Design of Dual-Polarized Antenna Array With 2-D Wide-Angle Beam-Scanning Characteristics

This article presents a dual-polarized wide-angle scanning phased array antenna for 5G application. This antenna has the properties of compact structure, orthogonal polarization, and low elevation coverage. The parasitic metal columns are used to suppress the abnormal resonance and improve the beamwidth of the elements. Bent frame metal arms are applied to make a compact element size of 0.37x0.37x0.33 lambda(3)(0) (where lambda(0) represents the center frequency wavelength), which further broadens the beamwidth of the antenna element and optimizes the active reflection coefficients for large-angle scanning within the operating frequency band. Subsequently, a 6x6 antenna array prototype based on the proposed element is designed and fabricated. The measured results indicate that the operational frequency band of the array spans from 3.0 to 3.8 GHz, and a wide scanning angle of +/- 80 degrees can be achieved with a gain fluctuation below 7 dB. The measured results are closely correlated with the simulated ones, which confirms the effectiveness of the proposed design for wide-angle scanning.