A Novel Millimeter Wave Linear PIFA Array Antenna for 5G Next Generation

Wireless Communication System

Muhammad Kamran Ishfaq1-2*, Tharek Abdul Rahman1*,Hassan Tariq Chattha3 Mohsen Khalily1
1Wireless Communication Centre, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Univesiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia
2Department of Electrical Engineering, GC University Faisalabad, Pakistan
3Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology (Faisalabad Campus)Lahore, Pakistan

* kamran@fkegraduate.utm.my, * tharek@fke.utm.my

Abstract

PIFA antenna has been a popular candidate for mobile handsets due to its excellent features. A Novel millimeter
wave PIFA antenna and a Novel Linear PIFA array for 5G have been designed in this paper, operating with a
bandwidth of more than 22 GHz each. We designed a millimeter wave PIFA antenna with a bandwidth of 22.8 GHz
operating over a frequency range of 26.2 GHz to 49 GHz. It has a gain of 4.8 dBi. Then a novel linear 7-element
PIFA antenna array has been designed, which also covers a very wide bandwidth of 22.2 GHz within a frequency
range from 26.8 GHz to 49 GHz, with an S11 below -10 dB and S21 below -15 dB showing a reduced mutual
coupling between array’ antenna elements with a high gain of 14.349 dBi . Both millimeter waves PIFA Antenna
and Linear PIFA array cover most of 5G frequencies, in the range of 20 to 50 GHz i.e, 28 GHz, 38 GHz, etc. Our
designs will lay a foundation for PIFA antenna array designs to be used as a strong antenna array candidate for 5G
Next Generation Wireless Communication Systems.

Keywords: 5G, Linear Array, PIFA, Mutual Coupling, Millimeter Wave Antenna

1 Introduction
Mobile communications and cellular technology have drastically changed our environment, the way we
communicate and our societies, from telephony to data access and now different applications and services; it has
become an integral part of our lives. In this era of constant technological evolution, the human being is craving for
more and more informative content on the palm of their hands and they need to download many gigabytes of data in
as much less time as they can [2]. Businesses strive to become more and more digitized and connected through their
own personal networks and with the clients. Side by side, the machines also need a fast reliable communication with
each other to carry on the operations for which they are programmed to perform. In other words, our world is becoming
more of a globally connected digital society. And thus due to the needs of this Digital Society there is an advent of 5G
technologies. [1-3]

Although 4G is not even wholly deployed by all the countries and is yet gaining popularity slowly, there are talks
on the 5G or fifth generation enhancements of communications already. Reason being, the shiny perks that 5G has to
offer, some of which are given below: Massive capacity due to use of macro-cells, The User will have access to almost
10Gbps data transfer which will give a fiber-like experience, real-time mobile control and machine to machine
responses. 5G handsets will have the capability of operating in all 2G, 3G and 4G, as well as 5G networks. Power
consumption per bit usage will be reduced by a factor of 1000[1].

In order to provide the infrastructure for future mobile innovations, we need to focus on how the industry will ratify
the 5G standard all over the world to deliver efficiency and services beyond the mainstream 4G offerings. One
important requirement of the 5G standard is the ability to increase data capacity to each user, as well as, support a
higher number of mobile users and new devices. Advanced antenna array technologies are one of the key means that
will be used to meet these requirements. In this paper, we have designed a Linear PIFA Array on RT Duriod substrate
for millimeter 5G Mobile terminals. We have achieved the target of more than antenna gain of 12 dBi, i.e 14.349 dBi,
as specified in [7].

2 Millimeter Wave PIFA Antenna and Linear PIFA Array Configuration

2.1 Millimeter Wave PIFA Antenna

A millimeter wave PIFA Antenna has been designed with the configuration shown in figure 1. The dimensions of
the designed antenna are given as under. [4-6]

W =Wg = 2.124 mm, Lg = 3.1784mm, L = 1.062mm, h = 0.535 mm, Wf = 0.954mm, Ws = 0.0578mm, Lb =

0.6356 mm, t = 0.254 mm,

Figure 1- mm-Wave PIFA Antenna Configuration

The single element PIFA antenna has an overall size of 2.124mm x 3.178 mm with a 0.534 mm small height.

2.2 Millimeter Wave PIFA Antenna Array

Inter-element spacing can be reduced within λ/2<d< λ to achieve good results for reduced mutual coupling. However,
it can further be reduced in some compact antenna designs. We have chosen it, 0.5λ for our 7-element Linear PIFA
array design.
3 Results and Discussion

3.1 Millimeter wave PIFA Antenna Results and Discussion

Our designed Mm –Wave PIFA antenna is operating with a very large bandwidth 22.8 GHz in the frequency range
of 26.2 GHz to 49 GHz covering most of the frequencies to be used in 5G [7]. It provides a gain up to 4.8 dBi, as
shown in Fig 2.

Figure 2: mm-wave PIFA (a) S11-simulated (b) 3D Radiation Pattern

3.2 5G Linear PIFA Antenna Array Results and Discussions:

The Designed Novel PIFA array covers most of the 5G frequency bands. It operates in a frequency range of 26.8
GH to 49 GHz with a very wide bandwidth of 22.2 GHz, that covers most of the 5G frequencies under research [7]
and the array gain achieved is 14.34 dBi as shown in Fig-3. Return loss, S11 is below -10 dB throughout and S21 is
also below -15 dB, hence much reduced mutual coupling.
 (a)

(b)

(c)
Figure 3 5G Linear PIFA Antenna Array (a) S11-simulated (b) S21-simulated (c) Radiation Pattern(ᵠ=90o)
4 Conclusion
In this paper, A Novel mm wave PIFA Antenna has been reported with a large bandwidth from 26 GHz to
49 GHz with a gain of 1.93 dBi. Then A linear PIFA array has been presented with a 10-dB bandwidth of 22
GHz ranging from 26.8 GHz to 49 GHz with an array gain of 14.349dBi with an array inter-element spacing
of d=0.5λ. Our design will lay a strong foundation for designing compact PIFA arrays for future 5G Mobile
Communication Systems.

References

[1] J. G. Andrews, S. Buzzi, W. Choi, S. V Hanly, A. Lozano, A. C. K. Soong, and J. C. Zhang, “What will 5G
be?,” IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun., vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 1065–1082, May 2014.

[2] S. Patil, V. Patil, and P. Bhat, “A Review on 5G Technology,” vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 26–30, 2012.

[3] G. Fettweis, T. U. Dresden, and S. Alamouti, “5G : Personal Mobile Internet beyond What Cellular Did to
Telephony,” no. February, pp. 140–145, 2014.

[4] J. A. Ray and S. R. B. Chaudhuri, “A review of PIFA technology,” 2011 Indian Antenna Week, pp. 1–4,
Dec. 2011.

[5] H. T. Chattha, M. K. Ishfaq, Y. Saleem, Y. Huang, and S. J. Boyes, “Band-Notched Ultrawide Band Planar
Inverted-F Antenna,” Int. J. Antennas Propag., vol. 2012, pp. 1–6, 2012.

[6] H. T. Chattha, Y. Huang, M. K. Ishfaq, and S. J. Boyes, “Bandwidth enhancement techniques for planar
inverted-F antenna,” IET Microwaves, Antennas Propag., vol. 5, no. 15, p. 1872, 2011.

[7] F. Khan, Z. Pi, and S. Rajagopal, “Millimeter-wave mobile broadband with large scale spatial processing
for 5G mobile communication,” 2012 50th Annu. Allert. Conf. Commun. Control. Comput., pp. 1517–1523,
2012.