without the blindness in both the E- and H-planes is ±60° over the frequency range between 23.5 and 27.5 GHz and is ±50° over the range between 27.5 and 29.5 GHz. A gain of up to 23.6 dBi and stable radiation patterns are also achieved. With the simple single-layered configuration and the wide-angle scanning ability over the wide operating band of 22.6%, the ME-dipole phased array would be an attractive candidate for the millimeter-wave dual-band applications in the fifth generation (5G) mobile communications.