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ENERGY EFFICIENT DESIGN OF EHF-5G ANTENNAS
WITH ENHANCED BANDWIDTH FOR NAVIGATION
SATELLITE APPLICATIONS
Elayaraja Chinnathambi
Research Scholar/AP/Department of Electronics and Communication,
Dhaanish Ahmed College of Engineering, Anna University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, (India).
E-mail: celaiyaraja@gmail.com
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8063-0472
Amali Chinnappan
Assistant Professor, Department of Electronics and Communication,
SRM Valliammai Engineering College (Autonomous), Anna University, Chennai, (India).
E-mail: amalic.ece@valliammai.co.in
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6246-1433
Kannan Sivabaskaran
Student, Department of Electronics and Communication (ECE),
Dhaanish Ahmed College of Engineering, Chennai, (India).
E-mail: kannankasi12@gmail.com
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1739-3026
Sridhar Bilvam
Professor, Department of ECE, Mohamed Sathak A. J. College of Engineering,
Anna University, Chennai, (India).
E-mail: mbsridhar_1969@yahoo.co.in
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3417-911X
Recepción: 28/11/2019 Aceptación: 11/12/2020 Publicación: 30/11/2021
Citación sugerida:
Chinnathambi, E., Chinnappan, A., Sivabaskaran, K., y Bilvam, S. (2021). Energy ecient design
of EHF-5G antennas with enhanced bandwidth for navigation satellite applications. 3C Tecnología.
Glosas de innovación aplicadas a la pyme, Edición Especial, (noviembre, 2021), 537-551. https://doi.
org/10.17993/3ctecno.2021.specialissue8.537-551
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ABSTRACT
The 5th Generation of wireless communication aims at increasing data transfer rate
and system capacity while reducing latency, energy consumption to make it aordable.
In accordance with International Telecommunication Union (ITU), 3.4 GHz to 3.6 GHz
range in Sub-6 GHz unlicensed Band was used earlier to provide comparatively higher
Bandwidth than 4G LTE networks. Even though the complexity in the development of
infrastructure is lesser in Sub-6 GHz band, in order to achieve Improved Performance,
5G Networks are implemented in the 24 to 86 GHz bands of Extremely High Frequency
(EHF) range of 30 to 300 GHz. This Paper proposes 2 Dierent Antenna Structures which
can Transceiver Signals with Frequencies in the EHF Spectrum (mm-Wave (mmW)) for
Earth Exploration Satellite and Radio Navigation Satellite Applications. According to ITU,
24.5GHz to the 29.5GHz band is allocated for 5G Network Implementations in India.
Instead of the usage of complex techniques like Wide Bandwidths and Massive MIMO,
Antenna Miniaturization could be used to achieve 5G performance.
KEYWORDS
5G, ITU, EHF, mm Wave (mmW), Massive MIMO, Antenna Miniaturization.
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1. INTRODUCTION
Mobile cellular networks are expected to support ever-growing data rate demands of the
consumer meanwhile tackling the increased resultant trac. Antenna design has become
an integral part of any handset owing to the demand for wireless communication.
The end users, manufacturers and service providers demand wireless units with antennas
that are small and compact, cost eective for manufacturability, low prole and easy to
integrate with the wireless communication system. In this paper, mm-wave wireless systems
requirements were fullled by the proposed antenna structures.
ITU-R Radio Regulations denes the Earth Exploration Satellite Service (EESS) as a
radio communication service with a goal of monitoring the conditions of the earth and
the atmosphere. This involves observation of the earth’s environment for factors like sea
ice monitoring, stratospheric ozone depletion, tropospheric pollution, surface monitoring,
middle atmosphere chemistry, and glaciology. The information thus collected is used for
weather forecasts and to warn the areas with higher probability of getting aected by
storms, heavy rain and cyclones.
A Radio Navigation Satellite Service (RNSS) is a Radio determination service using satellites
for radio navigation, and is also referred to as a safety-of-life service. Feeder links may also
be included to ensure eective operation. RNSS must be protected from interferences to
achieve accuracy. Both passive and active sensing are included to control the satellites using
tele command and also to send information to earth from the satellites using telemetry
thereby collecting information by using a wide variety of set frequencies.
Environmental issues are addressed by interpretation of these long-term collected data.
The band of frequencies between 30 GHz and 300 GHz in the electromagnetic spectrum
is designated by ITU as Extremely High Frequencies (EHF), which lies between the Super
High Frequency band and Far-Infrared band whose lower part is known as Tetra-hertz
Gap.
Radio waves in this band are characterized by wavelengths from ten to one millimeter,
which makes this band the millimeter band and radiation in this band millimeter waves
(MMW or mmW). Millimeter waves are not reected by the ionosphere as they propagate
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only by Line Of Sight (LOS) paths unlike lower frequency radio waves which travel as
ground waves along the earth surface. These millimeter waves are blocked by building
walls to get attenuated. The 5G technology is driven by eight specication requirements as
follows
• 10 to 100x improvement in data rate.
• Latency or delay of 1 millisecond.
• 1000x bandwidth available per unit area covered.
• 100x improvement in number of connected devices.
• 99.999% availability of network.
• 100% network coverage.
• 90% reduction in energy consumption.
• Improved battery life.
Further, the paper is detailed as follows: the works related to the same concept are presented
in Section 2. The design of a Vivaldi Slot Antenna to operate at a frequency of 46.44 GHz
to be used for Radio Navigation Satellite applications is described in Section 3. In Section 4,
the design of microstrip patch antenna to operate at a frequency of 58.837 GHz to be used
for earth exploration Satellite Applications is explained. Section 5 interprets the simulation
results observed on designing both the Antenna structures. Section 6 concludes the paper.
2. MATERIALS AND METHODS
2.1. RELATED WORKS
The design principles and equations in accordance to which the Antennas proposed in this
paper are designed to operate at specied resonant frequencies were presented (https://
nptel.ac.in/) (Balanis, 2005; Kraus, 1951). The applications and services of antennas
designed to resonate at various frequencies in the range of 3 GHz to 300 GHz are listed
(https://cdn.rohdeschwarz.com/). Impact of modifying ground plane of an antenna on
its resonant frequency, Bandwidth and Gain are observed (Picher et al., 2013). Ability of a
Vivaldi structure to resonate at millimeter wave frequencies like 77 GHz and 53 GHz when
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fed by a unilateral n line and then transmitted to its taper slotline radiator is explained
(Chong, Ng, & Fu, 2003; Priyadarshi et al., 2017).
Principles involved in design of printed microstrip antennas for millimeter wave frequencies
and the challenges in usage of EHF is explained (Bhartia, Tomar, & Rao, 1991; Rappaport,
Murdock, & Gutierrez, 2011). A multislotted microstrip patch antenna is designed for
WIFI and WLAN applications using probe feeding and multi-slotted patch to improve
performance (Li & Li, 2010). The design of two dierent microstrip patch antennas with
dierent feeding mechanisms is explained and the results are compared and interpreted
(Pozar & Schaubert, 1995). The usage of Miniaturized Microstrip Antennas for future
5G applications is illustrated (Verma et al., 2016). Computer simulation technology-3D
Electromagnetic simulation software (CST) tool is used to design the Vivaldi and micro
strip patch antennas.
2.2. VIVALDI SLOT ANTENNA
A Vivaldi Slot Antenna is a simple Planar Antenna characterized by wide Bandwidth
and Linearly Polarized output. One side of feed provided to the Vivaldi structure has a
short circuit to act as a parallel inductor to ensure operation of these Antennas in Radio
Frequency range. A radiating element is present on another side of the feed has which
has a structure similar to a tapered slot antenna or an aperture antenna. An open space is
excited by the feeding mechanism through a coaxial cable or a micro strip line and can be
terminated with a direct coaxial connection or a sector-shaped area. This energy reaches
an exponentially tapered pattern from the open space area through a symmetrical slot line.
The Proposed Antenna Structure has a size of 3.6mm*2.5mm*0.2 mm which occupies a
minimal volume of space as in Figure 1. The Small slot within the structure gets excited
by a Microstrip line feed as in 2 and continuous standing waves are produced within the
structure which acts like a waveguide and channels the wave towards the opposite direction
to the feed where an exponentially tapering aperture is placed which results in conversion
to spherical waves which gets radiated into space.
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Figure 1. Front View of the Vivaldi Antenna.
Source: own elaboration.
Figure 2. Rear View of the Antenna (Microstrip Feed).
Source: own elaboration.
The dielectric substrate used is Taconic RF-60A (lossy) with a dielectric permittivity of 6.15
and loss tangent of 0.0028. A Perfectly Electrically Conducting (PEC) material is used for
feed and the top of the substrate.
2.3. MICROSTRIP PATCH ANTENNA WITH INSET FEED
Microstrip patch antennas can be printed directly onto a Printed Circuit Board, which
makes the fabrication of this structure simple. Microstrip antennas are preferred in mobile
phones because of its low cost, low prole and conformability. Further, the width of the
patch is computed by using the Eq. (1).
The proposed antenna occupies a volume of 5mm *4mm *1.56mm and makes use of
FR-4 material as the dielectric substrate and copper (annealed) as the conducting patch are
shown in Figure 3 and Figure 4.
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(1)
Where,
W - Width of the patch
c - Velocity of light (3x108 m/s)
f0- resonance frequency
εr - relative permittivity of the dielectric substrate FR4.
Figure 3. Front view of microstrip patch antenna with inset Feed.
Source: own elaboration.
Figure 4. Ground plane of the microstrip patch antenna.
Source: own elaboration.
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2.3.1. MATERIAL PROPERTIES
COPPER (ANNEALED):
Electric Conductivity = 5.8 e+07 S/m
Relative Permeability = 1.0
Thermal Conductivity = 401.0 W/K/m
Heat Capacity = 0.39 kJ/K/kg
Material Density = 8930.0 kg/m3
FR-4 (Lossy)
Relative Dielectric Permittivity (εr)= 4.3
Loss Tangent (tan δ) = 0.025
Relative Permeability = 1.0
Thermal Conductivity = 0.3 W/K/m
2.3.2. CHOICE OF DIELECTRIC SUBSTRATE MATERIAL (HTTPS://NPTEL.AC.IN/)
Only in very few applications, an Alumina is used as a substrate for Microstrip Patch
Antenna and most of the time that application could be a compact antenna. Typical
dielectric constant (εr) of Alumina is 9.8 as in Table 1 even though it may vary from 9.6 to
about 10.2.
It has a very low loss tangent of 0.001. Having a low loss tangent, dielectric losses would
be very less. The only issue is its high cost; Alumina is not very useful as a substrate for an
antenna because it is a high leads to very less radiation.
Table 1. Characteristics of different substrates.
Substrate Dielectric constant (εr) Loss Tangent (tan δ) Cost
Alumina 9.8 0.001 Very High
Glass Epoxy (FR-4) 4.4 0.02 Low
Duroid / Arlon 2.2 0.0009 Very High
Foam 1.05 0.0001 Low/ Medium
Source: own elaboration.
Teon has a dielectric constant of 2.1 and the tan delta is very small it is 0.0009 or it has
variation again 0.01 to about 0.0015 also, but again the cost is very high. Typically, ber
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reinforced glass is used. In fact, epoxy is glassy material and it is obvious that glass cannot
be used as it can be easily broken. So, these ber glasses are used whose typical dielectric
constant may vary from 2.1 to about 2.5.
Low cost alternative is to use glass epoxy substrate also popularly known as FR4 substrate.
Now this is the commonly used substrate for all printed circuit boards. The typical dielectric
constant can be 4.4, but in reality, it may be from 3.8 to about 4.6. The problem with this
is that the loss tangent is very high which is 0.02, but the big advantage is that the cost
of the Substrate is very low refractive index= √ εr, So, for FR-4 which is a glass epoxy
substrate, refracting index of glass is 1.5 , its εr will be 1.5 squared which is 2.25. FR-ame
retardant (or) re resistant. FR1 has higher Tg of 130⁰C than FR2 [150C]. Glass transition
temperature (Tg) is the temperature at which a material becomes mechanically unstable
[gradual and reversible transition from brittle, hard, glassy state to rubbery or viscous state].
FR2- phenolic resin binder
FR3 - epoxy resin binder
FR4 - glass ber epoxy laminate [most commonly used PCB material is FR4]
Usage Preference in china FR4 > FR1 > FR2.
FR1 and FR2 are used for 1 layer PCBs because they not good for passing holes. FR3 is
not recommended or multilayer PCBs. FR4 is the best selection. Even though use of FR-4
material as the dielectric substrate reduces performance, this material is preferred as it is
cost ecient.
3. RESULTS
3.1. VIVALDI SLOT ANTENNA
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S-Parameters [Magnitude in dB]
Frequency / GHz
30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70
S1,1 : -14.129488
(46.44, -14.129)
1
46.44
0
-2
-4
-6
-8
-10
-12
-14
-16
Figure 5. S11 plot.
Source: own elaboration.
1
Frequency / GHz
Voltage Standing Wave Ratio (VSWR)
(46.431, 1.4894)
1
44.103 48.88
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
0.50378
9.7741
42 46 48 50 52 53.88
d=4.7776
Figure 6. VSWR plot.
Source: own elaboration.
Figure 7. Polar plot of far-eld gain for elevation plane.
Source: own elaboration.
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Figure 8. Polar plot of far-eld gain for azimuthal plane.
Source: own elaboration.
The proposed Vivaldi antenna structure resonates at a frequency of 46.44 GHz with a
very low S11 value of 14.129 dB as in Figure 5 which ensures negligible reection, at the
resonant frequency. It is observed that the proposed antenna operates within an abnormally
wide bandwidth of nearly 28 GHz for VSWR < 2. Also note that VSWR is very low (nearly
Unity) (1.4894) at the resonant frequency as in Figure 6. For a constant , θ is varied and the
main lobe magnitude variations are noted in the elevation plane in Figure 7, the magnitude
of the main lobe is only 1.04 dB which is at an angle of 96° with an Angular width (3dB
beam width) of 119.3°. Higher beam width can be used for frequency scanning operations
but here higher gain with a lower beam width is preferred.
The 3 dB beam width can be technically referred to as half power beam width [HPBW] as
the power at the 3dB points will be half the maximum peak power. Apart from the major
lobe, some minor lobes and back lobes called as the side lobes are also realized, which are
minimized in this structure to ensure a minimum side lobe level of -0.5 dB as in Figure 7.
similarly, in Figure 8 for a constant θ, ∅ is varied and the main lobe magnitude variations
are noted in the azimuthal plane, the magnitude of the main lobe is around 4.31 dB which
is at an angle of 359° with an Angular Width of 74.1°.
3.2. MICROSTRIP PATCH ANTENNA WITH INSET FEED
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S-Parameters [Magnitude in dB]
Frequency / GHz
40 45 50 55 60 65 70
S1,1 : -30.550306
58.81
-10
-12
-14
-16
-18
-20
-22
-24
-26
-28
-30
-32
(58.837, -30.544)
1
Figure 9. S11 plot.
Source: own elaboration.
S-Parameters [Magnitude in dB]
Frequency / GHz
45 50 55 60 65 70
VSWR2 : 1.0611787
58.81
1.9
1.8
1.7
1.6
1.5
1.4
1.3
1.2
1.1
1
(58.792, 1.0612)
1
Figure 10. VSWR.
Source: own elaboration.
Figure 11. Polar plot of far-eld gain in elevation plane.
Source: own elaboration.
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Figure 12. Polar plot of far-eld gain in azimuthal plane.
Source: own elaboration.
The proposed microstrip patch antenna structure resonates at a frequency of 58.837 GHz
with a very low S11 value of -30.544 dB as in Figure 9, which ensures negligible reection,
at the resonant frequency. It is observed that the proposed antenna operates within an
abnormally wide bandwidth of nearly 30 GHz for VSWR < 2. Also note that VSWR is
very low (nearly Unity) (1.06) at the resonant frequency as in Figure 10. For a constant ∅ , θ
is varied and the main lobe magnitude variations are noted in the elevation plane in Figure
11, the magnitude of the main lobe is only 6.84 dB, which is at an angle of 58° with an
Angular width (3dB beam width) of 93° and a minimum side lobe level of 5.3dB. similarly,
in Figure 12 for a constant θ, ∅ is varied and the main lobe magnitude variations are noted
in the azimuthal plane, the magnitude of the main lobe is around 5.86 dB which is at an
angle of 90° with an angular width of 48.2°.
4. CONCLUSIONS
The proposed Antenna Miniaturization technique can be more aordable and simpler
than massive MIMO to achieve 5G performance and to meet the ever-growing demand
for thinner mobile phones. Simulation, analysis and optimization of the proposed antennas
were performed by using CST simulation software. These antennas can be deployed in radio
navigation satellite and earth exploration satellite applications. Usage of high frequencies
causes the transmitted signal to resist interferences in its transmission path, which makes the
signal reach longer distances with reduced energy consumption.
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