Design and Characterization of a Slot based Patch Antenna for Sub-6 GHz 5G Applications

This article presents the design, fabrication, and characterization of a dual-band microstrip patch antenna. The antenna is designed to operate at 3 GHz and 3.3 GHz, which are suitable bands for sub-6 GHz 5G applications. Rogers's 5880 substrate with a permittivity of 2.2 and a thickness of 1.57 millimeters (mm) is chosen for the antenna design and fabrication. The antenna model consists of a rectangular patch with three rectangular slots of different dimensions. For the feeding of the antenna, a 1 mm thick 50 Ω microstrip line is utilized. The overall size of the antenna is 50×30 mm
²
. The simulation results show that the antenna exhibits a return loss of -20.6 dB at 3GHz, and -18.2 dB at 3.3 GHz, and a gain of 7.52 dBi at 3 GHz and 5dBi at 3.3 GHz. In addition, the radiation efficiency of the antenna is 97.6 % at 3 GHz and 88.5 %at 3.3 GHz. The antenna measurement results are in a reasonably good agreement with the simulation results which show that the antenna offers a gain of 4.7 dBi at 3 GHz and return loss of -22 dB at 3.05 GHz and -16 dB at 3.3 GHz. In order to show the effects of different parameters on the antenna performance, a parametric analysis is also performed which provides insightful guidelines about the antenna design and performance. Because of good results, the proposed antenna can act as a good candidate for sub-6 GHz 5G applications.