Sub-6 GHz Band Omnidirectional Horizontally Polarized Large Spacing Array Antenna With Dielectric Radome for Base Station

Abstract

A Sub-6 GHz band radome-covered omnidirectional horizontally polarized large spacing array antenna is reported with low grating lobe and low mutual coupling. A designed dielectric radome is utilized to replace several layers of antenna elements under the same effective aperture. The radome extends the current distribution and thus increases the effective aperture of the array element so that the array element spacing can be enlarged. Fewer antenna element is required with the radome introduced, compared with conventional spacing antenna array. Meanwhile, the large spacing decreases the mutual coupling between neighboring layers while no apparent grating lobe appears. The effectiveness of the proposed structure is evaluated by both simulation and experiment. And the mutual coupling and the grating lobe of proposed radome-covered antenna are also discussed. In the experiment, the 4-element 1-layer array model is considered. Proposed antenna is ideal for B5G application requiring fewer horizontal polarized sources covering the entire azimuth plane.

Keywords

• Large spacing array antennas
• fewer elements
• mutual coupling
• grating lobe
• dielectric radome