4862 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 71, NO.

6, JUNE 2023

Beamforming Network Design Utilizing

Node Microstrip Architectures for Dual-Polarized
Endfire Millimeter-Wave Antenna Arrays
Shiwen Tang , Graduate Student Member, IEEE, Yujie Zhang , Member, IEEE,
Junhui Rao , Graduate Student Member, IEEE, Zixiang Han , Member, IEEE,
Chi-Yuk Chiu , Senior Member, IEEE, and Ross Murch , Fellow, IEEE

Abstract— A node microstrip architecture is proposed for
designing a compact Butler matrix (BM) that is integrated with
a dual-polarized endfire antenna array. The node microstrip
architecture can be used to form a variety of compact 2 × 2 port
networks including, but not limited to, couplers and crossovers.
By concatenating the 2 × 2 port networks together, a compact
BM with any number of ports can be formed. Using the
proposed method, a compact 4 × 4 port BM operating in the
millimeter wave (mmWave) band is designed and integrated with
a dual-polarized endfire antenna array. The size of the compact
BM is 2.1λ × 2λ and the size of the whole dual-polarized endfire
antenna array with BM is 2.6λ × 4.8λ, which is smaller than
traditional structures. The measured radiation pattern of the
dual-polarized antenna array can achieve beam scanning up to
±38◦ in the azimuth plane. The two beams in the dual-polarized
endfire antenna array can also be independently steered. The
optimized compact BM is potentially suitable for use in fifth-
generation (5G) wireless communication handsets.
Index Terms— Antenna array, Butler matrix (BM), millimeter-
wave (mmWave) antenna.
I. I NTRODUCTION
To achieve beam steering, a number of previously explored
beamforming techniques have been considered [5], [6], [7]
for 5G. These techniques range from full digital solutions
to hybrid designs, which utilize both digital and analog
RF beamforming, and finally straightforward single-RF solu-
tions [8], [9], [10], [11]. Analog RF beamforming can be
utilized in hybrid or single-RF beamforming approaches to
reduce the digital computational load and provide tradeoffs
between performance, cost, energy efficiency, and complexity.
Approaches to achieving analog RF beamforming include
analog phase shifters [12], [13], [14], [15] and circuit-based
feeding network approaches [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21],
[22], [23]. However, RF approaches based on phase shifters
face challenges, such as insertion losses and their high cost at
mmWave bands.
The Butler matrix (BM) is a common passive beamforming
circuit-based feeding network which can provide multiple
directive beams by individually activating its feeding ports.
The BM can overcome the issues with using phase shifters
while remaining an RF solution. It is passive and does not

T HE use of millimeter wave (mmWave) technology in

fifth-generation (5G) wireless communication systems
can provide higher data throughput using wider bandwidths
compared to sub-6 GHz systems [1]. However, at mmWave
frequencies, there is larger propagation path loss than at sub-
6 GHz, and therefore beam-steering mmWave antennas with
high gains are needed to compensate for the additional losses.
In addition, if the beam-steering antennas can provide polar-
ization diversity then performance can be further improved [2],
[3], [4].
Manuscript received 27 July 2022; revised 2 March 2023; accepted 5 April
2023. Date of publication 26 April 2023; date of current version 2 June 2023.
This work was supported by the Hong Kong Research Grant Council with
under Grant GRF 16209019. (Corresponding author: Yujie Zhang.)
Shiwen Tang, Yujie Zhang, Junhui Rao, Zixiang Han, and Chi-Yuk Chiu
are with the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, The
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong (e-mail:
stangai@connect.ust.hk; yzhangfy@connect.ust.hk; jraoaa@connect.ust.hk;
zhanaj@connect.ust.hk; eefrankie@ust.hk).
Ross Murch is with the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering
and Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), The Hong Kong University of Science
and Technology, Hong Kong (e-mail: eermurch@ust.hk).
Color versions of one or more figures in this article are available at
https://doi.org/10.1109/TAP.2023.3269142.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2023.3269142
0018-926X © 2023 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
require a power supply. It can also be fabricated with PCB or
in CMOS [21], [22]. It can be utilized in both single-RF [23]
and hybrid approaches where offloading digital processing is
required. Normally, BM consists of couplers, fixed phase delay
lines, and crossovers. However, the conventional crossover
structure occupies a large space in the BM structure [24],
[25], [26] which makes it bulky. As a consequence, new BM
topology which can avoid embedding the crossover structure
has been investigated. In [27], a 4 × 4 BM without the
crossover structure was proposed for patch antenna arrays.
However, this topology is only suitable for broadside radiation
antenna arrays [28] and difficult to extend to larger scales, such
as 8 × 8. Therefore, designing a compact crossover structure
which is suitable for endfire radiation antenna arrays is needed.
Dual-polarized antenna design is also desirable in 5G
mmWave systems for providing additional diversity and
enhancing system performance [2], [3], [4]. Dual-polarized
mmWave antenna arrays with BM for low-cost passive beam-
forming can be realized by combining two separate BM
feeding networks for each polarization [29], [30], [31], [32],
[33]. In [29], beam-scanning with four tilted beams and
30◦ deviation from the broadside direction is achieved in

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TANG et al.: BEAMFORMING NETWORK DESIGN UTILIZING NODE MICROSTRIP ARCHITECTURES
each polarization on a mmWave antenna array by utilizing
two perpendicularly oriented substrate-integrated-waveguide
(SIW) BMs in different laminates. In [30] and [31], dual-
polarized endfire mmWave beam-scanning arrays are realized
by SIW BMs that can achieve four beams (in each polariza-
tion) in the azimuth plane with a maximum scanning range
of ±38◦ and ±30◦ , respectively. Although, dual-polarized
mmWave beamforming antenna designs in [29], [30], and [31]
operate well, their BMs are all based on SIW architectures,
which can be large. In [32], a 4 × 4 BM with a conventional
microstrip architecture is employed in dual-polarized patch
antenna arrays with a BM size of 2.8λ × 2.9λ. In [33],
a coupler and a crossover are designed, and the BM is formed
with a smaller size compared to the conventional structure.
However, the insertion loss (4 dB) of the structure is relatively
high. Designing a more compact BM to feed dual-polarized
endfire antenna arrays with a straightforward design process
would be desirable.
In this work, a new node microstrip architecture for design-
ing compact 2 × 2 port networks is proposed. The com-
pact 2 × 2 port networks proposed can be analyzed and
flexibly designed to form any desired 2 × 2 port network
characteristics, including couplers and crossovers. They can
also be concatenated together to form N × N port networks.
To demonstrate the versatility of the node microstrip archi-
tecture, 2 × 2-port couplers and crossovers are designed to
form a compact 4 × 4 BM. To demonstrate the effectiveness
of the BM for beamforming, a dual-polarized antenna array is
codesigned with the compact 4 × 4 BM to form an integrated
antenna array with beamforming network. The performance
of the integrated antenna array demonstrates that the proposed
BM can be effective as a compact beamforming network. The
total size of the BM is 2.1λ × 2λ, and the size of the entire
antenna array with the BM is 2.6λ × 4.8λ.
The remainder of the article proceeds as follows. Section II
details the design methodology for the node microstrip archi-
tecture. Section III presents two design examples with param-
eter studies. Section IV describes the entire dual-polarized
beamforming millimeter-wave endfire antenna array and its
performance. Finally, a conclusion is provided in Section V.
II. D ESIGN M ETHODOLOGY
A. New Node Microstrip Architectures
The proposed 2 × 2 port network design using the node
microstrip architecture is shown in Fig. 1. It can be thought
of as a generalization of the structure for power dividers and
directional couplers. The four red dots located at the endpoints
of the transmission lines indicate the input and output ports
of the 2 × 2 port network. The node microstrip architecture
is located between the two transmission lines and the orange
squares indicate the nodes. All the nodes can be connected
with adjacent nodes or transmission lines by metal wires with
length much smaller than a wavelength which are shown as
blue dashed lines in Fig. 1. With the node architecture, it is
possible to form virtually any path from one input port to the
output ports and achieve various transmission characteristics.
Fig. 1 indicates one potential transmission scenario, which
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4863
Fig. 1. Topology of the proposed network with the node microstrip
architecture.
may form a power divider or a directional coupler. Path
1 directly connects ports 1- 3, while path 2 originates from
port 1 and has two routes through the node architecture to port
4. The two signal routes from port 1, can constructively or
destructively add, as shown in Fig. 1. High isolation between
the two input ports can be achieved when the signals arrive
at port 2 through different paths with the same magnitude
and opposite phases. At the two output ports, the signals
can have the same magnitudes and different phase differences
to form either a power divider or directional coupler. More
generally, various connection combinations are possible using
the node architecture, and many of them possess multiple paths
from the input to output ports allowing a wide variety of
characteristics to be achieved. To provide sufficient degrees of
freedom, the size of the nodes should be approximately λ/10,
and the separation between the transmission lines should be
approximately λ/2. These dimensions provide enough possible
paths and electrical path differences to obtain general network
output port characteristics, including port isolation.
B. Node Microstrip Architectures Analysis
To analyze the paths inside the node microstrip architecture,
we can use a circuit network model to represent the network,
as shown in Fig. 2. The circuit network model contains
four external ports which are the input and output ports of
the 2 × 2 port network and M internal ports which are the
conducting links between the nodes and transmission lines.
All the internal ports can be connected with load ZLoadm (m =
1, . . . , M) as shown in Fig. 2. In our method, the load values
are set to either 0 or ∞. When the load value is 0, the
corresponding internal port is a short. The short is formed
by a metal wire which connects the two nodes or trans-
mission lines and has a reflection coefficient of −1. When
the load value is ∞, the corresponding internal port will
be open. The open is formed by an open connection and
has ∞ impedance and a reflection coefficient of 1. We use
binary digits xm ∈ {−1, 1}(m = 1, 2, . . . , M) to indicate
the reflection coefficient of each internal port and write it as
a vector x = [x1 , x2 , . . . , x M ] to describe the states of all
4864 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 71, NO. 6, JUNE 2023

For convenience, we therefore denote the overall external

scattering matrix SNetwork as

−1
SNetwork = bE /aE = SE,E + SE,I SLoad − SI,I SI,E . (6)
When a particular SLoad is selected, SNetwork can be found
through (6). To find the desired SLoad we can use intuition
guided by the description in Section II-A. However, we can
also assist the selection process by using optimization algo-
rithms, such as the genetic algorithm (GA), to select the
most appropriate SLoad to meet the required user-defined trans-
mission characteristics as captured by an objective function.
An objective function that quantifies the desired characteristics
for a 2 × 2 port network can be expressed as
min Wmag mag(SNetwork (x)) − Tmag
 
x
Fig. 2. Circuit model for the proposed network with the node microstrip + [Wang |ang(SNetwork (x)[3, 1])
architecture and M internal ports.
− ang(SNetwork (x)[4, 1]) − Tang |]
s.t. x ∈ {−1, 1}m , m = 1, 2, . . . , M (7)
the internal ports. There are totally 2 M possible connection
where SNetwork (x) represents the scattering matrix of the
configurations and some of these will be able to form the
2 × 2 port network when the load or connection states of
required paths for the desired network performance.
all the internal ports are x. The function mag(A) takes the
By introducing the external and internal ports to the net-
magnitude of each element in A, and ang(A[i, j]) is the angle
work, the entire structure with the node microstrip architecture
of the [i, j] element in A. Tmag is a 4 × 4 threshold real matrix
can be modeled by a (4 + M)-port scattering matrix
  that has the desired reflection coefficient characteristics, and
SE,E SE,I Tang is the threshold value for the required phase different
S= (1)
SI,E SI,I between the two output ports. Wmag and Wang are weighting
factors for the magnitude and phase difference, respectively.
where SE,E represents the scattering sub-matrix of the feeding
Since the 2 × 2 port network should have a symmetric scat-
or external ports and SI,I represents the scattering sub-matrix
tering matrix, x has the constraint of also being symmetric.
of the internal ports. SE,I is the scattering sub-matrix between
Therefore, in (7), only one phase difference is needed in the
the feeding ports and the internal ports and SI,E is the transpose
objective function.
of SE,I .
By setting different Tang and Tmag for the thresholds, the
The relationship between the incident and reflected waves
2 × 2 port network can provide different scattering matrices
can be written as
     such as couplers or crossovers.
bE SE,E SE,I aE
= (2)
bI SI,E SI,I aI
C. Design Method
where aE and aI are the incident waves at the external and Using the node microstrip architecture, we can design
internal ports, respectively, bE and bI are the reflected waves any 2 × 2 port network (by finding SLoad ) with the desired
at the external and internal ports, respectively. The entire characteristics as captured by the associated objective function
scattering matrix S can be obtained by full electromagnetic (7). Using the discussions in Section II-A and analysis in
simulation software, such as CST Microwave Studio [34], Section II-B, the design method should have the following
when the mother structure is decided. steps to produce the desired network geometry.
The reflection coefficient of the mth internal port is xm , Step 1: Setup two transmission lines with a separation of
so that the reflected and incident waves at the internal ports approximately λ/2.
can be expressed as Step 2: Set the node size to be approximately λ/10, so that
bI = SLoad aI (3) rows of approximately five nodes can be formed between the
transmission lines. For frequencies in the mmWave region,
where SLoad = diag(x1 , . . . , x M ). By substituting (3) into (2), fabrication precision should be taken into consideration, and
we can obtain therefore electrically larger nodes may be required resulting in
fewer nodes in a row. The tradeoff is that lowering the number
SLoad − SI,I aI = SI,E aE .


(4)
of nodes results in less degrees of design freedom to meet a
With (2) and (4), the relationship between the incident wave given design specification. The node can be any reasonable
aE and reflected wave bE of the external ports can be written shape such as a rectangle or square, as long as the largest
as length of the node is approximately λ/10. The link to connect
h
−1 i the nodes should be thin and short as it forms the internal port
bE = SE,E + SE,I SLoad − SI,I SI,E aE . (5) for the analysis described in Section II-B.

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TANG et al.: BEAMFORMING NETWORK DESIGN UTILIZING NODE MICROSTRIP ARCHITECTURES
Fig. 3. Design procedure of the proposed BM with node microstrip
architecture. (a) Set proper distance between transmission lines. (b) Add the
node microstrip architecture with proper size between the transmission lines.
(c) Re-model the network with the optimized connection combination.
Step 3: Decide on the number of node rows (K ). K can
be initially selected as three, and decreased or increased as
necessary using Step 6 in this design method.
Step 4: Select a threshold matrix Tmag and threshold value
Tang for the desired transmission or scattering characteristics
(for example couplers or crossovers).
Step 5: Extract the scattering matrix S for the specified
node architecture utilizing electromagnetic software such as
CST Microwave Studio. This scattering matrix fully describes
the electrical characteristics of the network and the relation
between each node.
Step 6: Apply an optimization method such as GA to find
the optimized load, SLoad , or equivalently connection states of
the internal ports based on the desired objective function (7).
Step 7: Determine the rows of nodes (K ) by evaluating the
degree of fit with the objective function using the load matrix
found in Step 6. Based on the design target, repeat Steps 5 and
6 and add or reduce the number of rows in the architecture to
find K .
Fig. 3 illustrates the steps in the design method using the
node microstrip architecture. An important aspect to note is
the low-computational load of this method. For a particu-
lar node architecture, as selected in Step 3, only one full
electromagnetic simulation needs to be performed for the
entire optimization process in Step 6. This is because once
the scattering matrix S has been found for a particular node
architecture, SNetwork can be found efficiently using (6) for all
SLoad . Therefore, the design method can be run on regular
desktop computers.
III. D ESIGN AND PARAMETER S TUDY FOR 2 × 2 P ORT
S TRUCTURES
In this section, based on our design method, examples
and parameter studies of 2 × 2 networks, comprising a
coupler and a crossover, are included to provide insight
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4865
into the method. They are also used later to compose the
BM to demonstrate the full beamsteering antenna system.
In this section, the operating center frequency is selected to
be 28 GHz. All of the design samples are prototyped on the
RT/Duroid 5880 substrate and the thickness is 0.254 mm. The
4 × 4 BM is constructed from concatenating the 2 × 2 BM
and 2 × 2 crossover structures.
A. 2 × 2 Port Coupler Design and Parameter Study
The 2 × 2-port hybrid coupler has the same transmission
characteristics as a two-port BM. Based on the design pro-
cedure in the previous Section II, the design process of the
2 × 2-port coupler is as follows.
Step 1: Place two transmission lines on the substrate. The
separation d = 5 mm = 0.47λ0 at 28 GHz, as shown in
Fig. 3(a), is used in this design to keep the structure as compact
as possible. The height of the substrate is 0.254 mm, and the
width of the transmission line is w1 = 0.7 mm. Step 2: The
width (wn ) and length (ln ) of each node is selected as 0.4 mm
and 0.82 mm respectively, which are smaller than λ/10. The
gap between two adjacent nodes (g1 and g2 ) are 0.4 mm and
0.2 mm, respectively. There are four nodes in each row. More
nodes can be placed between the transmission lines when the
nodes are smaller, but the fabrication requirement will become
more difficult.
Step 3: Insert the node microstrip architecture between the
microstrip lines as shown in Fig. 3(b). The number of rows
can be set as three initially and will later be fixed by parameter
study.
Step 4: To achieve the transmission or scattering character-
istics of a coupler, the threshold Tang is set as 90◦ and the
threshold matrix of the magnitude is set as
 √ √ 
0 0 √ 1/2 √1/2
 0
Tmag =  √ √0 1/2 1/2 
. (8)
 1/2
√ √1/2 0 0 
1/2 1/2 0 0
Step 5: The scattering matrix S is obtained after the 2 × 2-
port network structure using CST. Step 6: GA is used to
determine the appropriate load or connection states x of the
internal ports based on the objective function (7). Based on
the values of x, some internal ports will be replaced by metal
wires with width w2 = 0.1 mm while the others will become
open connections as shown in Fig. 3(c).
Step 7: Estimate performance with the values of x found in
Step 6, and use a parameter study to determine K .
We investigate the performance of the coupler with different
numbers of rows (K = 3 to 6), and the corresponding node
networks become 4 × 3, 4 × 4, 4 × 5, and 4 × 6 as shown
in Fig. 4. The optimized connection configurations are shown
in Fig. 4(a), (d), (g), and (j), with blue rectangles to indicate
the links between nodes. S-parameters, phase difference and
the current distribution of the optimized 2 × 2-port coupler
are also presented in Fig. 4. When the node network rows
increase, there are more potential links inside of the 2 × 2 port
network, which can provide better performance. When there
are 4 × 3 nodes between the transmission lines, the network
4866 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 71, NO. 6, JUNE 2023

Fig. 4. Coupler performance with different K . (a) 4 × 3 nodes network structure with optimized connection configuration. (b) Current distribution.
(c) S-parameters and phase difference. (d) 4 × 4 nodes network structure with optimized connection configuration. (e) Current distribution. (f) S-parameters and
phase difference. (g) 4 × 5 nodes network structure with optimized connection configuration. (h) Current distribution. (i) S-parameters and phase difference.
(j) 4 × 6 nodes network structure with optimized connection configuration. (k) Current distribution. (l) S-parameters and phase difference.

already can achieve the coupler transmission characteristic
in a limited bandwidth. As shown in Fig. 4(a)-(c), for the
optimized 2 × 2-port coupler with 4 × 3 nodes, the phase
imbalance of the two outputs is less than ±0.2◦ , and the
amplitude imbalance of the two outputs is less than ±1.2
dB in the frequency range of 27.5–29 GHz. As shown in
Fig. 4(g)–(i), when there are 4 × 5 nodes in the network,
the simulated results indicate that the phase imbalance of
the 2 × 2-port coupler is less than ±0.2◦ , and the amplitude
imbalance is less than ±0.87 dB, and the isolation between
the two input ports is larger than 17 dB in the frequency range
of 27.5–29 GHz. When more nodes, (4 × 6), are located in
the network, as shown in Fig. 4(j)–(l), the coupler can achieve
even better performance. The phase imbalance is less than
±0.25◦ , and the amplitude imbalance is less than ±0.73 dB,
and the isolation between the two input ports is larger than
27 dB in the frequency range of 27–29 GHz.
According to the parameter study, the more potential con-
nection combinations can provide more degrees of free-
dom which leads to better performance. For example,
the 4 × 3 node network has 23 internal ports, while the
4 × 6 node network has 50 internal ports. There are a total
of 223 potential connection combinations for the 4 × 3 node
network and 250 potential connection combinations for the

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TANG et al.: BEAMFORMING NETWORK DESIGN UTILIZING NODE MICROSTRIP ARCHITECTURES 4867

Fig. 5. Crossover performance with different K . (a) 4 × 4 nodes network structure with optimized connection configuration. (b) Current distribution.
(c) S-parameters. (d) 4 × 5 nodes network structure with optimized connection configuration. (e) Current distribution. (f) S-parameters. (g) 4 × 6 nodes
network structure with optimized connection configuration. (h) Current distribution. (i) S-parameters.

4 × 6 node network. However, the more nodes will occupy
a larger space, and the EM simulation and optimization will
require more time. Therefore, based on the parameter study
results, we select K = 5 for the final design and optimum
node row number.
B. 2 × 2 Port Crossover Design and Parameter Study
For the 2 × 2 port crossover structure, we use the same
dimensions and configuration as for the coupler design in the
previous section. Therefore, Steps 1–3 are the same as for the
coupler. Step 4: We change the threshold Tang and Tmag , so that
the 2 × 2-port network objective becomes that for a crossover
structure. According to the transmission performance of the
crossover structure, Tang can be ignored and Tmag can be set
as
 
0 0 0 1
0 0 1 0
Tmag =  0 1 0 0 . (9)

1 0 0 0
Steps 5 and 6 are then also performed similar to the
previous coupler design. Step 7: To achieve the transmission
characteristic of the crossover, more node rows are required
in the 2 × 2 port network as compared to the coupler design.
When there are 4 × 4 nodes, the optimized structure
can only provide the crossover transmission characteristic in
an extremely limited bandwidth as shown in Fig. 5(a)–(c).
When there are 4 × 5 nodes as shown in Fig. 5(d)–(f), the
simulated results show that the optimized crossover has an
isolation of more than 14 dB and insertion loss of less
than 0.78 dB over the frequency band 27.5–29 GHz. When
the number of node rows becomes larger, such as 4 × 6,
as shown in Fig. 5(g)–(i), the optimized 2 × 2 port network
can achieve better performance. The simulated results show
that the crossover has an isolation of more than 16 dB and
insertion loss of less than 0.78 dB over the frequency range
of 27–28.8 GHz. Therefore, we use K = 5 to be the final and
optimum node row number for the crossover.
IV. 4 × 4 BM P ERFORMANCE AND A NTENNA A RRAY
R ESULTS
To demonstrate the versatility of our method and its use-
fulness in 5G, a compact dual-polarized beam-steered end-
fire mm-wave antenna array is constructed using the node

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4868 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 71, NO. 6, JUNE 2023
Fig. 6. 4 × 4 BM with optimized coupler and crossover structure with
the node microstrip architecture. Dimensions are marked where p1 = 1.45;
p2 = 2.2; p3 = 2.3; p4 = 3.5; p5 = 1.5 (Unit: mm).
Fig. 7. 4 × 4 BM performance with proposed node microstrip architecture.
(a) S-parameters when input port 1 is excited. (b) The S-parameters when
input port 2 is excited. (c) Output phase when port 1 is excited. (d) Output
phase when port 2 is excited.
microstrip architecture approach for the frequency range 27.5–
29 GHz. Beam-steering functionality is obtained using a 4 × 4
BM that utilizes the coupler and crossover design from the
previous section. The BM is then integrated with an endfire
mm-wave antenna array.
A. Cascaded 4 × 4 BM Performance
A 4 × 4 BM can be formed by cascading the 2 × 2 coupler
and crossovers, as shown in Fig. 6. Considering the optimized
transmission characteristics and the size of the couplers and
crossovers, we select the coupler and crossover with 4 × 5
nodes in each 2 × 2 port network to form the larger BM.
At the output ports, we add phase structures to modify the
output phase to compensate for different distances between the
antenna elements. This optimized BM can straightforwardly
connect with antenna arrays. The simulated results of the
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Fig. 8. Three-dimensional expanded view of the proposed dual-polarized
antenna array.
4 × 4 BM with optimized coupler and crossover structure are
shown in Fig. 7.
Since the 4 × 4 BM is a totally symmetric structure,
we only provide the results for when ports 1 and 2 are excited,
and the results for ports 3 and 4 are the same. When ports 1 and
2 are excited, the reflection and coupling levels are lower than
−16.5 dB over the frequency range 27.5–29 GHz. The average
insertion loss from port 1 to output ports 5–8 and from port 2
to output ports 5–8 are 2 and 1.5 dB from 27.5 to 29 GHz,
respectively. The final results of the antenna radiation patterns
demonstrate that the function of beam-steering can be achieved
by utilizing the proposed BM design.
B. Antenna Array With the 4 × 4 BM
A compact dual-polarized beam-steered endfire mm-wave
antenna array is designed by combining the proposed 4 × 4
BM with planar dual-polarized endfire antennas. Each beam
in the dual-polarized beam-steered antenna can be individually
controlled and steered. Two of the proposed 4 × 4 BMs
are stacked and connected to four vertically and horizontally
polarized endfire antenna elements respectively as shown in
Fig. 8. For the dual-polarized antenna, there are four substrate
layers (shown in blue), three bondply layers (gray) and eight
metal layers (yellow) to form the whole dual-polarized antenna
array structure. The heights of all of the bondply layers are
0.1 mm, and the heights of substrate 1 and 4 are 0.254 mm, and
the heights of substrate 2 and 3 are 0.787 mm. The BMs for the
TANG et al.: BEAMFORMING NETWORK DESIGN UTILIZING NODE MICROSTRIP ARCHITECTURES
Fig. 9. Detailed layouts of three layers of the dual-polarized antenna
where only one antenna in the 4-element array is shown. (a) Side view of
the proposed dual-polarized antenna array. (b) Plane view of metal layer 1.
(c) Plane view of metal layer 7. (d) Plane view of metal layer 8. Dimensions
are marked where d1 = 0.4; d2 = 0.6; d3 = 0.8; l1 = 4; l2 = 0.7; l3 = 2.6;
l4 = 12; l5 = 5; l6 = 2.1; p = 0.9; w3 = 3.9; w4 = 0.6; w5 = 0.3; w6 = 0.7;
w7 = 1.1; w8 = 0.4; w9 = 2; w10 = 0.7. (Unit: mm).
Fig. 10. Photograph of the fabricated prototype.
vertically polarized and horizontally polarized antenna arrays
are placed on the two sides of top (Substrate 1) and bottom
(Substrate 4) substrate, respectively. There is a ground plane
on the left side of the BMs which provides space for the SMP
connectors (also see metal layers 1 and 8). A cross section
and layouts of three metal layers of the dual-polarized antenna
are shown in Fig. 9 where only one element in the antenna
array section of Fig. 8 is shown and where the BM section is
excluded. As shown in Fig. 9, there are four substrates (blue),
three bondply layers (gray), and eight metal layers (yellow).
The first three substrate layers and six metal layers form the
vertically polarized antenna. The fourth substrate layer and the
metal layers 7 and 8 form the horizontally polarized antenna.
For the horizontally polarized endfire antenna array,
we designed microstrip dipole antennas as shown in Fig. 9(c)
and (d) (Metal layers 7 and 8), and the space between two
antenna units is set as 7 mm (0.65 λ at 28 GHz) as shown in
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4869
Fig. 11. S-parameters of the dual-polarized antenna and 4 × 4 BM.
(a) Reflection coefficients for ports 1–4 (Vertical polarization). (b) Reflection
coefficients for ports 5–8 (Horizontal polarization). (c) Isolation between ports
1 and 4. (d) Isolation between ports 5 and 8.
Fig. 8. The dipole array is printed on two sides (Metal layers
7 and 8 in Fig. 9) of the substrate (substrate 4 in Fig. 8),
and we use a Rogers RO4450F bondply layer to bond the
horizontal polarized antenna array with the vertical polarized
antenna array.
For the vertically polarized endfire antenna array, SIW
horn antennas are designed with a probe feeding structure.
Since the vertically polarized antennas need a higher height
to provide better matching bandwidth, the multilayer structure
is introduced to increase the height of the cavity, as shown
in Fig. 8. The height of the substrate is 0.254 mm for the
feeding network, while the height for the vertically polarized
antenna is larger. Rogers RO4450F bondply layers are used to
4870 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 71, NO. 6, JUNE 2023
Fig. 12. Radiation patterns of the antenna when different ports are excited.
(a) Ports 1–4 (at 28.5 GHz). (b) Ports 5–8 (at 28 GHz).
Fig. 13. Simulated total efficiency of the dual-polarized antenna array fed
by the proposed BM with the node microstrip architecture.
bond three RT/Duroid 5880 substrates with different heights.
The different heights of the substrate layers are used for
building the probe feed structure for the horn antenna. The
detailed top view of the vertical polarized antenna is shown
in Fig. 9. We used a microstrip line to coplaner waveguide
(CPW) transition structure to connect the microstrip line-based
BM and the SIW horn antenna. As shown in Fig. 8, there are
four metal vias that connect substrate 1 to substrate 2 (metal
layer 1 to metal layer 4) which are used as the probe feeding
for the SIW horn antenna.
C. Simulation and Experimental Results
A prototype of the dual-polarized endfire antenna array
utilizing the node microstrip architecture is shown in Fig.
10. The entire layout for metal layers 8 and 1 can be seen.
Using the prototype shown in Fig. 10, its S-parameters are
measured with a Rohde & Schwarz ZVA 40 vector network
analyzer (VNA). The simulated and measured S-parameters of
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TABLE I
B EAM A NGLE AND C ROSS -P OLARIZATION L EVEL OF THE P ROPOSED
A NTENNA A RRAY F ED BY THE BM W ITH N ODE M ICROSTRIP
A RCHITECTURE
the dual-polarized antenna array are presented in Fig. 11. The
measured reflection coefficients are lower than −10 dB from
27.5 to 29 GHz. Ports 3 and 2 are totally symmetric in the
structure, but a difference exists between these two ports. This
slight difference may arise from the fabrication processing and
the influence of the cables and connectors. The isolations are
better than 12 dB from 27.5 to 29 GHz among all of the ports.
Fig. 12 shows the simulated and measured radiation pattern
results in the azimuth plane when different ports are excited.
For the vertically polarized array, the measured frequency is
28.5 GHz. The direction of the main beams are at 57◦ , 81◦ ,
102◦ , and 129◦ when ports 2, 4, 1 and 3 are excited, respec-
tively. The measured maximum gain is 5.5 dBi. For the hor-
izontally polarized array, the measured frequency is 28 GHz.
The direction of the main beams are at 57◦ , 78◦ , 105◦ , and
126◦ when ports 7, 5, 8, and 6 are excited, respectively. The
measured maximum gain is 7.42 dBi. The measured gain
reduction of the vertically polarized antenna array is caused
by the following reasons.
1) Fabrication Deviation: The array is designed and fabri-
cated on the Rogers RT/Duroid 5880 substrate which
is a soft board. After the high-temperature soldering
process, the thermal expansion of the substrate makes
the cavity height of each SIW horn antenna inconsistent.
The imperfect height of the SIW horn antenna will
influence the radiated wave.
2) Connector Influence: The SMP connectors are soldered
manually. We cannot ensure that each connecter is
soldered the same as the others. Therefore, the alignment
of the connectors slightly changes the matching of the
feeding network.
3) Measurement Facility Influence: During measurement,
the structure of the connectors and cables will affect the
radiation pattern.
As shown in Fig. 13, the simulated total efficiency of the
antenna array with the proposed BM is from 62%–80% in
the frequency range of 27.5-29 GHz. The simulated cross-
polarization levels of the dual-polarized antenna array perfor-
mance are shown in Table I. The maximum cross-polarization
level of the dual-polarized antenna array fed by the BM
with the node microstrip architecture is from −22.3 dB to
−8.1 dB at different beam angles. Due to the limitation of
our measurement facility, we cannot provide the results of
TANG et al.: BEAMFORMING NETWORK DESIGN UTILIZING NODE MICROSTRIP ARCHITECTURES
TABLE II
C OMPARISON OF THE B EAMFORMING A NTENNA A RRAY
measured cross-polarization level and radiation efficiency of
the antenna array.
D. Comparison With Other Work
A comparison of some key features such as the radiation
direction (endfire of broadside), beamsteering range, size of
BM, size of the Whole antenna array, and the polarization
of the proposed antenna with some existing designs is given
in Table II. Most existing designs [25], [26], [28], [29], [32]
and [35] provide broadside radiation while only three provide
endfire radiation with only our work providing dual-linear
endfire radiation. From the comparison, [25] and [28] provide
4 × 8 BMs using multilayer structures to reduce the number
of crossover structures and size of the BMs. However, the
SIW based BM structures still occupy a large area. Design [24]
uses microstrip lines to provide a 4 × 6 BM and a microstrip-
slotline-microstrip transition structure to reduce the number of
crossover structures when the number of output ports increase
to six. The size of each coupler and crossover, however, is still
large. Design [26] uses microstrip lines to build the BM with
a conventional coupler and crossover structure, and the length
of these conventional structures are larger than our design.
In particular for the crossover, the length of the conventional
crossover in [26] is 0.51λ, while our proposed crossover
with the node microstrip architecture is 0.34λ. Moreover,
compared with [29] and [32], our proposed dual-polarized
antenna array has endfire radiation and the size of our structure
is much smaller. The size of our proposed 4 × 4 BM is
half of [32]. Design [30] has dual-circularly polarization with
endfire radiation, but its BM is based on the conventional
structure, which is much larger when compared with our
proposed design. Specifically, the size of our proposed 4 × 4
BM is one-seventh of [30]. Compared with these designs, our
proposed dual-polarized multiport antenna has the smallest
size with a compact BM that has dimensions of 2.1λ × 2λ.
The scanning angle and the realized gain has similar perfor-
mance to previous designs. The design process for the BM
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4871
with our node microstrip architecture is straightforward and
can be easily extended to more ports and other frequency
bands. In addition, our approach allows a wide variety of
structures and is not restricted to being only a coupler or a
crossover. Therefore, the approach provides a compact general
technique for designing different scattering characteristics that
can be achieved on the same 2 × 2 network.
V. C ONCLUSION
In this article, we have proposed a new method to design the
Butler matrix. With node analysis, the node network between
the microstrip lines can have various connection configurations
and transmission characteristics. The scattering matrix of the
node network can be optimized so that the network can
function as a coupler or a crossover. Based on this new
general method, a novel compact BM with node microstrip
architecture is introduced. With the same node microstrip
architecture, various structures can be formed and operate
with different transmission characteristics. A dual-polarized
endfire antenna array is connected with this BM and multiple
directive beams with horizontal and vertical polarization can
be formed. With the node microstrip architecture, the BM has a
compact size of 2.1λ × 2λ. It also provides significant design
versatility, thus providing a base for a wide variety of multiple
port characteristics.
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Shiwen Tang (Graduate Student Member, IEEE)
received the bachelor’s degree in radio wave propa-
gation and antenna from the University of Electronic
Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China,
in 2016, the M.Sc. degree in electronic and electri-
cal engineering from the University of Strathclyde,
Glasgow, U.K., in 2018, and the master’s degree in
circuits and systems from the University of Elec-
tronic Science and Technology of China in 2019.
She is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree with the
Department of Electronic and Computer Engineer-
ing, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), Hong
Kong. Her current research interests include the millimeter-wave antenna
design, MIMO antennas, reconfigurable antenna design, and 6G.
Ms. Tang was awarded second prize in the Antenna and Propagation Student
Paper Award at The 22nd IEEE (HK) AP/MTT Postgraduate Conference in
2021.
Yujie Zhang (Member, IEEE) received the bach-
elor’s degree in optoelectronic information science
and engineering from the Huazhong University of
Science and Technology, Wuhan, China, in 2017,
and the Ph.D. degree in electronic and computer
engineering from The Hong Kong University of
Science and Technology (HKUST), Hong Kong,
in 2021.
He was a Post-Doctoral Fellow with HKUST
from 2021 to 2023. He is currently a Research
Fellow with the Department of Electrical and Com-
puter Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore. His research
interests include the antenna design on the Internet-of-Things applications,
reconfigurable intelligent antenna and surface, MIMO systems, millimeter
wave, RF energy harvesting, wireless power transmission, and 6G.
TANG et al.: BEAMFORMING NETWORK DESIGN UTILIZING NODE MICROSTRIP ARCHITECTURES
Junhui Rao (Graduate Student Member, IEEE)
received the B.Eng. degree in microelectronic sci-
ence and engineering from the University of Elec-
tronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu,
China, in 2020, and received a National scholar-
ship during his studies. He is currently pursuing
the Ph.D. degree with the Department of Elec-
tronic and Computer Engineering from The Hong
Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong
Kong.
His current research interests include Reconfig-
urable intelligent surfaces, microwave circuits, MIMO systems, millimeter
waves, and 6G.
Mr. Rao received a RedBird Academic Excellence Award at HKUST in
2022.
Zixiang Han (Member, IEEE) received the bach-
elor’s degree in electronic science and technology
from Nanjing University, Nanjing, China, in 2018,
and the Ph.D. degree in electronic and computer
engineering from The Hong Kong University of
Science and Technology (HKUST), Hong Kong,
in 2022.
He is currently a Project Manager with the Future
Research Laboratory, China Mobile Research Insti-
tute, Beijing, China. His current research interests
include the integrated sensing and communication,
holographic MIMO, MIMO antenna systems, and antenna design and opti-
mization.
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4873
Chi-Yuk Chiu (Senior Member, IEEE) received the
B.Eng., M.Eng., and Ph.D. degrees in electronic
engineering from the City University of Hong Kong,
Hong Kong, in 2001, 2001, and 2005, respectively.
He joined the Department of Electronic and Com-
puter Engineering (ECE), The Hong Kong Uni-
versity of Science and Technology (HKUST) as a
Research Associate, in 2005. Then, he worked at
Sony Mobile Communications, Beijing, as a Senior
Antenna Engineer in 2011. He again joined as a
Research Assistant Professor with the ECE, HKUST,
in 2015. He has published over 100 technical papers, two book chapters
and holds several patents related to antenna technology. His main research
interests include the design and analysis of small antennas, MIMO antennas,
applications of characteristic modes, and energy harvesting.
Dr. Chiu is the Vice Chair of IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society
(AP-S)/Microwave Theory and Technology Society (MTT-S) Hong Kong
Joint Chapter, a member of IEEE AP-S Education Committee, IEEE
AP-S C. J. Reddy Travel Grant Assistant Coordinator, and a Lead Guest
Editor of a special section in IEEE O PEN J OURNAL OF A NTENNAS AND
P ROPAGATION (OJAP).
Ross Murch (Fellow, IEEE) received the bachelor’s
and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and electronic
engineering from the University of Canterbury,
Christchurch, New Zealand.
In 1992, he joined with HKUST as an Assistant
Professor and has remained at HKUST, Hong Kong,
since then, where he is currently the Chair Profes-
sor. From 1990 to 1992, he was a Post-Doctoral
Fellow at the Department of Mathematics and
Computer Science, University of Dundee, Dundee,
U.K.. He was the Department Head at HKUST
from 2009 to 2015. He is currently the Chair Professor with the Department
of Electronic and Computer Engineering and a Senior Fellow at the Institute
of Advanced Study both at The Hong Kong University of Science and
Technology (HKUST), Hong Kong. In total his research contributions include
nearly 200 journal publications and more than 20 patents while successfully
supervising more than 50 research students. He is known for his research on
multiple antenna technology including multiuser-MIMO, compact multiport
antennas, and multiport energy harvesting. His current research focus is
creating new RF wave technology for making a better world and this
includes RF imaging, ambient RF systems, energy harvesting, electromagnetic
information theory, 6G, IoT, multiport antenna systems, and reconfigurable
intelligent surfaces. His unique expertise lies in his combination of knowledge
from both wireless communication systems and electromagnetics and he
publishes in both areas.
Prof. Murch is a fellow of IET, HKIE, and FHKEng. He has won several
awards including the Computer Simulation Technology (CST) University
Publication Award. He also has a strong interest in education, enjoys teaching
and has won five teaching awards. He has been a David Bensted Fellow, Simon
Fraser University, Canada, an HKTIIT fellow at Southampton University,
U.K and has spent sabbaticals at MIT, USA; AT&T, USA; Allgon Mobile
Communications, Sweden; and Imperial College London. He has served IEEE
in various positions including IEEE an Area Editor, a Technical Program
Chair, a Distinguished Lecturer, and a Fellow Evaluation Committee.