This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been
fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LAWP.2019.2913170, IEEE
Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters
A Dual-Polarized Frequency-Reconfigurable
Low-Profile Antenna with Harmonic
Suppression for 5G Application
Zhenghang Nie, Huiqing Zhai, Member,IEEE, Longhua Liu, Jiaxu Li, Diwei Hu, and Junhao Shi
 is indispensable. In traditional system design, large volume,
Abstract—A dual-polarized frequency-reconfigurable low-
profile antenna with harmonic suppression for 5G application is
presented in this letter. The proposed design consists of a pair of
±45° polarized frequency-reconfigurable dipole antennas, two
vertically placed feeding structures with filtering branches, and
an artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) surface. By introducing
the U-shaped structure, better impedance matching performance
is achieved in two bands. Measured results show that the
proposed antenna can operate at 3.24-4.03GHz and 4.44-5.77GHz
by controlling the on-off of PIN diodes, and port isolation of two
bands is greater than 25dB. What’s more, two-octave harmonic
suppression is realized by loading the filtering branches. In order
to obtain stable unidirectional radiation pattern in the operating
bands and low-profile characteristic, a dual-band 44 AMC
reflector is fabricated. Finally, a maximum gain of 6.86dBi in low
frequency band and 8.14dBi in high frequency band are obtained.
Besides, the height of the proposed antenna is 0.1 at 3.3GHz.
Experimental results show that the antenna can meet the needs of
5G communication.
Index Terms—Frequency-reconfigurable, dual-polarized,
harmonic suppression, artificial magnetic conductor (AMC).
I. INTRODUCTION
I n the era of information explosion, mobile communications
and wireless networks have been widely used in daily life as
the most active areas of social development. Faced with the
rapid growth of information, the shortcoming of insufficient
communication capacity is increasingly obvious. The multi-
band dual-polarized antennas become an alternative choice,
which greatly alleviates such a situation. There are a large
number of research results on multiband dual-polarized
antennas [1-4]. What’s more, reconfigurable antennas have
many advantages over traditional antennas, such as
simplification and miniaturization, which can change the
pattern, frequency and polarization performance [5-6].
Moreover, nonlinear devices have been widely used in
wireless communication systems. Therefore, electromagnetic
compatibility problem will arise without harmonic suppression
capability. At the same time, in order to further improve the
efficiency of energy conversion, the suppression of harmonics
This work is supported by the NSFC under Contract No. 61501341.
The authors are with National Laboratory of Science and Technology on
Antennas and Microwaves, the School of Electronic Engineering, Xidian
University, Xi’an, 710071, China. (hqzhai@mail.xidian.edu.cn)
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1
high cost and insertion loss filters are often introduced to
suppress harmonics, which undoubtedly affects the impedance
matching of the system. Various microstrip antennas with
harmonic suppression [7-10] have attracted wide attention. In
[7], spur-line filters inserted in microstrip feed line are used to
suppress harmonics. Harmonics are also suppressed by
embedding four right-angle slits in the antenna in [8]. The
suppression of higher order harmonics is achieved by using a
compact multi-stub unit resonator in [9]. [10] uses photonic
bandgap structure to achieve one-octave harmonic suppression.
In order to realize frequency-reconfigurable antenna with
two-octave harmonic suppression and avoid the complexity of
antenna, the overlapping filtering branches are introduced.
In this letter, a dual-polarized frequency-reconfigurable
low-profile antenna with harmonic suppression for 5G
application is presented. By using PIN diodes and U-shaped
structure, it can cover 3.3-3.6GHz and 4.8-5.0GHz for
possible 5G application. In addition, contrast to traditional
base station antennas, the proposed antenna can achieve
two-octave harmonic suppression. Moreover, the
unidirectional pattern of two frequency bands based on the
octagonal shaped zero-degree reflection phase AMC structure
is obtained in two frequency bands, thus reducing the overall
profile of the antenna. The detailed description of this work
and some simulation results are illustrated in Section II. Then,
Section III studies the simulated and measured results. Finally,
the conclusion of this work is drawn in Section IV.
II. ANTENNA DESIGN
A. Antenna Structure
The geometry of the proposed antenna is shown in Fig.1.
This antenna includes three parts: two reconfigurable dipole
antennas with bias circuit, AMC surface and two improved
feeding structure with the overlapping branches and U-shaped
structure. The feeding structures and equilateral triangle
reconfigurable dipoles are printed on FR4 substrate with a
relative dielectric constant of 4.4 and a thickness of 0.5mm.
The AMC surface consisting of 16 units is printed on a FR4
substrate with a thickness of 3mm. Dipoles contain bias circuit
with four inductors, four resistors and four PINs. Inductors
and resistors are connected with microstrip line. Two cross
feed structures are used to feed reconfigurable dipoles. It is
obvious that the angle between the polarization directions of
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LAWP.2019.2913170, IEEE
Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters
2

TABLE I
Reconfigurable PARAMETER OF THE PROPOSED ANTENNA
Dipoles Parameter H1 H2 w w1 ws lm el
Value(mm) 9 0.5 9 2 1.5 8 18
Parameter lm1 lm2 lm3 lm4 r1 hf ea
Value(mm) 5.7 3 1.7 0.8 0.75 1.7 8.1
Parameter df1 fl1 fl2 fl3 fl4 wf eb
Value(mm) 4.2 0.8 1.4 2.5 4 0.3 7.2
AMC Parameter a b wb wp ha wm ec
Reflector Value(mm) 7 6 0.5 34 3 0.3 0.3
Z
Y X Slot coupling Short
f0 2f0 3f0 f0 point
(a)
2f0 R1 R2 fl fh
Feeding Ls
3f0 Cc Cs R3 R4
structure short-point

input
ha

C1 C2 Rs C3 C4
SMA GND output
(b) L1 L2
L3 L4
Branch a Branch Branch
RL=10Ω Li b c Branch d
Fig.3. Equivalent AC circuit diagram of the feeding structure.

Bias PIN
circuit

(a) (b)
Fig.4. (a) 8.8 GHz and (b)11GHz current distribution when port 1 excites at 3.
wp
5 GHz
(c)
Fig. 1. Geometry of the proposed antenna. (a) Isometric view. (b) Side view.
(c) Dipoles with bias circuit.
w1 WS
w
H2

lm1 lm4

fl2
lm3

(a) (b)
lm2

Fig.5. (a) 8.8 GHz and (b) 13GHz current distribution when port 1 excites at 5
r1 GHz
fl3
H1
lm

dff

wf Branch c Branch
B. Mechanism Of The Impedance Matching And Harmonic
fl4

Branch b d
Branch a U-shaped Suppression
fl1 structure
Ground The equivalent AC LC circuit diagram of the feeding
hf

wm Slot
Port 1
Fig.2. Geometry of the feeding structure.
the two dipoles and the x-axis is 45°. As shown in Fig.1 (b)
and Fig.1 (c), the positive pole of voltage source is connected
to the vertex of the bias circuit, and the negative pole is
connected to the ground of the AMC. One pair of dipoles are
composed of an equilateral triangle with the side length of a
and an isosceles trapezoid (consisting of three equilateral
triangles with the side length of b). As shown in Fig.2, feeding
structures contain the U-shaped structures composed of
branches c and d in parallel with the length of one-fourth of
the working wavelength of two bands, respectively, and the
filtering branches a and b with the length of one-fourth of the
harmonic wavelength of two bands, respectively. The input
ports of feeding structure are connected to SMA. More
detailed optimization parameters are listed in Table I.
Port 2
structure shown in Fig.3 is made to better understand its
working principle. The open branches a, b, c and d can be
equivalent to series LC resonant circuit in the feeding structure.
The overlapping branches a and b are responsible for the
harmonic suppression. 2nd and 3rd harmonics are suppressed
when series resonant circuits resonate. The coupling
capacitance between the filter branches a and b is equivalent
to Cc. Thus, the stopband is broadened. What’s more, the AC
current is coupled to the load through the ground slot, and the
short-point of the slot grounding plate can be equivalent to a
parallel LC resonant circuit. Branches c and d are responsible
for the impendence matching with additional freedom. The
impedance matching of low frequency (3.3GHz-3.6GHz) and
high frequency(4.8GHz-5.0GHz) is good, when the equivalent
series resonant circuits resonate. As shown in Fig.4 and Fig.5,
no matter what frequency band the antenna operates, there will
be high-order harmonic current distribution on the feeding line

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LAWP.2019.2913170, IEEE
Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters
3

180
RL Li RL Li

Reflection phase(deg)
135

ea
90
Cr
DC 1.5V Rf DC
0V
Rr eb 45

Rf Cr 0
Rr -45
Rf Cr ec -90
Rf Rr el
-135
Cr

eh
Rr -180
2 3 4 5 6
Freq/GHz
(a) (b)
(a) (b)
Fig6. The AC equivalent circuits of the PIN diode circuit diagram (a) switch
Fig.8. (a) Configuration of the dual-frequency AMC. (b) Reflection phase of
on. (b) switch off.
the dual-frequency AMC
180
135
mm

Reflection phase(deg)
3.5 90
45
0
9mm -45
-90
(a) (b) -135

Fig7. Current distribution map of (a) 3.5GHz. (b) 5GHz.
without filtering branches. Obviously, the current density at
the end of the feeding line decreases sharply by introducing
the overlapping filtering branches. The filtering characteristic
is realized at the harmonics without affecting the working
performance in the interesting bands.
C. Bias Circuit Design
The PIN diodes used in the bias circuit are BAR50-02 of
Infineon Company which has low forward resistor, very low
harmonics and low capacitance at 0 volt reverse bias at
frequencies above 1GHz (typ. 0.15 pF). It can work normally
in 10MHz -6GHz. The equivalent circuits of the PIN diodes
circuit diagram are shown in Fig.6. PIN diodes can be
equivalent to resistors Rf (3Ω) when DC source voltage Vdc is
1.5v, while the inversed diodes are equivalent to the parallel
circuit of resistors Rf (5kΩ) and capacitances Cr (0.15pF)
when Vdc is 0v. Inductors Li (200nH) in both circuits is used
to prevent the influence of AC signal on bias circuit. Thus, DC
and AC signals will not interfere with each other to ensure the
normal operation of the antenna. Moreover, the on-current If
of PIN diodes is 50mA. The current limiting resistor RL is
determined by the following formula:
RL= (Vdc -Vf)/If
The conduction voltage of PIN diodes Vf is 1V, and the
conduction current of PIN diodes is 50mA. Preventing
excessive current from damaging diodes, resistance of 10
ohms is used in the design of the circuit. When PIN diodes is
on, dipoles operate at low frequency. When the PIN diodes cut
off and dipoles operate at high frequency. As shown in Fig.7,
the current flowing through the PIN diodes is significantly
stronger when antenna operates at low frequency. The four
PIN diodes are connected in parallel through the bias circuit.
D. AMC Design
AMC with 0°reflection phase can improve the directivity of
omnidirectional antenna and reduce profile. The operating
bandwidth is the corresponding frequency range of the
reflected phase between ±90° [11]. In order to improve the
performance of antenna in the two operating bands, broadband
7mm
-180
2 3 4 5 6
Freq/GHz
(a) (b)
Fig.9. (a) Configuration of the thick AMC. (b) Reflection phase of the thick
AMC
AMC and dual-band AMC are studied. Through simulation, it
is found broadband AMC needs a very thick dielectric layer to
achieve broadband performance, while dual-band AMC with a
thin dielectric layer can achieve dual-band performance. As
show in Fig.5 and Fig.6, it can be realized that the reflection
phase in the two working bands (3.3-3.6GHz and 4.8-5.0GHz)
is between ±90°. Obviously, the thickness of dual-band AMC
is twice as thick as that of broadband AMC.
III. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
S-parameters are measured by a network analyzer and a dc
block (BLK-001200-3.5,10MHz-20GHz) blocking the direct
current. Gain and radiation patterns are measured in anechoic
chamber. As shown in Fig.10, simulated and measured
S-parameters of antennas are given for port 1. The antenna
with the U-shaped structure can get great impedance matching
in low band (3.22-3.85GHz) and high band (4.25-5.86GHz).
Obviously, second and third harmonics are effectively
suppressed by introducing the overlapping branches whether
the antenna with harmonic suppression works at low or high
frequencies. Further, the bandwidth of the antenna with AMC
and harmonic suppression is widened.
The measured bandwidth is 21.7% (3.24-4.03GHz) and 25%
(4.44-5.77GHz), respectively. Moreover, the isolation
performance in the two working bands is better than 25dB.
The experimental results are in good agreement with the
simulation results. Fig.11 shows the measured radiation
patterns of the antenna at the frequencies of 3.5 and 5 GHz,
respectively. Cross-polarization of two radiation patterns is
much less than co-polarization. Fig.12 shows the picture of
antenna object. The simulated and measured gains and
efficiency are obtained in Fig.13. Compared with the antenna
without AMC, the beam width of the proposed antenna
decreases and the gain increases greatly. Meanwhile, the
simulated efficiency is in agreement with measured efficiency
in two working bands. The performance of the proposed
antenna compared with other antennas is given in TABLE II.

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LAWP.2019.2913170, IEEE
Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters
4

TABLE II
COMPARISON OF PROPOSED A NTENNA WITH REFERENCES
Bandwidth Gain Size Reconfi-
Refs. HSO
(GHz) (dBi) ( 0 ) guration
[2] 1.7-2.7(45.5%) 7.3 1.1×1.39×0.1 / /
[3] 20.8-25.4(19.2%) 18.6 1×1×3 / /
0.78-1.1(34%); 0.69×0.69
[4] 7&8 / /
1.58-2.62(49.5%) ×0.18
0.78-1.1(34%); 0.46×0.46
[5] 4 YES /
1.58-2.62(49.5%) ×0.19
[6] 26.5-40 (40.6%); 6.2 1×2.25×0.01 YES /
[10] 1.77-1.79(1.1%) 6.2 1.2×1.2×0.01 / ONE
This 3.24-4.03GHz (21.7%); 6.86&
0.78×0.78×0.1 YES TWO
work 4.44-5.77GHz (25%) 8.14
(0: wavelength of minimum frequency. HSO: harmonic suppression octave.)

The size of this work has advantages in some aspects than

[2-5], and its bandwidth is wider than [10], in addition to the
function of two-octave harmonic suppression.

IV. CONCLUSION
A low-profile frequency-reconfigurable and dual-polarized
for 5G communication antenna with harmonic suppression is
presented in this paper. The antenna can operate at two bands
with peak gain of 6.86dBi and 8.14dBi, respectively, by
controlling PIN diodes. Two-octave harmonic suppression
Fig.10. Simulated and measured S-parameters of antennas for Port 1. (a) low antenna is obtained by using overlapping filtering branches.
band. (b) high band (WHS: with harmonic suppression, WOHS: without All above experimental results show the antenna could be a
harmonic suppression, WAMC: with AMC, WOAMC: without AMC) better candidate for the future sub-6G base station antenna.
AMC
with
cross-pol
Measured
AMC
with
co-pol
Measured
AMC
without
cross-pol
Simulated
AMC
without
co-pol
Simulated
0306090120150180210240270300330-50-40-30-20-100100306090120150180210240270300330-50-40-30-20-10010
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