A Cost-Effective Wide-Band Antenna for 5G Communication Systems

This study addresses the design of a wide-band microstrip patch antenna for 5G mobile communication systems. To respond to the increasing data rate and wide bandwidth needs in fifth-generation communication systems, it is very important to increase the performance of the antennas used. In this paper, a manufacturable and compact microstrip patch antenna design operating at 28 GHz wave frequency is realized and the simulation results are compared with the measured results. The proposed antenna is designed using a low-cost FR-4 substrate. The primary motivation behind calling the antenna “cost effective” in this study is the choice of the FR-4 substrate, which is significantly more affordable than other high-performance materials commonly used for 5G antennas, such as Rogers RT Duroid. Despite the limitations of FR4 substrate at high frequencies, this study demonstrates that a functional and efficient wide-band antenna can still be achieved through careful design and optimization. The performance of the antenna is evaluated with parameters such as input reflection coefficient (S_11), bandwidth, gain, and radiation efficiency of the antenna. The simulations of the proposed antenna are performed using CST and CEMS programs and the obtained results show that the antenna has a wide bandwidth of 1950 MHz between 26.85 GHz and 28.8 GHz. A parametric study of the antenna is performed to show the effect of substrate thickness and patch size on antenna performance. Numerical and measured results show that the proposed microstrip patch antenna has good performance for 5G communication systems, including wide bandwidth, high gain and low reflection coefficient. The antenna fabricated on the low-cost FR4 substrate can be useful for 5G communication systems with its cost-effectiveness and compact geometric configuration.