The Effect of Substrate Dielectric Constant and Thickness on Millimeter Wave Band Patch Antenna Performance

In last decade, the fifth generation of telecom network (5G) has been a new era as a result of fast-growing mobile industry. Unlike its predecessors, 5G will not only provide faster, better mobile broadband experience, but also broaden communication network with new services such as device-to-device communications or connecting IoT devices and users. For this purpose, 5G aims to achieve massive network capacity, ultra-low latency, higher data speed and greater network reliability. According to the report of ITU World Radiocommunication Conference 2019 (WRC-19), several new frequency bands between 20-70 GHz, were announced for allocation of 5G. Frequencies in the Ka-band (27-40 GHz) are particularly attractive due to their low atmospheric attenuation. At the specified frequency range i.e., millimeter wave band, antenna design for 5G applications is very crucial to provide high gain and efficiency as well as broadband communication which is indispensable for high-speed data traffic. At this point, Microstrip patch antennas, stand out amongst others because of their numerous attractive features. In this work, the effect of substrate dielectric constant and thickness to the Rectangular Microstrip Antenna (RMA) performance is examined for high frequency 5G applications. The RMA is designed to operate at 38 GHz and antenna performance has been analyzed according to various dielectric substrates, such as RT5880, RO3003, FR4, RT6006 and RT6010, considering different dielectric constants, thicknesses, and tangential losses. All designs and analyses have been accomplished by using ANSYS HFSS (High-Frequency Structure Simulator) and comparative results of the work are presented.