Design of microstrip patch antenna for 5G wireless communication applications

substrate has a low dielectric constant which is desirable 
for good performance, larger bandwidth, better radiation, and better antenna efficiency. The 
metal patch on the front surface can have various shapes, although a rectangular shape is 
commonly used [4, 14, 22]. Four most popular configurations can be used to feed microstrip 
antennas: the microstrip line, coaxial probe, aperture coupling, and proximity coupling [14, 15]. 
The key point of the present paper is to propose a microstrip patch antenna to achieve a high 
gain and a wide impedance bandwidth for the 28 GHz application. On the other hand, the 
thickness of the substrate of microstrip patch antennas has been changed to investigate the effect 
of dimensions on microstrip patch antennas resonance frequency. The proposed antenna had a 
simple architecture and an almost omnidirectional radiation pattern and low fabrication cost. 
 This paper is outlined as follows. In section 2, the antenna dimensions and design are 
described. Simulation results and discussions are presented in Section 3. Finally, some 
conclusions are discussed in Section 4. 
 2. ANTENNA GEOMETRY AND DESIGN 
 In general, the dimensions of the microstrip antenna are calculated by using the microstrip 
antenna’s equations as given in many references [15, 23]. In this paper, the optimization of the 
antenna dimensions is required to achieve some goals. Figure 1 shows the geometry of the designed 
antenna, it includes a top view and a side view. The proposed antenna is used the 50 Ohms 
microstrip line feeding technique because the microstrip feed line is also a conducting strip, 
usually of much smaller width compared to the patch. The microstrip-line feed is easy to 
fabricate, simple to match by controlling the inset position and rather simple to model [15]. 
 The antenna is designed on a high-frequency ceramic-filled PTFE (Polytetrafluoroethylene) 
composite dielectric substrate by Rogers RO3003 with a dielectric constant of 3.0, loss-tangent 
of 0.001, and thickness of 0.5 mm. RO3003 high-frequency circuit materials are ceramic-filled 
PTFE composites intended for use in a commercial microwave and RF (radio frequency) 
applications. RO3003 substrate is the favorite for mmWave [24]. It is very suitable for UHF 
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Design of microstrip patch antenna for 5G wireless communication applications 
(ultra-high frequencies) because of its low dielectric loss and its low dispersion. Then, the 
proposed microstrip patch antenna can take a variety of substrate thickness. 
 It is typically composed of a radiating patch on one side of a dielectric substrate and a 
ground plane on the other side. The designed antenna’s patch is made of copper material. The 
detailed physical dimensions for each part of the proposed antenna configuration are given in 
Table 1. Where hp is patch thickness, hs is substrate thickness. Finally, the resulting antenna 
was simple to design, fabricate and had a low profile. 
 Figure 1. The geometrical structure of the proposed antenna: side view (a) and top view (b). 
 Table 1. Antenna structural parameters 
 Name Unit (mm) Name Unit (mm) 
 Wg 6 Wf 0.77 
 Lg 7 y 1.06 
 hs 0.5 W 3 
 s 0.385 L 2 
 hp 0.5 b 3.264 
 3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 
 In this paper, the proposed antenna is designed and simulated using Computer Simulation 
Technology (CST) Microwave Studio (CST Suite 2018). The major simulation results (i.e. 
reflection coefficient, gain, bandwidth, radiation patterns) of the designed antenna are given 
in this section. 
 First, the results of the proposed antenna, its dimensions are in Table 1 and substrate 
thickness has valued hs = 0.5 mm, are discussed. 
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Tran Thi Bich Ngoc 
 Figure 2. The plot of S11 parameters for the proposed antenna at 28 GHz bands. 
 One important antenna parameter is the reflection coefficient (or S11) defining the 
bandwidth and the impedance matching characteristic. The simulated results of the S11 
parameters for the proposed antenna are shown in Figure 2. Figure 2 reveals that the antenna 
can cover the mmWave bands (K and Ka) of 20/28 GHz for S11 less than -10 dB because the 
base value of -10 dB is taken as the base value for mobile communication. The single patch 
resonated at 29.6 GHz with a reflection coefficient of -24.37 dB with a bandwidth of 2.5 GHz 
and at 20.3 GHz with a reflection coefficient of -23.7 dB and a bandwidth of around 1 GHz. 
On the other hand, the antenna resonated at 29.6 GHz belonged to the proposed band 28 GHz 
for the future 5G application. 
 The simulated radiation pattern of the designed patch at 29.6 GHz is shown in Figure 3. 
The antenna achieved a high gain of 5.51 dB and has almost omnidirectional patterns. 
 Figure 3. 3D directivity patterns (a) and 2D directivity patterns (b) 
 of the proposed antenna at 29.6GHz. 
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Design of microstrip patch antenna for 5G wireless communication applications 
 Table 2. Comparison between the proposed antenna and other references at frequency bands 28 GHz 
 Resonant 
 References Size (mm3) Gain (dB) S (dB) Bandwidth 
 frequency (GHz) 11
 28 5.2 -25 0.45 GHz 
 [3] 20×5.5×0.254 
 38 5.9 -29 2.20 GHz 
 10.1 5.51 -27.5 278 MHz 
 [20] 19×19 ×0.708 
 28 8.03 -24.5 1 GHz 
 [4] 14.71×7.9×0.254 27.91 6.69 -12.59 582 MHz 
 [9] 10×7.9×0.5 28.1 7.5 -17.17 1.6 GHz 
 29.6 5.51 -24.3 2.5 GHz 
 This paper 7×6×0.5 
 20.3 3.57 -23.7 1 GHz 
 Table 2 presents a comparison between the proposed antenna and other references in 
terms of the overall size and simulated values of resonant frequencies, gain, return loss as well 
as bandwidth. 
 It is noticeable from this comparison, at the related bands the proposed antenna size is 
reduced of 47% compared to [9], 64% compared to [4], 89% compared to [20], 61% compared 
to [3]. From Table 2, at 28 GHz bands, it can be seen that its S11 parameter is higher than in 
comparison with [4, 9] and almost the same as in [3, 20] and bandwidth is broader when 
compared with other antennas. The designed antenna has a higher gain with [3] but a lower 
gain in comparison with [4, 9, 20]. Therefore, the proposed antenna has better results than 
other references at frequency bands 28 GHz. 
 Impedance matching is a very important parameter for any antenna. Maximum matching 
means max power transfer or low reflection coefficient. It is found that patch antenna 
characteristics are affected by antenna dimensions [21]. In this work, four different substrate 
thickness hs are simulated and compared. The result of the S11 parameter, VSWR of the antenna 
obtained are shown in Figure 4 and Figure 5. 
 The results in Figure 4 show when the thickness is lower (hs = 0.09 mm; 0.1 mm; 0.125 mm) 
the S11 parameters are decreased (-25.1 dB, -26.3 dB, -28.8 dB, respectively) at resonant 
frequency bands 38GHz when the thickness is upper (herein, hs = 0.5 mm) the S11 parameters 
had value around -24.2 dB at resonant frequency bands 28 GHz. The acceptable value of 
VSWR for wireless application should be less than 2 and as seen in Figure 5, the VSWR of 
this patch antenna is around 1.1 for all these cases. Therefore, the designed antenna can be 
working at frequency bands 28 GHz or 38 GHz if only to change its substrate thickness. Figure 
6 shows the simulated radiation patterns of proposed 5G antenna at frequency 38 GHz, the 
antenna achieved a high gain of 6.01 dB. 
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Tran Thi Bich Ngoc 
 Figure 4. Simulated S-parameters of different substrate’s thickness hs. 
 Figure 5. Simulated VSWR-parameters of different substrate’s thickness hs. 
 Figure 6. Simulated directivity patterns of proposed 5G antenna at frequency 38 GHz. 
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Design of microstrip patch antenna for 5G wireless communication applications 
 It is obvious in Figure 4 and 5 there is also good performance in terms of reflection 
coefficient and VSWR at resonant frequencies around 20.3 GHz, which is in K-bands, with 
S11 parameters of -14 dB or -23 dB and bandwidth of 1.4 GHz. Hence, the results can be 
considered using another application. 
 4. CONCLUSION 
 In this paper, a microstrip patch antenna has been proposed for 5G wireless 
communication. The single patch antenna resonated at 29.6 GHz with a reflection coefficient 
of -24.3 dB and a wide bandwidth of 2.5 GHz. The achieved gain of the designed antenna is 
5.51 dB and its directivity pattern is almost omnidirectional. The designed antenna is a very 
low-profile structure with dimensions 7 × 6 × 0.5 mm3. Therefore, it can be easy to integrate 
into devices with space constraints. The simulated results, which have been taken with 
different thicknesses of the substrate, were given that the antenna resonated at 28 GHz bands 
or 38 GHz with a reflection coefficient around -25 dB. Besides, in all cases of the thickness of 
the substrate, the antenna also resonated at 20.3 GHz with a reflection coefficient of around (K-
bands for other purposes applications) with good performance in the term S11 parameter and 
VSWR parameter. The proposed antenna is a good candidate for applications in 5G wireless 
technology. 
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Design of microstrip patch antenna for 5G wireless communication applications 
 TÓM TẮT 
 THIẾT KẾ ANTEN VI DẢI PHẲNG ỨNG DỤNG TRONG HỆ THỐNG 
 TRUYỀN THÔNG KHÔNG DÂY THẾ HỆ 5G 
 Trần Thị Bích Ngọc 
 Trường Đại học Giao thông Vận tải TP.HCM 
 *Email: btranthi22@gmail.com 
 Bài báo trình bày về thiết kế và mô phỏng anten vi dải phẳng cho ứng dụng 5G trong 
tương lai. Cấu trúc của anten được đặt trên tấm nền được làm từ vật liệu RO3003 có hệ số điện 
môi tương đối bằng 3 và anten được cấp nguồn kiểu vi dải. Anten có độ lợi hướng 5.51 dB tại 
dải tần 28 GHz với hệ số phản xạ đạt cực tiểu -24.3 dB, băng thông rộng đạt 2.5 GHz và giản 
đồ hướng gần như đa hướng. Khi thay đổi độ dày của tấm nền, tần số cộng hưởng của anten 
có thể đạt 28 GHz hoặc 38 GHz. Kết quả mô phỏng của bài báo đã sử dụng phần mềm CST 
Microwave Studio. 
Từ khóa: Anten vi dải phẳng, ứng dụng không dây 5G, 28 GHz, 38 GHz, đa hướng, hệ số phản xạ. 
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