13th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP 2019)

A Wideband Circularly Polarized Grounded

Coplanar Waveguide Fed Rectangular Frustum
Dielectric Resonator Antenna
Zheyi Yang1 , Zhengpeng Wang1
1 Department of Electronic and Information Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China, [email protected]

Abstract—In this paper, a wideband circularly polarized polarization by creating phase delay among array elements [6].
grounded coplanar waveguide (GCPW) fed rectangular frustum This approach is frequency independent if the feed network
shaped dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) is presented for is ideal. However, the common deficiencies make this two
millimeter wave applications. In the proposed DRA, right circular
polarization is excited by grounded coplanar waveguide (GCPW) approaches not convenient for 5G mobile applications, such
inductive slot feeding, which is tilted 45°angles with respect to as big size and complexity of the feed network, especially
the side of dielectric resonator. The optimized simulated result when forming a large DRAs array is required to obtaining
shows that 3dB axial ratio bandwidth of 13.15% (24.13 - 27.55Hz, high gain.
3.42GHz) and impedance bandwidth of 26.7% (22.07 - 29.01GHz, Compared with two other approaches above, single feeds
6.94GHz) can be obtained, respectively.
approach is compact and simple to realize. Besides, the losses
Index Terms—Dielectric resonator antennas, circular polariza-
of this approach are less than those in two multiple feeds
tion, grounded coplanar waveguide.
approaches mentioned above. The drawback of this approach
is the narrow 3dB AR bandwidth, usually lower than 10%.
I. I NTRODUCTION Various CP DRAs designs are implemented, such as helix mi-
Since millimeter wave (mmWave) communications have crostrip twined around a cylinder dielectric resonator [7], non-
been proposed as one part of five generation (5G) mobiles symmetric cross slots [8]–[10], substrate integrated waveguide
communications, studies about millimeter antennas increase fed loaded patch cylinder DR [11] etc. Among them, the most
promptly. It requires that mmWave antennas become more common method is using one aperture exciting different shapes
efficient and more compact, in order to meet the demands of DRs, for instance, rectangular brick, rectangular stair [12],
of high data rates and compatibility with current antennas trapezoid [13] and rotated stacked bricks [14]. Most of them
systems. Firstly proposed in 1983 [1], dielectric resonator use microstrip line as feeding line, few of works employs
antennas (DRAs) are considered as an attractive choice for grounded coplanar waveguide (GCPW). GCPW is easy to
mmWave applications due to some of their merits, such as integrate with existing active device because the slot and DR
ease of coupling, high radiation efficiency, light weight, wide are on the same side of substrate. Besides, compared with
bandwidth and absence of conductor dissipation in the dielec- microstrip line, the losses and surface energetic dispersion of
tric resonators (DR). Diverse configurations are studied and GCPW are reduced at mmWave band.
fabricated for enhancing performances of linearly polarized In this paper, we present a new wideband circularly po-
DRAs from then to now. For example, A. A. Omar and M. larized GCPW fed DRA at 26GHz. and 3D print material
J. B. Al-Hasan proposed coplanar waveguide feed multiple is employed for simplifying dielectric resonator fabrication
resonances technique [2] and T. Chang and J. Kiang proposed process in the future. Numerical simulation and optimal works
an offset well design [3], both for enhancing bandwidth; in are accomplished.
order to increase the gain, a DRAs array is implemented [4].
However, in the field of mobile and satellite communications,
II. A NTENNA C ONFIGURATION
systems using circularly polarized (CP) antennas prevail due
to their insensitivity of transmitter and receiver orientations. Fig. 1. shows a GCPW fed slot antenna covered with a
Consequently, in recent years, more and more works focus on dielectric resonator. The dielectric resonator, which is made
CP DRAs researches. up of 3d printed material PREPERM® 3D ABS DK 10.0, with
Generally, there are three principal approaches to obtain a dielectric constant r = 10, is in the shape of rectangular
circularly polarized DRAs: single feeds, dual feeds and se- frustum, whose bottom base (dimensions of W1 × L1 ) is not
quential rotation feeding DRAs array. The dual feeds approach proportional with the top base(dimensions of W2 × L2 ). It
employs quadrature feed network to simultaneously generate is mounted in the center of GCPW inductive slot feeding.
two orthogonal modes in dielectric resonator [5]. This ap- The 50Ω GCPW is etched in the ROGERS 3003 substrate,
proach excites CP easily and provides wide axial ratio (AR) with a dielectric constant r = 6.5 and thickness H2 . The
bandwidth, usually more than 15%. Sequential rotation feeding transmission line ends with a slot, which performs like a
DRAs array approach can also synthesize a wideband circular magnetic dipole to excite the DR. Dimensions of slot is
 13th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP 2019)

III. S IMULATED R ESULTS

The performances of the DRA are simulated by CST STU-
DIO SUITE 2018. Simulated result of return loss is presented
in Fig. 2. The designed center frequency is 26GHz and
the frequency range of impedance bandwidth (S11 ≤ 10dB)
is from 22.07GHz to 29.01GHz, equivalent to an relative
impedance bandwidth of 26.7%, which covers one of Chinese
5G potential mmWave band (24.25GHz - 27.5GHz).

-5

22.07GHz 29.01GHz

-10

-15

S11(dB)
-20

Fig. 1. Proposed CP GCPW fed DRA. (a) Perspective view. (b) Top view.
(c) Front view.
-25

-30
W3 × L3 . GCPW’s metallic line width is W5 and the gap
width is W4 . For preventing surface wave energy dissipation,
a rectangular via fence with dimensions of L6 × W6 is -35

constructed around the slot. The optimal dimensions of the 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Frequency (GHz)
proposed antenna configuration is represented in Table I.
Fig. 2. Reflection coefficient
TABLE I
O PTIMAL DIMENSIONS
11
Parameters Dimensions (mm) Parameters Dimensions (mm) Axial Ratio 7

Gain(dBi)
W1 2.25 L1 7.1 10

W2 2.85 L2 8.6 9 6

H1 1.4 H2 0.254
8
W3 0.14 L3 3.592
5
W4 W5

Gain (dBi)
0.1 0.192
Axial Ratio

W6 2.38 L6 4.372
6
4

5
According to Leung [15] , T E11δ mode is excited when
3
the slot is located at a rectangular DR center. Moreover, DRs 4
24.13GHz
27.55GHz
with different dimensions have their proper resonance frequen- 3

cies. Therefore, rectangular frustum shaped DR will generate 2

2
multiple resonances with adjacent resonant frequencies,that
turns out a wide bandwidth. And when a DR with appropriate 1 1

length-to-width ratio is inclined with respect to the slot side, 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Frequency (GHz)
each resonant mode degenerates into two orthogonal modes to
produce circular polarization. Fig. 3. Axial ratio and gain
Also, the slot acts like magnetic dipole, both as a feed and
a radiator, can provides additional resonance. Fig. 3. shows 3dB AR and gain in the boresight direction
It should mention that one pair of vias is added on one (θ = 0o ), respectively. The 3dB AR bandwidth is from
side of the fence, for the reason of perturbing and increasing 24.13GHz to 27.55GHz, equivalent to 13.15%. It should be
the resonant frequency of the via fence. Without those added noted that this 3dB bandwidth totally falls within impedance
vias, a resonant mode is excited at 27.2GHz, which limits the bandwidth, which is beneficial. The corresponding gain in the
impedance bandwidth. same direction is from 5dBi to 7.5dBi, which shows that high
gain band also matches well with impedance bandwidth.
 13th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP 2019)

0 0
0
dB 330 30
0
dB 330 30
[3] T. Chang and J. Kiang, “Broadband dielectric resonator antenna with an
RHCP RHCP
-8 LHCP -8 LHCP offset well,” IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, vol. 6,
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300 60
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300 60
pp. 564–567, 2007.
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resonator antenna array,” IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation
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Letters, vol. 14, pp. 747–750, 2015.
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[5] R. Kumari and R. K. Gangwar, “Conformal strip fed circularly polarized
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cylindrical dielectric resonator antenna with modified Wilkinson power
-16
240 120
-16
240 120 divider,” in 2016 11th International Conference on Industrial and
-8 -8
Information Systems (ICIIS), Dec 2016, pp. 345–348.
0
210 150
0
210 150 [6] S. S. Yang, R. Chair, A. A. Kishk, K. Lee, and K. Luk, “Study
180 180
on sequential feeding networks for subarrays of circularly polarized
(a) XZ-plane at 26GHz (b) YZ-plane at 26GHz elliptical dielectric resonator antenna,” IEEE Transactions on Antennas
and Propagation, vol. 55, no. 2, pp. 321–333, Feb 2007.
0 0
0
dB 330 30
RHCP
0
dB 330 30
RHCP
[7] A. Motevasselian, A. Ellgardt, and B. L. G. Jonsson, “A helix excited
-8 LHCP -8 LHCP circularly polarized hollow cylindrical dielectric resonator antenna,”
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300 60
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300 60
IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, vol. 12, pp. 535–538,
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-40 270 90 -40 270 90 antenna using asymmetric coupling slot,” Electronics Letters, vol. 39,
-32 -32 no. 23, pp. 1627–, Nov 2003.
-24 -24
[9] M. Zhang, B. Li, and X. Lv, “Cross-slot-coupled wide dual-band circu-
-16
240 120
-16
240 120 larly polarized rectangular dielectric resonator antenna,” IEEE Antennas
-8 -8
and Wireless Propagation Letters, vol. 13, pp. 532–535, 2014.
0
210 150
0
210 150 [10] M. Zou and J. Pan, “Wide dual-band circularly polarized stacked
180 180
rectangular dielectric resonator antenna,” IEEE Antennas and Wireless
(c) XZ-plane at 24.25GHz (d) YZ-plane at 24.25GHz Propagation Letters, vol. 15, pp. 1140–1143, 2016.
0 0
[11] Y. Sun and K. W. Leung, “Circularly polarized substrate-integrated
0
dB 330 30
RHCP
0
dB 330 30
RHCP
cylindrical dielectric resonator antenna array for 60 GHz applications,”
-8
-8 LHCP
-16
LHCP IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, vol. 17, no. 8, pp.
-16
300 60 -24 300 60 1401–1405, Aug 2018.
-24
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[12] R. Chair, S. L. S. Yang, A. A. Kishk, K. F. Lee, and K. M. Luk, “Aperture
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fed wideband circularly polarized rectangular stair shaped dielectric
-40 270 90 -56 270 90 resonator antenna,” IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation,
-32
-48

-40
vol. 54, no. 4, pp. 1350–1352, April 2006.
-24
-32
[13] Y. Pan and K. W. Leung, “Wideband circularly polarized trapezoidal
-16
240 120 -24 240 120 dielectric resonator antenna,” IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation
-8
-16

-8
Letters, vol. 9, pp. 588–591, 2010.
0
210 150
0
210 150
[14] S. Fakhte, H. Oraizi, and R. Karimian, “A novel low-cost circularly
180 180
polarized rotated stacked dielectric resonator antenna,” IEEE Antennas
(e) XZ-plane at 27.5GHz (f) YZ-plane at 27.5GHz and Wireless Propagation Letters, vol. 13, pp. 722–725, 2014.
[15] K. M. Luk and K. W. Leung, Dielectric Resonator Antennas. Research
Fig. 4. Radiation patterns of normalized directivity Studies Press Ltd., 2003.

Fig. 4(a). and 4(b). depict radiation patterns of XZ-plane

(φ = 0o ) and YZ-plane (φ = 90o ) at 26GHz, respectively.
It is observed that the RHCP are stronger than the LHCP by
more than 16dB at XZ-plane and 20dB at YZ-plane in the
boresight direction. Those radiation patterns are also examined
at 24.25GHz and 27.5GHz and show in Fig. 4(c). 4(d). 4(e).
4(f). The result confirms that RHCP persists through the entire
bandwidth.

IV. C ONCLUSION
A new wideband CP DRA is investigated. The proposed
antenna is fed by GCPW slot. Wide bandwidth is obtained
by multiples resonances frequencies. The performances are
satisfied to the requires of future 5G communications.

R EFERENCES
[1] S. Long, M. McAllister, and L. Shen, “The resonant cylindrical dielectric
cavity antenna,” IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation,
vol. 31, no. 3, pp. 406–412, May 1983.
[2] A. A. Omar and M. J. B. Al-Hasan, “Dual-band coplanar-waveguide-fed
slot-coupled rectangular dielectric resonator antenna,” in 2009 Interna-
tional Conference on Future Computer and Communication, April 2009,
pp. 62–64.