Design and fabrication of a dual-band and low-cost microstrip patch antenna for 5g mobile communications

This thesis presents the numerical and experimental analysis of a low-cost and dual-band microstrip patch antenna for the fifth generation (5G) mobile communications. The antenna is designed and printed on a low-cost FR-4 dielectric substrate. The numerical analysis of the antenna is performed using the computational electromagnetic simulator (CEMS) software which is based on the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) and Computer Simulation Technology (CST) software which is based on the finite integration technique (FIT). The performance of the proposed antenna is verified with the simulated and measured results. The proposed antenna operates in the 24 and 28 GHz dual frequency bands, which includes the 5G frequency bands determined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The maximum gain values of the antenna are 3.20 dBi and 3.99 dBi in the x-y plane at 24 and 28 GHz, respectively. The proposed antenna provides almost omni-directional patterns suitable for 5G mobile communication devices. In addition, two different parametric studies were conducted to evaluate the proposed antenna performance. The effects of patches on the upper face of the antenna, the dimensions of the ground plane and different FR-4 substrate thicknesses on the performance of the antenna were investigated. In order to fabricate the proposed antenna prototype, CNC device was used instead of traditional PCB printing device because it makes difficult to fabricate the antenna operating at 5G frequency bands due to its very small dimensions. For this reason, a special system has been designed on the CNC to engrave with high precision on the FR-4 substrate and to minimize the production errors that may occur