Case Eight

Empty Substrate Integrated Waveguide-Fed MMW Aperture-Coupled Patch Antenna for 5G Applications

Problem Description

Design Challenges

The design and implementation of the empty substrate integrated waveguide-fed MMW aperture-coupled patch antenna is very challenging mainly due to the following reasons:

  • Large fractional bandwidth and gain requirements over the Ka-band (26.5 GHz to 40 GHz).
  • Stable gain profile and good radiation efficiency over the Ka-band (26.5 GHz to 40 GHz).

 

AI-driven Design with SADEA-III

Optimization Problem

For the given empty substrate integrated waveguide-fed MMW aperture-coupled patch antenna structure, the specifications (for the longitudinal configuration) set as the optimization goals are as follows:

  • Maximize the bandwidth for a maximum return loss of -10 dB and a minimum realized gain of  5.5 dBi in the Ka-band (i.e., 26.5 GHz to 40 GHz)
  • subject to: 
    • Maximum reflection coefficient (S11) < -10 dB (27.5 GHz to 28.5 GHz) 
    • Minimum realized gain (G) > 6 dBi (27.5 GHz to 28.5 GHz) 

 

Layout of the Empty Substrate Integrated Waveguide-fed MMW Aperture-Coupled Patch Antenna

 

Ranges of the Design Variables for the Design Exploration

 

Synthesis and Measurement Results

The design obtained by the SADEA-III is verified through a physical implementation.

 

For this case:

  • The synthesized antenna by the latest SADEA-III obtains the following results in 1 week.
    • Longitudinal Configuration
      • Maximum reflection coefficient (S11) = -10.0 dB (27.4 GHz to 34.5 GHz)
      • Minimum realized gain (G) = 5.6 dBi (27.3 GHz to 34.5 GHz)
  • The measurement results are in reasonable agreement with the simulation results.