A High-Gain Dielectric Resonator Antenna With Plastic-Based Conical Horn for Millimeter-Wave Applications

A novel high-gain dielectric resonator antenna, featuring a peak realized gain of 11.3 dBi over a fractional bandwidth of 16.6% around 30 GHz, is presented. The proposed antenna structure, excited by a slot-coupled microstrip line, is composed of a cylindrical dielectric resonator and of a truncated plastic-based conical horn useful to enhance the gain. An annular perturbation notch is realized in the dielectric horn to achieve a better focusing of the RF energy along the antenna boresight direction, while reducing the sidelobe levels (SSLs). The presented antenna design achieves SSLs below -10 dB for both the E- and H-plane so to meet the requirements of next-generation 5G wireless communication protocols and of low-cost satellite and mobile systems.