Planar antenna arrays at 60 GHz realized on a new thermoplastic polymer substrate

Electromagnetic waves are severely attenuated at the 60 GHz band and therefore high gain antennas are mandatory to assure medium as well as long distance communication. Efficient antennas like dish and waveguide antennas might be used for outdoor applications, however, their big size and/or high cost is an obstacle for cost-efficient and low profile indoor systems. The investigation of highly directional microstrip patch antennas at the mm-wave is done employing the new low loss thermoplastic polymer substrate material ER182. The antennas are designed and solved using a frequency domain solver. Then, the results are numerically verified by re-solving the designed antennas with a time domain solver that yields a good agreement. In addition, a prototype set of 7 different antennas, starting with a single patch antenna and up to a 32×32 planar antenna array, are fabricated and measured. The measurements show a gain of up to 23 dBi, an impedance bandwidth that exceeds 3 GHz, and a realizable HPBW of 2°. The use of ER182 substrate material enhances the antenna efficiency, compared to other well known materials, however the realization of high gain antennas is still very limited compared to waveguide antennas.