IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 20, NO.
6, JUNE 2021
Microstrip Grid and Patch-Based Dual-Band
Shared-Aperture Differentially Fed Array Antenna
Guanghui Xu , Li-Xia Yang , Member, IEEE, Zhi-Xiang Huang , Senior Member, IEEE, Wei Wang ,
Hong-Li Peng, Senior Member, IEEE, Yueping Zhang, Fellow, IEEE, and Wen-Yan Yin , Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—The design of a shared-aperture dual-band differ-
entially fed array antenna with microstrip grid and patches is
presented in this letter. The patches as high-frequency elements
operating at 38 GHz are inserted into microstrip grid array antenna
(MGAA) operating at the low-frequency band of 28 GHz. The
impedance bandwidth of MGAA can be enhanced from 3% to 16%
at 28 GHz due to the introduced resonance from its coupling with
the patches. The measurement shows that the proposed antenna can
achieve the impedance bandwidths of 15.65% and 16.7%, isolation
of more than 20 dB, and peak gains of 14.7 and 14.5 dBi at dual
bands of 28 and 38 GHz, respectively. Therefore, the design scheme
will be useful for the dual-band millimeter-wave 5G applications.
Index Terms—Differential feeding, microstrip grid array
antenna (MGAA), patch antenna, shared-aperture.
I. INTRODUCTION
HE development of next-generation wireless communica-
T tions is being inevitably shifted to millimeter-wave (mm-
wave) frequencies [1], and 28/38 GHz operating bands have
been considered for 5G communication applications [2], [3]. In
order to satisfy these applications, a few 28/38 GHz dual-band
antennas have been developed recently [3]–[5]. For example, in
[3], the dual-band antenna array, with the coupled quarter-mode
substrate-integrated waveguide (QMSIW) cavities, is realized
operating at 28 and 38 GHz, but the QMSIW cavity generates
Manuscript received February 9, 2021; revised March 4, 2021 and March
26, 2021; accepted March 29, 2021. Date of publication April 2, 2021; date
of current version June 2, 2021. This work was supported in part by the
National Science Foundation of China under Grant 61901266, Grant 41874174,
and Grant 61931007; in part by the Opening Fund of National Key Lab of
Electromagnetic Environment under Grant 201802003; in part by the fund for
Key Lab of Electromagnetic Scattering under Grant 61424090107; and in part by
the SF of Anhui Province under Grant 2008085MF186 and Grant KJ2020A0024.
(Corresponding author: Hong-Li Peng.)
Guanghui Xu is with the School of Electronics and Information Engineering,
Anhui University, Hefei 230039, China, and also with the Key Laboratory of
Ministry of Education for Design and Electromagnetic Compatibility of High
Speed Electronics Systems, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240,
China (e-mail: ghxu86@ahu.edu.cn).
Li-Xia Yang and Zhi-Xiang Huang are with the School of Electronics
and Information Engineering, Anhui University, Hefei 230039, China (e-mail:
lixiayang@yeah.net; zxhuang@ahu.edu.cn).
Wei Wang is with the East China Research Institute of Electronic Engineering,
Heifei 230088, China (e-mail: shu00ww@163.com).
Hong-Li Peng and Yueping Zhang are with the Key Laboratory of Ministry
of Education for Design and Electromagnetic Compatibility of High Speed
Electronics Systems, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
(e-mail: hl.peng@sjtu.edu.cn; ypzhang58@sjtu.edu.cn).
Wen-Yan Yin is with the Innovative Institute of Electromagnetic Infor-
mation and Electronic Integration, School of Information Science and Elec-
tronic Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China (e-mail:
wyyin@zju.edu.cn).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2021.3070219
1536-1225 © 2021 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
Authorized licensed use limited to: East Carolina University. Downloaded on June 17,2021 at 01:32:21 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
1043
a narrower impedance bandwidth. In [4], the low-profile SIW
circular cavity-backed slot array, based on TM020 and TM120
modes, is proposed for dual-band mm-wave operation; however,
its impedance bandwidth of 2.6% at 38 GHz band is narrower. In
[5], with two unequal-sized quarter-mode SIW used, a compact
antenna is built also operating at dual-band mm-wave, but it
has a narrower impedance bandwidth of 2.99% and 1.77% at
28 and 38 GHz bands, respectively. It can be concluded that
these antennas that adopted SIW cavity modes for achieving
mm-wave dual-band operation always have narrower impedance
bandwidth.
In order to achieve dual-band operation, the shared-aperture
technique should be the first choice due to its high aperture
utilization efficiency, low cost, and compact size [6]–[8]. There-
fore, the shared-aperture technique will be adopted in our design.
Recently, microstrip grid array antennas (MGAAs) have also at-
tracted considerable attention in mm-wave applications because
they have the advantages of high gain, simple feed, and easy
for integration and construction [9]–[12]. At the same time, it is
well known that microstrip patch antennas are widely used for
mm-wave designs due to their simple structure, low profile, and
low cost, and easy for integration [13]. Therefore, according to
these advantages of these antennas as well as shared-aperture
technique, we use the patches as a high-frequency element of
38 GHz, and they are inserted into the MGAA operating at the
low-frequency band of 28 GHz for realizing mm-wave dual-band
operations. While the short sides of MGAA couple with the wide
ones of the patches so that its impedance bandwidth at 28 GHz
can be enhanced from 3% to 16%. We would like to indicate that
the proposed antenna can achieve a wider impedance bandwidth
at dual bands of 28 and 38 GHz.
This letter is organized as follows. In Section II, the design
of the dual-band antenna array is described. In Section III, both
simulated and measured results of the antenna are compared and
discussed, and finally, Section IV draws the final conclusion.
II. DESIGN OF SHARED-APERTURE DUAL-BAND ANTENNA
A. Design of the Shared-Aperture Antenna
The configuration of the MGAA with 13 short sides and 12
long sides is shown in Fig. 1(a). They are designed on the
grounded RT/duriod 5880 substrate with a dielectric constant
of 2.2, a loss tangent of 0.0009, and a thickness of t. The
geometrical sizes s and ws are the length and width of the short
side, and l and wl are the length and width of the long side,
respectively. Fig. 1(b) shows the structure of the patch antenna
with width py and length px . pf is the distance between the probe
and the nearest wide side. Several patches as the high-frequency
1044
Fig. 1. Configuration of the dual-band shared-aperture antenna array. (a)
MGAA. (b) Patch antenna. (c) Proposed antenna array.
Fig. 2. Simulated reflection coefficients of the microstrip patch antenna (py =
1.8 mm, and px = 2.4 mm, 2.45 mm, and 2.5 mm).
elements of 38 GHz are inserted into the MGAA operating at
28 GHz. Each loop of the MGAA has two patches, as shown in
Fig. 1(c). Therefore, there are 16 patch antenna elements labeled
as No. 1# ,2# , …, and 16# , respectively.
At first, the patch antenna is simulated and designed with
different length px , and its results are shown in Fig. 2. When
the parameter px is equal to 2.45 mm, the patch antenna can
operate at 38 GHz. The designed patches are inserted into the
MGAA, as shown in Fig. 1(c). According to the relationships of
s ≈ λg /2 and l ≈ λg (λg denotes the guided wavelength) [11],
[14], the initial optimized values of MGAA can be, respectively,
set as 4 and 8 mm at 28 GHz. The MGAA with these patches is
simulated and optimized. The width py of the patch in Fig. 1(b) is
a key parameter to describe the coupling effect between the short
Authorized licensed use limited to: East Carolina University. Downloaded on June 17,2021 at 01:32:21 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 20, NO. 6, JUNE 2021
Fig. 3. Simulated differential reflection coefficients of the MGAA without and
with patches at the frequency band of 28 GHz (py = 1.8, 2, 2.1, and 2.2 mm).
Fig. 4. Simulated E-field distribution of the MGAA with patches at 29.5 GHz
(py = 2.1 mm).
sides of MGAA and the wide sides of patches. When the feeding
network is not added, the differential reflection coefficient (Sd )
of the MGAA can be calculated as [15], [16]
1
Sd = (S17,17 − S17,18 − S18,17 + S18,18 ) . (1)
2
When py increases from 1.8 to 2.2 mm, the differential reflec-
tion coefficients of the MGAA at 28 GHz are shown in Fig. 3.
With no patches added, the bandwidth of MGAA is about 3%
(26.6–27.4 GHz). When these patches are introduced, it has an
additional resonance of 29.5 GHz resulted from the coupling
between the short sides of MGAA and the wide sides of patches.
Therefore, when py is equal to 2.1 mm, its impedance bandwidth
can be widened to 16% (26.4–31 GHz). The corresponding
simulated E-field distribution of the MGAA with patches at
29.5 GHz is shown in Fig. 4. It is observed that the wide sides
of these patches introduced an additional resonance to enhance
the impedance bandwidth.
Finally, by taking the structural symmetry of the patch loca-
tion into account, the reflection coefficients of No.1# , 2# , 5# , 7# ,
and 8# patches in the MGAA are shown in Fig. 5. These results
have certain difference among them contributed by different
patch locations and different coupling effects with the MGAA.
The long-side resonance frequency of the patch is far away from
the long-side one of MGAA so that the operation frequencies of
patches are slight influenced and are still mainly at 38 GHz.
B. Isolation Design
Channel isolation is an important parameter for dual-port an-
tennas [8]. To enhance the isolation, the orthogonal-polarization
XU et al.: MICROSTRIP GRID AND PATCH-BASED DUAL-BAND SHARED-APERTURE DIFFERENTIALLY FED ARRAY ANTENNA 1045

Fig. 5. Simulated reflection coefficients of different patch antennas at the

frequency band of 38 GHz.

Fig. 7. Geometries and dimensions of the differential feeding network.

TABLE I
GEOMETRICAL PARAMETERS OF THE PROPOSED ANTENNAS (UNIT: mm)

Fig. 6. Simulated isolation between No. 8# patch antenna and MGAA at dual
bands of 28 and 38 GHz (dx = 0, 0.4, and 0.8 mm).

design at dual bands is adopted [17], [18]. The isolation is simu-

lated and optimized at dual bands, respectively. From the antenna
in Fig. 1(c), it is observed that the wide sides of No. 8# and 9#
patches have the shorter distance and stronger coupling with
the port 17# and 18# of the MGAA. Therefore, the initial |S8,17 |
optimization is the first step of the isolation design precondition
for the overall antenna. The key parameter ds [see Fig. 1(c)] is
optimized and its results are shown in Fig. 6. When ds is equal
to 0.8 mm, the isolation over the dual bands of 28 and 38 GHz
is more than 20 dB. At the same time, the simulated isolation
in the same polarization case is also given in Fig. 6 and the
corresponding result is worse, in particular at 38 GHz band.

C. Differential Feed Network Design

Fig. 7 shows the differential feeding network of the proposed
antenna on the RT/duriod 5880 substrate with a thickness of
0.127 mm. The feeding part for each frequency band is designed
independently. At 28 GHz band, a microstrip balun is adopted
to generate 180° phase difference for the differential probe feed
of MGAA. At 38 GHz band, each loop of the MGAA has two
patches, which are driven with the phase difference of 180°.
Considering these 16 patches, a four-stage power divider is used
in the 38 GHz feeding network. The geometrical parameters of
the proposed antenna are summarized in Table I.
The configuration of the dual-band shared-aperture antenna
with the differential feeding network is shown in Fig. 8. The
ground plane is the middle layer between Sub1 and Sub2. The
radiation structure is built on Sub1 and the feeding network is
under Sub2. The probes are used for interconnection between
Fig. 8. Configuration of the dual-band shared-aperture antenna with the dif-
ferential feeding network.
the differential network and the MGAA or patches. Ports 1 and
2 are the input channel of the 28 and 38 GHz band, respectively.
III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In this section, the simulated and measured results of the
proposed antenna with the feeding network are compared and an-
alyzed. Fig. 9(a) and (b) shows the top and bottom photographs
of the proposed antennas. Fig. 9(c) displays the anechoic cham-
ber for measuring the dual-band radiation performances of the
proposed antenna with the matched load.

Authorized licensed use limited to: East Carolina University. Downloaded on June 17,2021 at 01:32:21 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
1046
Fig. 9. Photographs of the antenna. (a) Top view. (b) Bottom view. (c)
Measurement.
Fig. 10. Simulated and measured |S11 |, |S21 |, and realized gains of the pro-
posed antenna at dual bands of 28 and 38 GHz.
Fig. 10 compares the simulated and measured |S11 |, |S21 |,
and realized gains of the proposed antenna at dual bands of 28
and 38 GHz. Reasonable agreements among them are obtained.
At the dual bands of 28 and 38 GHz, the measured −10 dB
impedance bandwidths of the proposed antenna are 15.65%
(26.5–31 GHz) and 16.7% (34–40.2 GHz), respectively. The
measured isolations at dual bands are more than 20 dB. With the
differential feed network, the isolation is influenced from all feed
port effects of the MGAA and patch. Therefore, the isolation
curves between Figs. 6 and 10 are different. The measured
maximum gains at dual bands of 28 and 38 GHz are about 14.7
and 14.5 dBi, respectively. The measured results are not well
matched with the simulated ones. It is mainly caused by the
printed circuit board (PCB) fabrication error, probe welding, and
connector, and these factors may generate frequency shift and
loss in particular at mm-wave frequencies [8]. The differences
can be improved by using the advanced manufacture processing,
such as the low-temperature cofired ceramics and the probe
measurement method.
The measured and simulated normalized radiation patterns of
the proposed antenna at 28 and 38 GHz are shown in Figs. 11
and 12, respectively. The simulated and measured copolarization
radiation patterns are in an acceptable agreement. The cross-
polarization levels in the main beam are less than −20 dB due
to the differential feeding. In the lower half-plane, the measured
radiation patterns are larger than the simulated ones. This result
is attributed to the feeding network under the ground, which
introduces an extra spurious radiation. Finally, the comparison
Authorized licensed use limited to: East Carolina University. Downloaded on June 17,2021 at 01:32:21 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 20, NO. 6, JUNE 2021
Fig. 11. Simulated and measured normalized radiation patterns of the pro-
posed antenna at a frequency point of 28 GHz.
Fig. 12. Simulated and measured normalized radiation patterns of the pro-
posed antenna at a frequency point of 38 GHz.
TABLE II
COMPARISON OF THIS WORK AND OTHER DUAL-BAND MM-WAVE ANTENNAS
results of the proposed antenna and other existing mm-wave
dual-band antennas are summarized in Table II. The proposed
antenna has the advantages of broadband, simple structure,
independent input port, and easy for integration.
IV. CONCLUSION
A microstrip grid and patch-based dual-band shared-aperture
differentially fed antenna array is presented in this letter, where
the patch antennas as high-frequency elements of 38 GHz
are inserted into the MGAA operating at 28 GHz band. The
impedance bandwidth of MGAA has been enhanced from 3%
to 16% because an additional resonance from its coupling with
the patch array is introduced. The measurement shows that the
proposed antenna can achieve impedance bandwidths of 15.65%
and 16.7%, isolation of more than 20 dB, and peak realized
gains of 14.7 and 14.5 dBi at dual bands of 28 and 38 GHz,
respectively. We would like to indicate that the design scheme
can be an important candidate for the dual-band mm-wave 5G
applications.
XU et al.: MICROSTRIP GRID AND PATCH-BASED DUAL-BAND SHARED-APERTURE DIFFERENTIALLY FED ARRAY ANTENNA
REFERENCES
[1] T. S. Rappaport et al., “Millimeter wave mobile communications for
5G cellular: It will work!,” IEEE Access, vol. 1, pp. 335–349, 2013,
doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2013.2260813.
[2] Q. Wu, J. Yin, C. Yu, H. Wang, and W. Hong, “Low-profile millimeter-wave
SIW cavity-backed dual-band circularly polarized antenna,” IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propag., vol. 65, no. 12, pp. 7310–7315, Dec. 2017.
[3] T. Deckmyn, M. Cauwe,D. V. Ginste, H. Rogier, and S. Agneessens, “Dual-
dand (28,38) GHz coupled quarter-mode substrate-integrated waveguide
antenna array for next-generation wireless systems,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propag., vol. 67, no. 4, pp. 2405–2412, Apr. 2019.
[4] T. Hong, Z. Zhao, W. Jiang, S. Xia, Y. Liu, and S. Gong “Dual-band SIW
cavity-backed slot array using TM020 and TM120 modes for 5G appli-
cations,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 67, no. 5, pp. 3490–3495,
May 2019.
[5] Y.-X. Sun, D. Wu, X. S. Fang, and N. Yang, “Compact quarter-mode
substrate-integrated waveguide dual-frequency millimeter-wave antenna
array for 5G applications,” IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 19,
no. 8, pp. 1405–1409, Aug. 2020.
[6] J.-D. Zhang, W. Wu, and D.-G. Fang, “Dual-band and dual-circularly po-
larized shared-aperture array antennas with single-layer substrate,” IEEE
Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 64, no. 1, pp. 109–116, Jan. 2016.
[7] C.-X. Mao, S. Gao, Y. Wang, Q. Luo, and Q.-X. Chu, “A shared aperture
dual-band dual-polarized filtering-antenna-array with improved frequency
response,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 65, no. 4, pp. 1836–1844,
Apr. 2017.
[8] J. F. Zhang, Y. J. Cheng, Y. R. Ding, and C. X. Bai, “A dual-band shared-
aperture antenna with large frequency ratio, high aperture reuse efficiency
and high channel isolation,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 67, no. 2,
pp. 853–860, Feb. 2019.
[9] Y. P. Zhang, M. Sun, D. Liu, and Y. Lu, “Dual grid array antennas in a thin-
profile package for flip-chip interconnection to highly integrated 60-GHz
radios,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 59, no. 4, pp. 1191–1199,
Apr. 2011.
Authorized licensed use limited to: East Carolina University. Downloaded on June 17,2021 at 01:32:21 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
1047
[10] M. Sun, Y. P. Zhang, D. Liu, K. M. Chua, and L. L. Wai, “A ball grid array
package with a microstrip grid array antenna for a single-chip 60-GHz
receiver,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 59, no. 6, pp. 2134–2140,
Jun. 2011.
[11] G. Xu, H.-L. Peng, Z. Shao, L. Zhou, Y. Zhang, and W.-Y. Yin, “Dual-band
differential shifted-feed microstrip grid array antenna with two parasitic
patches,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 68, no. 3, pp. 2434–2439,
Mar. 2020.
[12] B. Zhang et al., “Integration of a 140 GHz packaged LTCC grid array
antenna with an InP detector,” IEEE Trans. Compon., Packag., Manuf.
Technol., vol. 5, no. 8, pp. 1060–1068, Aug. 2015.
[13] K. F. Lee and K. M. Luk, Microstrip Patch Antennas. London, U.K.:
Imperial College Press, 2011.
[14] Z. Chen, Y. P. Zhang, A. Bisognin, D. Titz, F. Ferrero, and C. Luxey,
“An LTCC microstrip grid array antenna for 94-GHz applications,”
IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 14, pp. 1279–1281, 2015,
doi: 10.1109/LAWP.2015.2402159.
[15] Q. Xue, S. W. Liao, and J. H. Xu, “A differentially-driven dual-polarized
magneto-electric dipole antenna,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 61,
no. 1, pp. 425–430, Jan. 2013.
[16] G. Xu, H.-L. Peng, Y. Zhang, W.-Y. Yin, and J.-F. Mao, “Cavity
model analysis of differential dual-polarised annular-ring patch antenna,”
Microw., Antennas Propag., vol. 13, no. 9, pp. 1389–1393, Jul. 2019.
[17] H. Moghadas, M. Daneshmand, and P. Mousavi, “A dual-band high-
gain resonant cavity antenna with orthogonal polarizations,” IEEE
Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 10, pp. 1220–1223, 2011,
doi: 10.1109/LAWP.2011.2173454.
[18] J. Wang, J. X. Ge, Y. Zhou, H. Xia, and X. Z. Yang, “Design of a high-
isolation 35/94-GHz dual-frequency orthogonal-polarization Cassegrain
antenna,” IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 16, pp. 1297–1300,
2017, doi: 10.1109/LAWP.2016.2633284.