Simple High Gain 60 GHz Antenna

Yazan Al-Alem, Student Member, IEEE, and Ahmed A. Kishk, Fellow, IEEE
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada
y_alalem@encs.concordia.ca; kishk@ece.concordia.ca

Abstract —A high gain, low profile, and low-cost antenna at 60 waveguide slot antenna array was implemented. In [6], a 60
GHz is presented. The antenna 10-dB return loss matching GHz antenna array with a slot patch antenna was realized in
bandwidth covers the 60 GHz ISM band (57-64 GHz). The LTCC technology. In [7] a high gain Dielectric Resonator
boresight antenna gain is 11-dB. The proposed antenna structure Antenna was designed and realized at 60 GHz. Those
is suitable for short range, low power wireless communication examples are suitable candidates to be integrated within any
applications. The proposed antenna is vialess. The design millimeter-wave transceiver system. On the other hand, the
simplicity eases and relaxes any fabrication process cost and fabrication process requirement are significant factors
requirements. to be considered. Therefore, this work focuses on designing
low-cost solution, while maintaining high gain performance.
Index Terms—Low-profile 60 GHz antennas, millimeter-wave The proposed structure design is low cost, low profile, and
antennas, planar antennas, high-gain antennas.
entirely planar. The proposed structure is suitable for short
range, low power applications. The proposed structure is via-
I. INTRODUCTION
less, in such a way that it can be implemented with the relaxed
The current migration of wireless communication standards fabrication process. The proposed antenna boresight gain is
to the next fifth generation standards requires the operation at 11-dB, and the antenna 10-dB return loss matching bandwidth
high frequencies (i.e., millimeter-wave frequencies). The is 7 GHz (from 57 to 64), covering the 60 GHz ISM band.
operation at such frequencies will allow a wideband
communication, and consequently much higher data rates II. THE PROPOSED ANTENNA STRUCTURE
compared to the current communication systems. However, by
The proposed antenna structure is shown in Fig.1, the top
migrating to operate at such millimeter-wave frequencies,
and bottom views are shown in Fig.2. The substrate used is
design challenges in the front-end transceivers become
Rogers 3003, with a dielectric constant of 3. The thickness of
inevitable. The transmitter front-end system up-converts the
the substrate is 0.13-mm, and the whole antenna structure is
digital-baseband data to a higher frequency in the form of an
backed by a copper reflector at a free-space quarter wave-
analog signal, the up-converted signal is fed to an antenna and
length distance. The antenna structure and the copper reflector
launched in the form of a propagating electromagnetic wave.
are separated by a 1.1-mm air spacer. The antenna is fed
The receiver front-end system is responsible for capturing
directly through a 50 Ohm microstrip line. The complete set of
those electromagnetic waves through the receiver antenna, and
dimensions of the antenna is listed in Table-1.
down-convert the upconverted signal back to baseband, and
ultimately hold a seamless wireless communication.
Therefore, the front-end performance fidelity is very crucial,
where the performance quality of the front-end stage is
considered to be a significant factor in defining the limits of
the communication system throughput [1], [2]. In this work,
we focus on the antenna part design. It is known that higher
frequencies suffer from higher path loss [3], a straightforward
way to observe this fact is by looking at Friis transmission
equation, as the inverse proportionality between the square of
the distance and the path loss is apparent in the equation. Also,
from another angle, the path loss can be attributed to the
spherical spreading nature of the propagated wave. Therefore,
the primary challenge in the design of antennas for the next
fifth generation standard is to maintain a high gain antenna Fig.1. Proposed antenna structure
performance, to compensate for the high path loss encountered
at millimeter-wave frequencies. The proposed antenna structure can be perceived as a planar
Several works had studied the design of high gain antennas microstrip monopole placed in the middle of two planar
at millimeter-wave frequencies, for example, in [4], an active copper sheets. The ground plane is shaped in a V shape close
microstrip antenna was realized. In [5], a substrate integrated to the monopole feeding point to allow for proper matching of
the antenna and to fit the planar monopole between the two
planar copper sheets, the width of the dipole was widened a bit
978-1-5386-7102-3/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE 1693 AP-S 2018
to lower the quality factor and increase the matching 13
bandwidth. The two copper sheets are surrounding the central boresight
12 maximum gain
radiating monopole act as soft surfaces for the transverse
electric polarization produced by the radiating source [8].

Gain (dB)
11
Hence, prevent any propagation in the corresponding
direction. Therefore, the radiated energy can only propagate in 10
the boresight direction, which reflects on a higher gain to the
boresight direction. 9

8
58 60 62 64
Frequency (GHz)
B

Fig.4. Realized gain value for the proposed antenna structure

E C
F G

Fig.2. Proposed antenna structure, top view (left), and bottom view (right)

Fig.3 shows the corresponding simulated reflection

coefficient for the proposed structure; the antenna 10-dB
return loss matching bandwidth covers the whole 60 GHz ISM
band. Fig.4 shows the simulated realized gain (both peak and
boresight values). As shown in the figure, the boresight gain is
11-dB with excellent stability over the matching bandwidth.
Fig.5 shows the principal planes radiation patterns. A minor
tilt is observed in the E-Plane, and this is attributed to the
discontinuity at the feeding transition point from the
microstrip line to the radiating antenna. The tilt effect can also
be observed from the difference between the peak realized
gain and the boresight gain in Fig.4, where the difference is
around 0.5-dB. An advantageous feature of this antenna
structure is the radiation pattern stability over the matching
frequency band, with excellent low cross-polarization level.
The obtained features make the antenna, a very suitable low
cost, low profile, and high gain solution that can be integrated
easily into any millimeter-wave transceiver system.
TABLE I
ANTENNA STRUCTURE DIMENSIONS
Dimension A B C D
Value
1.5 0.71 1.55 0.31
(mm)
-10
-10.5
-11
S11 (dB)
Fig.5. Principal planes radiation patterns for the proposed antenna structure
[E-Plane {left} and H-plane {right}] at 60 GHz, (solid lines {co-polar}, and
dashed lines {cross-polar})
III. CONCLUSION
A high gain, low profile simple antenna has been designed
at 60 GHz. The antenna achieved a 10-dB return loss matching
bandwidth of 7 GHz, covering the 60 GHz ISM band (57-64
GHz). The antenna has achieved boresight gain of 11-dB. The
antenna structure is suitable for short range, low power
wireless communication applications. The antenna structure
requires no-vias, which simplify the structure and relaxes
fabrication process requirements.
REFERENCES
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Fig.3. Reflection coefficient value for the proposed antenna structure

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