A Transparent Dual-Polarized Antenna Array for 5G

Smartphone Applications
Manoj Stanley1, Yi Huang1, Hanyang Wang2, Hai Zhou2, Ahmed Alieldin1, Sumin Joseph1
1
Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK, e-mail:
Manoj.Stanley@liv.ac.uk;Yi.Huang@liv.ac.uk; Ahmed.alieldin@liv.ac.uk;Sumin.joseph@liv.ac.uk
2
Huawei Technology (UK) Co. Ltd, Reading, United Kingdom, email:
hanyang.wang@huawei.com;hai.zhou1@huawei.com

Abstract—Future 5G applications at mm-wave frequencies the radiating element in the mobile phone rear glass. The
require antenna arrays which consume large PCB area. A antenna is made visually transparent using transparent
transparent antenna array in which the radiating elements are conducting oxide and antenna meshing technique to preserve
made visually transparent and integrated with mobile phone
the mobile phone aesthetic properties.
rear glass is proposed as a solution for saving enormous PCB
area giving an additional degree of freedom for mobile phone In Section II, the proposed antenna array configuration
system design engineers. A new antenna array configuration is and performance is described. The design principle of the
proposed which consists of dual polarized meshed capacitive antenna element is also discussed. Some conclusions are
fed patch antennas with feed section in mobile phone PCB and given in Section III indicating the achievements of this
radiating patch integrated into mobile phone rear glass. research.
Indium tin oxide is used as the transparent conducting oxide.
The radiating patch is meshed to further improve the visual
transparency. The antenna array has a 10 dB return loss over II. ANTENNA ARRAY CONFIGURATION AND
23.5-32 GHz and achieves a minimum realized gain of 12.1 dBi PERFORMANCE
making it suitable for 5G smartphone applications.
Index Terms—5G, antenna, dual-polarization, ITO, mesh
A. Antenna Array Configuration
antenna, mm-Wave, patch antenna, phased array, smartphone, The proposed 2×2 antenna array consists of dual
TCO. polarized meshed capacitive coupled patch antenna elements
in which the radiating patches are integrated into the mobile
I. INTRODUCTION phone rear glass of dielectric constant (𝜀𝑟2 ) 4.82 and the
capacitive feeds are printed in the PCB as shown in Fig. 1.
One of the key motivators for 5G is to provide
The 4-element antenna array is located at the middle of the
ubiquitous, high-speed, high-quality wireless broadband
mobile phone chassis. Rogers RT5880 Duroid of a relative
coverage to meet societal and industrial needs beyond 2020.
dielectric constant (𝜀𝑟1 ) 2.2 at mm-Wave frequencies is used
The frequency band around 28 GHz is considered as one of
as the substrate for printed circuit board of size 150 mm × 74
the prospective bands for mm-wave 5G smartphone
mm which models a 5-inch mobile phone. The antenna
applications [1].
elements are placed with a separation of 0.64λ between each
Recently, several researches are focused on developing
element to ensure good isolation between the antenna
mm-wave phased antenna arrays at 28 GHz for 5G mobile
elements and minimize the grating lobes.
phone applications. In [1], researchers at Samsung America
Transparent Conducting Oxide (TCO) film is a thin film
developed a mesh type patch antenna with dual feeds to
that is conductive electrically and transparent optically.
achieve dual polarization around 28 GHz. The antenna array
Indium tin oxide (ITO) coating of conductivity 2.4 ×
was placed in the plane normal to the PCB as opposed to the
conventional PCB plane placement to save space. But the 105 S/m is used as the transparent conducting oxide to
bandwidth was 2 GHz which was not sufficient. In [2], the achieve a transparency of 80% for the radiating patch [4].
authors proposed a compact PIFA with defected ground The patch is meshed in the form of a net to further improve
structure with a wide bandwidth of 6 GHz. However, the the visual transparency.
design did not provide dual polarization. In [3], four linear The patch antenna is probe fed at two locations using two
sub-arrays of 12 capacitive fed patch antennas each was 50Ω SMPM connectors to achieve dual polarization. The
integrated into mobile phone PCB for providing 3600 feed locations are such that the TM10 and TM01 orthogonal
coverage. The design provided good coverage and sufficient patch modes are effectively excited. The patch has an edge
bandwidth but occupied large space in the PCB and provided length of approximately 2.3 mm which is 0.2λeff at 28 GHz.
only single linear polarization. The bandwidth of micro-strip patch antennas can be widened
This work focuses on developing a novel two by increasing the substrate thickness. However, the use of
dimensional transparent dual polarized antenna array with very thick substrates leads to an increase in the inductive
wide bandwidth and minimum PCB footprint by integrating component of the input impedance which ultimately prevents

978-1-5386-7102-3/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE 635 AP-S 2018

 (a)

(b)
Fig 3. Radiation pattern at 28 GHz (a) Single element patch antenna (b) 2×2
antenna array.
Fig. 1. Proposed 2D transparent antenna array configuration for mobile
phone with a zoomed view of the antenna element (dimensions are in mm). The radiation pattern of two feeds of the single patch antenna
element and the 2×2 array is shown in Fig. 3(a) and Fig. 3(b)
a match being obtained. A capacitive feeding technique in respectively. The antenna element exhibits a broadside
which the capacitance due to the gap between the feed and radiation pattern with realized peak gain around 7.21 dBi for
the radiating patch is used to cancel out the inductive both the feeds at 28 GHz. The array gain at boresight is
component to obtain broadband impedance matching. around 12.5 dBi which is sufficient for 5G smartphone
Meshing the patch away from the patch edges will not applications.
significantly deteriorate the patch performance as the strong
currents are seen at the patch edges due to the skin effect.
III. CONCLUSION
B. Antenna Array Performance A transparent antenna array in which the radiating
element is integrated in the mobile phone rear glass has been
The simulated reflection coefficient of the antenna array
proposed as a solution for saving enormous PCB area. A
is shown in Fig. 2. Only the most significant reflection
dual-polarized meshed capacitive-fed patch antenna has been
coefficient data has been shown. The results indicate a 10 dB
used as the radiating element with feed section in PCB. ITO
return loss over an 8.5 GHz bandwidth from 23.5-32 GHz. A
has been employed as the transparent conducting oxide. The
worst-case isolation of 17.5 dB is seen between feed 1 and
antenna array achieved a 10 dB return loss over a wide
feed 3 of the adjacent dual polarized patch antenna elements.
frequency band of 23.5-32 GHz and obtained a minimum
A worst-case isolation of 15 dB is seen between the two
realized gain of 12.1 dBi making it suitable for 5G
feeds of the dual polarized patch antenna.
smartphone applications. The antenna will be fabricated, and
the measurement results will be presented.

REFERENCES

[1] Wonbin Hong, Kwang-Hyun Baek, Youngju Lee, Yoongeon Kim,

and Seung-Tae Ko, “Study and Prototyping of Practically Large-Scale
mmWave Antenna Systems for 5G Cellular Devices”, IEEE
Communications Magazine , September 2014.
[2] Manoj Stanley, Yi Huang, Tian Loh, Qian Xu, Hanyang Wang and
Hai Zhou, “A High Gain Steerable Millimeter-Wave Antenna Array
for 5G Smartphone Applications”, European conference on antennas
and propagation, Paris, April, 2017.
[3] Manoj Stanley, Yi Huang, Hanyang Wang, Hai Zhou, Ahmed Al-
Eiden and Sumin Joseph, “A Novel mm-Wave Phased Array Antenna
with 3600 Coverage for 5G Smartphone Applications”, UK-China-
Europe workshop on mmwaves and terahertz technologies, Liverpool,
September 2017.
[4] K Narasimha Rao, “Optical and electrical properties of indium tin-
Fig 2. Simulated reflection coefficient of the antenna array.
oxide films”, Indian journal of pure and applied physics, vol 42,
March, 2004.

636