Dual-Band Dual-Polarized Antennas for 5G mmWave Base Stations

In this paper, we present a systematic approach for the development of application-specific antennas for 5G millimeter-wave (mmWave) base stations. First, an in-depth analysis of 5G mmWave base stations considering the required antenna gain and antenna elements to address different equivalent isotropic radiated power requirements is presented. This is followed by an evaluation of the realistic impact of different factors, which affect mmWave communication, namely output power of power amplifiers, antenna gain, losses and weather condition (rain), on transmission ranges between base station and terminals, considering the link budget analysis for an Urban Macro cell with the Non-Line-of-Sight transmission, as an example. Finally, based on a comparative analysis of published dual-band dual-polarized 5G mmWave antennas, we propose a novel configuration of a dual-band dual-polarized antenna for 5G mmWave base station applications, which overcomes the limitations of conventional antennas in published literature. Our proposed antenna covers the specified 3GHz bandwidths in the 5G mmWave n257 and n260 bands and reaches approximately 6 and 6.7 dBi, respectively in these bands. Furthermore, it exhibits at least 20 dB isolation between the polarizations and has dimensions of 1.831.83 1.2 mm. We modeled, simulated, fabricated, measured and analyzed this new antenna configuration. Excellent correlation is obtained between measurement and simulation results.