Pattern Reconfigurable Capped Patch Antenna for mm-Wave 5G Applications

A simple design for a pattern reconfigurable antenna is presented in this paper. The proposed antenna is a typical rectangular patch with an inverted U-shaped trace of metal (called a cap) printed around the patch. To achieve pattern reconfiguration, a cut is made on either side of the cap. Different beam tilting was achieved depending on the position of the cut along the cap. When the longitudinal distance between the center of the cut and the center of the patch is small, a maximum scanning angle of 60° is obtained. The pattern tilting was achieved without any active devices. The antenna achieves a gain and directivity of 6 dBi and 7 dBi respectively, and an impedance bandwidth of 1.8 GHz (28–29.8 GHz). Additionally, the cap and the cut did not affect the antenna's performance, although a slight shift in resonance is observed. The antenna can be employed for mm-wave 5G/6G antenna array applications.