Rod Waveguides as Future 5G Antennas for Mobile Devices

This article describes a novel dual polarized rod waveguide antenna array for millimeter-wave frequencies. The antenna is fed from a flexible PCB which includes two orthogonal probes acting as feeding elements for the rod waveguide. Simulation results show that this antenna is a feasible solution that could be easily integrated inside a portable device to realize an end-fire beam steerable antenna array. According to simulations, a 4-element array placed inside a mobile phone provides higher than 65 % efficiency at both polarizations across the whole band of 24-29.5 GHz. The matching level of a single element is better than -10 dB and the active reflection coefficient is below -6 dB in the whole band.