A Low-Profile Dual-Polarized Stacked Patch

Antenna for Micro-Base-Station Applications

Yejun He, Chao Li and Jie Yang
Guangdong Engineering Research Center of Base Station Antenna and Propagation
Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Antenna and Propagation
College of Information Engineering, Shenzhen University, 518060, China
Email: heyejun@126.com

Abstract—This paper presents a low-profile dual-polarized In this paper, a low-profile dual-polarized antenna with
stacked patch antenna for micro-base-station applications. The high gain is proposed. The impedance bandwidth of the
proposed antenna includes three antenna elements, where each proposed antenna is 14.6% from 1710 to 1980 MHz and
element consists of two rectangular patches, substrate and
reflector. By introducing dual-feed technique, dual-polarization its gain is 12 dBi. The proposed antenna is simulated in
characteristic is achieved. The bandwidth is improved by couple commercial software HFSS and the prototype is fabricated
patch. Measured results show that the proposed antenna can and measured. The measured results show a good agreement
operate in 1710 to 1980 MHz (impedance bandwidth of 14.6%) with simulated results. In addition, it has the advantages of
with S11 <-15 dB, and has stable radiation pattern with half- simple structure, low-profile, high gain, high reliability, good
power beamwidth (HPBW) of 65◦ ±5◦ at H plane and stability
gain of 12 dBi. In addition, the total height of the antenna is radiation performance and simple feed network. Compared to
only 0.083λ. The proposed antenna with the compact structure, those traditional patch antennas, the proposed antenna is more
low-profile and stable gain is very suitable for micro-base-station suitable for micro-base-station applications.
applications. This paper is organized as follows. Section II illustrates
Index Terms—dual-polarized, patch, low-profile, micro base the structure of the proposed antenna. Section III analyzes
station.
the simulated and measured results. Section IV draws the
conclusion.
I. I NTRODUCTION
With the rapid development of mobile communication sys- II. A NTENNA D ESIGN
tems, users have grown dramatically. The area covered by The configuration of the proposed antenna element is de-
macro base station has been unable to meet the requirements picted in Fig. 1, which consists of rectangular patch, substrate
of users, and further there are dead spots due to resistance, and U-shape metal reflector, with dimensions of 110×110
fading and shielding of electromagnetic wave or busy traffic mm2 and the height of 13.5 mm (0.083λ, λ is the free space
resulting from uneven coverage. Thus the depth of coverage wavelength at the center frequency). The FR4 epoxy substrate
has become a key factor in the performance of mobile net- with relative permittivity (r ) of 4.4 and thickness of 1.5 mm is
works. Due to the flexible deployment and capacity expansion chosen for the lower layer, and a rectangular radiating patch is
of micro base stations, micro base stations are widely used etched on the top of the FR4 substrate. The other path is placed
in densely populated areas (cities). Stacked patch antenna is in the top of FR4 substrate with height of 12 mm, which can
greatly suitable for micro base station applications due to their broader the impedance bandwidth, and the middle area is filled
merits such as low-profile, light weight, easily fabrication and with air. The upper patch is supported by four plastic posts
assembly. Moreover, in order to overcome multi-path fading, in the practical model fabrication. It is noted that one ground
the base station antenna with dual-polarized characteristic is plane is inserted the bottom of the feed substrate with the same
required. In [1], a dual-polarized antenna with metallic isolator dimensions (40×40 mm2 ) of the substrate. When the lower
was presented to obtain high isolation, however the impedance patch is fed by the straight coaxial probes, the upper patch
bandwidth with S11 <-10 dB is 14% at lower band and the is excited due to the electromagnetic coupling with the lower
antenna gain is only 4 dBi. In [2], a high port isolation patch. The simulated S11 and S12 in several coupling distances
antenna was proposed by generated 180◦ phase differences. are shown in Fig. 2. When the return loss and the isolation
A microstrip array antenna was proposed in [3], and the are simultaneously considered, the best coupling distance is
impedance bandwidth is only 7.7% with complicated feed H2 =12 mm as shown in Fig. 2. The detailed parameters of
network. The ultrawideband patch antenna was proposed in the proposed antenna are described in Table I. In order to
[4], while its gain is very low. A stacked patch antenna with get good radiation with wide HPBW and stable gain, the
high profile was proposed in [5]. This mentioned antennas are U-shape metal reflector is added. The two ports are fed by
of complicated structures, low gain and narrow-band, thus it’s coaxial cables to obtain dual-polarization characteristic. The
not suitable for micro base station applications. simulated patterns for each antenna element are shown in

‹,(((
 Fig. 3. Since the performance of the single antenna element
cannot meet requirements of the base station, three antenna
elements are used to construct an antenna array to get good
radiation characteristics. The simulation model of the proposed
antenna is shown in Fig. 4.

(a)

(a)

(b)

Fig. 1. Geometry of proposed stacked patch antenna (a) top view (b) side
view

(b)

Fig. 2. Parameter optimization of H2

TABLE I
T YPICAL VALUES OF THE THE P ROPOSED A NTENNA E LEMENT
PARAMETERS

Value
Parameter
(mm)
(c)
L1 110
Fig. 3. Simulated H-plane radiation patterns of the proposed antenna element
L2 60 excited at Port1 (a)f =1710 MHz (b)f =1845 MHz (c)f =1980 MHz
L3 40
L4 38
III. R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION
H1 10
H2 12
Fig. 5 shows the simulated and measured return losses and
isolation for the proposed antenna. It can be seen that both
 Fig. 4. Simulation model of the proposed antenna

simulated and measured S11 values are less than -15 dB from Fig. 6. A prototype of the proposed antenna
1710 to 1980 MHz, and the isolation S12 values are less than
-22 dB. Although there are some differences between the simu-
lated and measured results, which are caused by discrepancies
between simulation and measurement models, there is a similar
trend between simulated and measured results. A prototype of
the proposed antenna is shown in Fig. 6. Because the proposed
antenna has symmetrical radiation patterns in both horizontal
plane and vertical plane, only the radiation patterns of the
antenna excited at port 1 are plotted, and the simulated and
measured patterns at 1710 MHz, 1845 MHz and 1980 MHz are
shown in Fig. 7. It is worth pointing out that all the radiation
characteristics are the direction with maximum gain. It can be
seen from Fig. 7 that the HPBWs are stable through the entire
frequency band with 65◦ in H-plane, and the peak gain of 12
dBi is obtained. (a)

(b)

Fig. 5. Simulated and measured S parameters

IV. C ONCLUSION

A low-profile dual-polarized stacked patch antenna was

designed and measured. In the frequency range from 1710 to
1980 MHz, the return loss of the antenna is more than 15 dB,
and the port isolation and the HPBW can meet practical micro
base station requirements. The proposed antenna is of easily (c)
power-divider feed network. Due to its low-profile, high gain,
high reliability, good radiation pattern and easily fabrication, Fig. 7. Simulated and measured H-plane radiation patterns of the proposed
antenna excited at Port1 (a)f =1710 MHz (b)f =1845 MHz (c)f =1980 MHz
it’s very attractive for micro-base-station applications.
 ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported in part by the National
Natural Science Foundation of China (61372077), in
part by the Fundamental Research Program of Shenzhen
City (ZDSYS 201507031550105, JCYJ20170302150411789,
JCYJ20170302142515949 and GCZX2017040715180580) as
well as in part by the Guangdong Provincial Science and
Technology Program (2016B090918080). We appreciate the
technical staff of Dongguan Huisu Antenna Technologies Co.,
for their invaluable assistance for this research.
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