[FrP-08] 2018 International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation (ISAP 2018)

October 23~26, 2018 / Paradise Hotel Busan, Busan, Korea

High Gain Switchable Dielectric Resonator

Antenna Array for 5G Applications
N. H. Shahadan1, M. H. Jamaluddin2, M. Hashim Dahri2, M. R. Kamarudin3 and K. H. Yusof4
1
Department of Electrical Engineering, Politeknik Ibrahim Sultan, 81700 Pasir Gudang, Johor, Malaysia.
2
Wireless Communication Centre (WCC), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM JB, Malaysia.
3
Centre for Electronic Warfare Information and Cyber, Cranfield University, Shrivenham SN6 8LA, U.K.
4
Mahsa University, Bandar Saujana Putra, 42610, Jenjarum, Selangor, Malaysia.

Abstract - This paper presents the findings of high gain the delay arm is added to create time delay difference
switchable dielectric resonator antenna array (DRA). A design between two direct paths in order to achieve the desired
is formed by incorporating DRA with a combination of two
driven DRs using power divider network and phase switching. phase shift. The different path lengths between two-line arms
The radiation pattern and the reflection coefficient were determine phase shift to be introduced. In this regard, 180°
simulated using ANSYS HFSS ver. 16. As the result, the switched line phase shifter is designed and the differential
switchable high gain DRA array achieved a maximum gain and phase shift between two paths is given by (1):
bandwidth of 12.8 dBi and 3.1 GHz (18%), respectively.
Moreover, the measured high gain switchable DRA array is 2𝜋
able to steer at ±30° by using only 2 ports. Hence, the switchable ∆𝜙 = (𝑙 − 𝑙𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 ) (1)
DRA array is capable to cover 60° sector which is considered 𝜆 𝑑𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑦
suitable for 5G applications.
Index Terms — Switchable, dielectric resonator antenna,
high gain, phased array, 5G.

1. Introduction
The switchable antenna design with high gain and wider
bandwidth is the main subject in 5G antenna design. By
taking the 5G’s specification requirements into
consideration, the antenna design should achieve the gain of
Fig. 1. The geometrical of the high gain switchable DRA
more than 12 dBi [1]. With that, related work has been done
array
in [2], [3], and [4] in determining potential frequency of 5G
and meet the specifications. Consequently, it has increased
the antenna elements and the number of phase controls, TABLE I
resulted in increase of cost and complexity of the design. The switching configuration of the high gain DRA array
A new high gain DRA array design is proposed with a goal Design Proposed Case A Case B Case C
to switch the direction beam without using any external Parasitic SW 1(C1 = 1 pF) OFF ON OFF
phase shifter. It is improved the drawbacks of antenna gain DR1 SW 2 (C2 = 0.01 pF) ON OFF ON
in the switchable DRA subarray design that has been SW 3(C1 = 1 pF) OFF OFF ON
Parasitic
presented in [5]. Consequently, two switchable DRA DR2 SW 4 (C2 = 0.01 pF) ON ON OFF
subarrays are implemented to incorporate the high gain
Parasitic SW 5(C1 = 1 pF) OFF ON OFF
design by using power divider network and switched-line DR3 SW 6 (C2 = 0.01 pF) ON OFF ON
phase shifter. Thereafter, the simulated high gain designs are Parasitic SW 7 (C1 = 1 pF) OFF OFF ON
fabricated and measured to verify the analysis results. DR4 SW 8 (C2 = 0.01 pF) ON ON OFF
Finally, the performance comparison between high gain Phase Reference SW (β = 0°) ON OFF OFF
switchable DRA with the previous work in reducing the switch Delay SW (β =180°) OFF ON ON
number of elements and phase control are made in this
research. Eight controlling ideal switches were embedded in the
feed line of the parasitic elements are configured to control
2. Configurations of the High Gain Switchable DRA the subarray array factor (AF), while the delay switch and
Array the reference switch are intended to control the full AF. Then,
The phase shifting is accomplished for the switching case the beam at three different steering angles are configured
by appending some additional microstrip length to the based on three cases as tabulated in Table I. The ON and
corresponding output port as shown in Fig. 1. In this design, OFF conditions in the parasitic DRs represent the short-

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 2018 International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation (ISAP 2018)
October 23~26, 2018 / Paradise Hotel Busan, Busan, Korea

circuit and open-circuit setting conditions, respectively Capability of the switchable beam at H-plane was
between the parasitic DR and the relative capacitor. While, observed for three various cases as presented in Fig. 4. It is
the ON and OFF conditions in the phase switch specify either clearly indicated that the measured beam was able to switch
0° or 180° of the phase difference between the driven ports. at 0°, -30°, +30° with the gain more than 12 dBi. The
verification results have indicated the better performance
achieved by the proposed high gain design compared to [5].
3. Verification of the High Gain Switchable Dielectric
Based on observation from the tabulated data in Table II, the
Resonator Antenna Array
proposed design has successfully achieved the broadest
Fig. 2 shows the fabricated prototype of the proposed bandwidth at 18 % compared to the other designs with the
design. The reflection coefficients performances at different lowest number of phase control used.
cases are then practically measured by using a vector
network analyzer (VNA) at 15 GHz. The findings show that
TABLE II
the measured reflection coefficients for all cases were less
Performance of the Proposed High-Gain DRA Array
than -10 dB with a slight difference in the simulated and
Compared to The Previous Work
measured bandwidth as depicted in Fig. 3. However, the
Design Proposed [2] [3] [4]
observed differences between the simulated and measured
Frequency
bandwidth were in the range of 0.1 to 0.6 GHz only with the 15 GHz 28 GHz 28 GHz 30 GHz
(GHz)
average bandwidth of 2.6 GHz. Bandwidth 2.7 GHz 5.3 GHz 2 GHz 0.3 GHz
(GHz) (18%) (7.3%) (1%) (18.9%)
Number of
6 9 9 16
element
Number of
2 6 4 8
port
Steering angle Not
30 14.6 20
(deg) mentioned

4. Conclusion
(a) (b)
The proposed high gain switchable DRA array design not
Fig. 2. A prototype of the fabricated high gain switchable
only contributes in reducing the number of antenna elements,
DRA array (a) 3D view (b) Back view
but it has also achieved the best switching angle at ±30° by
using only 2 ports that are capable to cover 60° sector. In a
nutshell, this study can be considered as potentially
applicable for implementation in 5G applications.

Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank the Ministry of Education
(MoE) and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) for
sponsoring this work under Vot 4j220 and Vot 19H56.

Fig. 3. Simulated and measured reflection coefficient for References

various cases [1] A. I Sulyman et. al, “Radio Propagation Path Loss Models for 5G
Cellular Networks in the 28 GHz and 38 GHz Millimeter-Wave
Bands.,” IEEE Communication Magazine, pp 78–86, 2013.
[2] N. M. Nor, M. H. Jamaluddin, M. R. Kamarudin, and S. Z. N. Z.
Ambia, “Design of Planar Dielectric Resonator Antenna Array at 28
GHz,” Indonesian Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer
Science, 5(3), pp 622–627. 2017.
[3] M. Khalily, R. Tafazolli, T.A Rahman, and M. R. Kamarudin, “Design
of Phased Arrays of Series-Fed Patch Antennas With Reduced
Number of the Controllers for 28-GHz mm-Wave Applications,”
IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, 15, pp 1305–1308,
2016.
[4] A. Abdellatif, S. Safavi-Naeini, and M. Mohajer, “Novel low cost
compact phased array antenna for millimeter-wave 3D beam scanning
applications,” 2014 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society
International Symposium (APSURSI), pp 1145–1146, 2014.
[5] N. H. Shahadan, M. H. Jamaluddin, M. R. Kamarudin, Y. Yamada, M.
Khalily, M.Jusoh and S. H. Dahlan “Steerable higher-order mode
Fig. 4. Simulated and measured normalized beam dielectric resonator antenna with parasitic elements for 5G
pattern for various cases. applications,” IEEE Access, 5, pp 2169-3536, 2017.

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