A wideband reduced form factor antenna for 5G SAWAP applications

In this paper, a wideband antenna for 5G Small-Area Wireless Access Points (SAWAPs) applications is presented. The proposed antenna is designed to fulfil strict project require-ments, namely, to operate in the 5G FR1 n78 frequency band, and to have a reduced form factor, so it can easily be integrated in existing street furniture. The proposed antenna layout resembles a typical inset feed microstrip patch with etched ground plane. In particular, the slot opened in the bottom plane allows to improve the bandwidth up to 15%, when comparing with a standard microstrip patch antenna. A thorough simulation workout is presented to better comprehend how the main design parameters affect the antenna performance, and ultimately, to properly tune the antenna. After optimisation in CST MWS, an antenna with overall dimension of $30\times 30mm^{2}$, designed in Rogers 4350B substrate, presents a total bandwidth of 585 MHz (15%), defined from 3.35 to 3.935 GHz, with an omnidirectional radiation pattern with a realised gain of 2.34 dBi. Furthermore, the proposed antenna layout is also optimised to operate inside a plastic enclosure backed by a metallic plate. According to simulations, the final antenna model presents an optimised bandwidth of 400 MHz and a realized gain of 5.03 dBi, at 3.6 GHz.