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Feeding Network of High Gain Switchable Dielectric Resonator Antenna Array

for 5G Applications

Article · September 2021

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 Journal of Engineering and Social Sciences, Vol.1 No.1 (2021) p.136-144

Feeding Network of High Gain Switchable Dielectric Resonator

Antenna Array for 5G Applications

Nor Hidayu Shahadan1*, Khairul Huda Yusof2, Yusmahaida Yusoff1, Mohd Haizal
Jamaluddin3 , Muhammad Ramlee Kamarudin4
_______________________________________________________________________________________
1Department of Electrical Engineering
Politeknik Ibrahim Sultan, Km 10 Jalan Kong Kong, 81700, Pasir Gudang, Johor, MALAYSIA
2Faculty of Information Sciences & Engineering

Management and Science University, 40100 Shah Alam, Selangor, MALAYSIA

3Wireless Communication Centre (WCC)

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Johor Bahru, MALAYSIA

4Faculty of Electrical Engineering

Universiti Tun Hussein Onn, 86400 Batu Pahat, Johor, MALAYSIA

*Corresponding Author
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Published online : 25 September 2021

To cite this article : Nor Hidayu Shahadan et al., Journal of Engineering and Social Sciences, Vol.1 No.1 (2021)
p.136-144
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Abstract: An antenna that can steer the direction beam with the high gain is required to
encounter the increasing traffic demands in 5G applications. The complex phased array
antennas are very expensive and require complicated feeding networks that resulted in
increasing the antenna elements and the number of phase controls. Thus, this research is focused
on developing a low-cost phased array without the use of phase shifters. A feeding network is
formed by incorporating a dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) with a combination of two driven
DRs using a power divider and phase switching. The detailed analysis in power divider network
and switched-line phase shifter for high gain switchable DRA array are simulated using ANSYS
HFSS ver. 16 and MATLAB ver. 2014b. The fabricated design is verified and experimentally tested
by using a vector network analyzer (VNA) and measured in an Anechoic Chamber. As the result,
the switchable high gain DRA array achieved a maximum gain of 12.8 dBi with the feeding
network proposed and it has exceeded the 5G application requirement. The design contributes
in reducing the number of antenna and control elements with the best switching angle at ±30
degrees without using any external phase shifter. In a nutshell, the proposed design can be
potentially implemented for 5G applications.

Keywords: Feeding Network, Power Divider, Phase Shifter, High Gain, Dielectric Resonator
Antenna

1. INTRODUCTION
Fifth generation (5G) technology will assist in completing fourth generation (4G) technology while
solving the shortages caused by the current 4G technology. The application includes all sorts of
advanced features, making it very useful and in high demand in the near future. Consequently, 5G
devices encounter interference, especially at higher frequencies due to an increase in usage and
demand for simultaneous communication. It is already noted that multiple antennas in the phased
array that is capable of steering the direction beam with high gain can be used to recover the
additional loss at higher frequencies. Nevertheless, the complex phased array design that
incorporates a complicated feeding network, phase shifter and bias component has produced a
larger overall dimension (Goel and Vinoy, 2011; Nikfalazar et al., 2016) and introduces large losses
(Goel and Vinoy, 2011; Yusuf and Gong, 2008).

*Corresponding author: norhidayu@pis.edu.my 136

© Penerbit Politeknik Melaka, 2021. All rights reserved.
 Nor Hidayu Shahadan et al., Journal of Engineering and Social Sciences, Vol.1 No.1 (2021) p.136-144

Based on these concerns, to secure an antenna array that can switch the beam's direction, a
new dielectric resonator antenna array design with the aim of steering the beam has been published
by the author in (Nor Hidayu et al., 2017). This paper has been presented a low-cost phased array
by using three elements of dielectric resonator antenna (DRA). The center DR fed by microstrip slot
aperture is introduced as a driven element while the other two DRs are excited by the center DR
through mutual coupling. Therefore, the phase shift on individual elements can be controlled by
switching the reactive loads on those parasitic DRs. As an outcome, the proposed DRA array is
superior to some of the previous works with a maximum gain of 9.25 dBi. By considering the
specifications of 5G, the antenna gain of more than 12 dBi (Sulyman et al., 2013) needs to be
achieved. With that, related work has been done (Abdellatif et al. 2014; Khalily et al. 2016; Nuramirah
et al. 2017) to determine the frequency for 5G and assure it meets the specifications. As a result, the
antenna elements and phase controls of the system have increased, leading to higher costs and
more complexity. Therefore, a new high gain switchable DRA array design without using any external
phase shifter has been presented by the author (Nor Hidayu et al., 2018). It has improved the
drawbacks of antenna gain in the switchable DRA subarray design that has been published in (Nor
Hidayu et al., 2017).
In spite of that, the author has not previously presented the contributions regarding phase control
and reducing the number of antenna elements in the feeding network. Thus, this paper
demonstrates the detailed analysis of the power divider network and switched-line phase shifter
towards a decrease in cost and complexity of the proposed design. In section 2, the configuration
of two switchable DRA subarray to incorporate the high-gain design by using a power divider
network is presented as the methodology. Meanwhile, the detailed analysis in power divider network
and switched-line phase shifter are analyzed and clearly discussed in section 3. The configuration of
the feeding network in the high gain DRA array is also shown here. Finally, the verification of the
fabricated design and the performance comparison with the previous work in reducing the number
of elements and phase control are made in section 4.

2. CONFIGURATION OF HIGH GAIN SWITCHABLE DRA ARRAY

In order to obtain the high-gain DRA array, a linear array of two DRA subarrays is incorporated as
shown in Figure 1. The configuration of the DRA subarray is determined based on performance in
(Nor Hidayu et al., 2017). When using a subarray design, the array’s pattern is the multiplication of
the single element pattern (EP), the subarray Array Factor (AF) and the full AF determined by the
spacing, amplitude and phase difference between individual subarray as stated in Eq. 1.

𝐹𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑎𝑦 𝑝𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑛 = 𝐸𝑃 × 𝑠𝑢𝑏𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑎𝑦 𝐴𝐹 × 𝐹𝑢𝑙𝑙 𝐴𝐹 1

Figure 1 - DRA array configuration for high gain

The proposed high-gain DRA array uses analog beam steering to steer the beam, by altering both
the subarray AF and the full AF. The subarray AF can be accomplished by switching the termination
of the capacitor (CA or CB) in the parasitic DR that has been presented as the AF in the subarray
design. Meanwhile, the full AF can be defined as:

1 1
𝐹𝑢𝑙𝑙 𝐴𝐹 = 𝜔1 𝑒 −𝑗 2𝑘𝑑𝑠𝑖𝑛𝜃 + 𝜔2 𝑒 𝑗2𝑘𝑑𝑠𝑖𝑛𝜃 2

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where 𝜔1 and 𝜔2 are defined as the amplitude coefficient. Any change in the subarray AF or full AF
at each individual port can affect the outcome of the final array pattern. In this light, the high-gain
DRA array is linear in the H-plane at the distance, d = 24 mm between the driven port. This is the
minimum distance after taking into account the distance between the driven DR and the parasitic
DR in the subarray configuration. The beam steering can be performed by turning ON and OFF in
different combinations of switches on the parasitic elements of the array and by applying different
phase shifts between two feeding ports (Port 1 and Port 2).
Ordinarily, the DRA array excited by the same phase having a broadside radiation pattern in
maxima broadside directions. In this proposed structure, the 180° phase difference is excited
between two driven ports of the high-gain DRA array. Through this excitation method, a radiation
pattern having a null in broadside direction with two main lobes having maximum radiation is
achieved. The radiation pattern between the same excitation phase and 180° different excitation is
depicted in Figure 2. In this regard, the proposed high gain DRA array is steering the beam at both
AF and EP level and hence, inclining the beam, depending on the superposition of the two factors.
Thereby, a power divider network is designed to incorporate the two driven ports and the switched-
line phase shifter is proposed at one of the feeding ports due to the simple time delay difference
between those two direct paths to provide 180° phase shift. Then, the detailed analysis of the feeding
network that consists of the power divider network and switched-line phase shifter is presented in the
next section. As for the analysis, ANSYS HFSS ver. 16 and MATLAB ver. 2014b were used as the
simulation tools.

Figure 2 - Radiation pattern with two Figure 3 - Layout of a quarter-wave

excitation ports transformer for a power divider

3. POWER DIVIDER AND SWITCHED-LINE PHASE SHIFTER

Firstly, the power divider network is designed to incorporate two driven elements of the DRA
subarray design at 15 GHz. The layout consists of one input port (Port 1) and two output ports (Port 2
and 3) as shown in Figure 3. As stated in (Pozar, 2005), the quarter-wave transmission line is used to
ensure the input power is equally split between two output ports in amplitude and phase. The length
of the quarter-wave line (λ/4) is 5 mm, and the overall structure of the network is designed to provide
a balanced insertion loss of 3 dB and have an equal phase shift. In this design, the characteristics
impedance, 𝑍𝑚 is set to be 50 Ω and it can be obtained by using Eq.3. Meanwhile, the characteristics
impedance of quarter-wave transmission lines, 𝑍𝑞𝑡 of the divider can be determined by Eq.4:

60 8𝑑 𝑊 𝑊 3
ln ( + ) 𝑓𝑜𝑟 ≤1
√𝜀𝑒𝑓𝑓 𝑊 4𝑡𝑠 𝑡𝑠
𝑍𝑚 = 120𝜋 𝑊
𝑓𝑜𝑟 ≥ 1
𝑊 𝑊 𝑡𝑠
𝜀 [ + 1.393 + 0.667 ln( + 1.444)]
{ √ 𝑒𝑓𝑓 𝑡𝑠 𝑡𝑠

𝑍𝑞𝑡 = √2𝑍𝑚 4
By using Eq.4, the characteristics impedance of quarter-wave, 𝑍𝑞𝑡 is calculated to be 70.7 Ω.
Then, to obtain the microstrip width of W, Wa, Wb and Wqt for the substrate thickness, ts, the common

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Eq.3 can be used. This equation has been proven successful in determine the width of transmission
line either at low or high frequency (Edward and Steer, 2013; Hong, 2011; Sani and Rahim, 2016; Zebri
et al., 2017). With the concept of equal power division, the total transmission line lengths of each port
are designed to be similar (La = Lb) to have an equal phase and amplitude distribution. Then, the
power is equally divided between port 2 and port 3 with zero phase difference at the designated
frequency with the distance 24 mm. In preparation to design the switched line phase shifter, the
reference arm is designed beforehand at the feeding of Port 2 as illustrated in Figure 4. This causes
the length of La1 is designed to be shorter than Lb1 in order to get an equal length between La and
Lb. The optimized dimensions of power divider network are summarized in Table 1.

Figure 4 – Top view of power divider network

Table 1 - A summary of network dimensions for power dividers

Parameter Equation Theoretical value Optimized value
(mm) (mm)
W = Wa = Wb (50 Ω) Eq. 3 0.78 0.73
Wqt (70.7 Ω) Eq. 4 0.49 0.45
Lqta = Lqtb λ/4 5 5

Referring to Figure 4, the reference arm is designed and analyzed to have a phase difference of
0° between the output port. In this light, the mitered bend is used at the reference arm to minimize
the effect of discontinuity. The optimum value of a mitered length, a, depends on the characteristic’s
impedance and the bend angle, but a value of a = 1.8W, which is 1.3 mm is often used in practice
(Pozar, 2005). However, the parametric study is done by varying a at 1.3 mm, 0.8 mm and 0.3 mm.

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 5 - Analysis of S-parameters by varying a in the reference arm

(a) S11 (b) S21 (c) S31

Figure 5a presents the simulated S11 of the proposed power divider network with the reference
arm less than -10 dB for all values of a. Meanwhile, in Figure 5b and 5c, the performance of

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transmission coefficients as observed from the plotted results show that the simulated S21 and S31 are
almost at an ideal performance of -3 dB with a = 0.8 mm. Furthermore, it produced the phase
difference between Port 2 and Port 3 exactly at 0° as depicted in Figure 6. Subsequently, a = 0.8 mm
is stipulated as the miter length in the reference arm design.

Figure 6 - Changes in phase differences Figure 7 - Power divider network layout in top view
with varying a in the reference arm with switch-line phase shifter

Next, the phase shifting is achieved for the steering case by adding some additional microstrip
length to the corresponding output port. In this design, the delay arm is added to create a time
delay difference between two direct paths in Port 2 in order to achieve the desired phase shift. The
different path lengths between two line arms determine the phase shift to be introduced.
Consequently, the switched-line phase shifter as shown in Figure 7 has proposed a delay switch and
reference switch to route signal between one of the two transmission lines of different lengths. By
turning ON the reference switch or delay switch, the phase shift between the output port is 0° or 180°,
respectively. In this regard, 180° switched line phase shifter is designed and the differential phase
shift between two paths is given by Eq. 5:

2𝜋 5
∆∅ = (𝑙 − 𝑙𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 )
𝜆 𝑑𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑦

The analysis in Figure 7 was optimized such that the length of lr is 2.84mm. By referring to Eq. 5, the
length of ld should be 12.8 mm to achieve a 180° phase shift between the delay arm and the
reference arm. For better performance, the length of ld is observed with the length of lr that was
optimized based on power divider network analysis. When the delay arm is switched ON, Figure 8a
shows the S-parameter analysis by varying ld at 12.5 mm, 10.5 mm and 8.5 mm and the best
performance of S11 was achieved at ld = 10.5 mm. In the meantime, the transmission coefficient
parameters of S21 and S31 are approximately -3 dB at ld = 10.5 mm as shown in Figure 8b and 8c.
Besides, the phase responses of the proposed 180° switched-line phase shifter can be observed in
Figure 9 by varying the length of the delay arm. It was found that the phase difference between Port
2 and 3 has achieved 180° with ld = 10.5 mm at 15 GHz as shown in Figure 10. Therefore ld = 10.5 mm
is stipulated for the length of the delay arms.
Based on the successful analysis observed from the feeding network, it is hence incorporated with
two DRA subarrays to achieve the high-gain DRA array. The configuration of the feeding network in
the high gain DRA array is presented in the next section.

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(a) (b) (c)

Figure 8 - Analysis of S-parameters by varying ld in the delay arm (a) S11 (b) S21 (c) S31

Figure 9 - Changes in phase response with Figure 10 - Changes in phase difference

varying the length ld with varying the length ld

4. CONFIGURATION OF THE FEEDING NETWORK IN THE HIGH GAIN DRA ARRAY

Here, A Feeding Network Consists of a Power Divider and switched-line phase shifter was
integrated into the switchable DRA subarray as presented in Figure 11. Eight controlling ideal switches
were embedded in the feed line of the parasitic elements are configured to control the subarray AF
and it has clearly presented in (Nor Hidayu et al., 2018). The delay switch and the reference switch
are intended to control the full AF and the beam at three different steering angles are configured
based on three cases as tabulated in Table 2. The ON and OFF conditions in the phase switch specify
either 0° or 180° of the phase differences between the driven ports.

Figure 11 – The feeding network of high-gain switchable DRA array

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Table 2 – The switching configuration

Case A Case B Case C
Reference SW
ON OFF OFF
(β=kd=0°)
Phase switch
Delay SW
OFF ON ON
(β=kd=180°)

Figure 12 is visualized the surface current distribution of the feeding network when operating all
the switches. In Case A, it is clearly indicated in Figure 12a that open-circuit has occurred at all
parasitic DR due to the smaller value of the selected capacitor in each of the DRA subarray. Thus,
the current ratio in the subarray AF is nearly zero and then the input impedance inclines towards the
self-impedance value. In the meantime, a current is distributed through the path of the reference
switch and has 0° of the phase differences between the driven ports. Eventually, it gives the
broadside radiation pattern at 0°. Subsequently, Figure 12b shows the current distribution in Case B
that is through the path of 180° phase difference in the delay switch. At this moment, the larger value
of the selected capacitors at parasitic 1 and parasitic 3 has been short-circuited and thus directed
the beam to the negative degrees. The directed beam will be an alternate to Case C when the
parasitic 2 and parasitic 4 have been short-circuited. In accordance with that, the verification of the
design in Figure 11 is further discussed in the following section.

(a)

(b) (c)
Figure 12 – Surface current distribution of the feeding network (a) Case A (b) Case B (c) Case C

5. VERIFICATION OF THE FEEDING NETWORK IN THE HIGH GAIN DRA ARRAY

From the analysis that has been performed and discussed in the previous section, the next
concern is on the verification of the proposed feeding network of high gain switchable DRA array.
Figure 13 shows the fabricated prototype of the proposed high gain switchable DRA array with a
switched line phase shifter. The fabricated design is verified and experimentally tested by using a
vector network analyzer (VNA) and measured in an Anechoic Chamber.
The capability of the switchable beam at the H-plane was observed for three various cases as
presented in Figure 14. It is clearly indicated that the measured beam was able to switch
approximately with the simulated beam at 0°, -30°, +30°. In this regard, a change in the main beam
radiation angle was achievable by switching the switched-line phase shifter and the termination
capacitor on the parasitic element. By implementing only six elements of antenna, the proposed
design has successfully achieved the antenna gain up to 12 dBi as required in the 5G applications.
Furthermore, the proposed design has accomplished the desired steering angle by switching the
capacitor loading and the integrated switched-line phase shifter with the lowest number of elements
(antennas) and ports (phase control) used as shown in Table 3.

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(a) (b)
Figure 13 – A prototype of the fabricated high-gain switchable DRA array with feeding network
(a) Top view (b) Back view

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 14 – Simulated and measured normalized beam pattern for various cases of the high gain
DRA array (a) Case A (b) Case B (c) Case C

Table 3 – Performance of the proposed feeding network compared to the previous work
Abdellatif et al., Khalily et al., Nuramirah et al.,
Design Proposed
2014 2016 2017
Frequency
(GHz) 15 GHz 30 GHz 28 GHz 28 GHz

Number of elements 6 16 9 9
Number of ports 2 8 4 6
Steering angle (deg) ±30 ±20 ±14.6 Not mentioned

6. CONCLUSION
The feeding network of high gain switchable DRA array has been proposed by integrating the
switched-line phase shifter at one of the transmission lines in the power divider network. Apart from
using an external phase shifter, the design contributes in reducing the number of antenna and
control elements with the best switching angle at ±30 degrees by using only 2 ports that is capable
of covering 60° sector. Accordingly, with specifications accomplished from the proposed design, it
can be considered as a great potential for 5G applications.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to thank the Ministry of Education (MoE) and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
(UTM) for sponsoring this work under Vot 4j220 and Vot 19H56.

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