Dielectric Resonator Antennas E-Book

Zhijiao Chen

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 402

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Dielectric Resonator Antennas A detailed guide to dielectric-based techniques for antenna array design and construction Dielectric designs, which transmit electricity without conducting it, have in recent decades been increasingly incorporated into antenna arrays. The resulting Dielectric Resonator Antennas (DRAs) provide significant benefits over metal antennas, avoiding conduction loss and increasing efficiency. Dielectric elements can also be incorporated into metal antennas to improve performance. Dielectric Resonator Antennas provides an introduction to dielectric-based techniques for manufacturing antenna arrays. It supplies guidelines for identifying dielectric antenna designs (as opposed to metal ones), describes recent developments in dielectric antenna technology, and points toward potential areas of future growth and development. Readers will also find: * Cutting-edge DRA applications in microwave and millimeter-wave communications * Detailed discussion of array types including wideband, high-gain, high efficiency, and more * Instructions for fabricating dielectric antenna arrays and assessing tolerance levels Dielectric Resonator Antennas is ideal for researchers and students in electrical engineering, as well as for engineers and others working in wireless communications.

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Behzad RazaviJim LykeHai LiBrian Johnson

Jeffrey ReedDiomidis SpinellisAdam DrobotTom RobertazziAhmet Murat Tekalp

Dielectric Resonator Antennas

Materials, Designs and Applications

Zhijiao Chen

Beijing University of Posts and TelecommunicationsBeijing, China

Jing-Ya Deng

Xidian University Shaanxi, China

Haiwen Liu

Xi’an Jiaotong UniversityShaanxi, China

Copyright © 2024 by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Chen, Zhijiao, author. | Liu, Haiwen (Professor), author.Title: Dielectric resonator antennas : materials, designs and applications / Zhijiao Chen, Jing‐Ya Deng, Haiwen Liu.Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : Wiley, [2024] | Includes bibliographical references and index.Identifiers: LCCN 2023042910 (print) | LCCN 2023042911 (ebook) | ISBN 9781394169146 (hardback) | ISBN 9781394169153 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781394169160 (epub)Subjects: LCSH: Dielectric resonators. | Microwave antennas.Classification: LCC TK7872.D53 C485 2024 (print) | LCC TK7872.D53 (ebook) | DDC 621.382/4–dc23/eng/20231107LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023042910LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023042911

Cover Design: WileyCover Image: © yuanyuan yan/Getty Images

About the Authors

Prof. Zhijiao Chen received her B.S. degree from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications in 2010 and Ph.D. degree from Queen Mary University of London in 2014. She joined the School of Electronic Engineering at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications as a lecturer in 2014. Currently, she is an associate professor at the School of Electronic Engineering at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. She was seconded to Ace‐Axis Wireless Technology Laboratories Ltd (Essex, UK) in 2012 and joined Northeastern University (Boston, MA) as a visiting student in 2013. From November 2018 to February 2019, she joined the State Key Laboratory of Terahertz and Millimeter‐wave in City University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong, China) as a visiting scholar. From September 2019 to December 2019, she joined the National Physical Laboratory (London, UK) as a visiting scholar.

She received the Best Paper Award at IEEE International Workshop Antenna Technology (IEEE iWAT2013, Karlsruhe, Germany), the Best Student Paper Award at IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation and USNC‐URSI National Radio Science Meeting (IEEE APS/URSI 2013, Orlando, FL), the TICRA Travel Grant at European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP 2014, Hague, Netherlands), the Third Place at the QMUL Three‐Minute Thesis Competition Final 2014, and the Young Scientists Award at the 2021 International Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society Symposium in China (ACES‐China 2021, Chengdu, China). She has authored/co‐authored more than 30 journal articles, one English book, and more than 50 conference papers. She was the 2022 IEEE AP-S Young Professional Ambassador and won the 2023 IEEE AP-S Outstanding Young Professional of the Year. Her research interests include but are not limited to dielectric resonator antennas, millimeter‐wave antenna array, semi‐smart base station antennas, and antennas for radio astronomy.

Prof. Jing‐Ya Deng received his B.E. degree in electronic engineering and Ph.D. degree in electromagnetic field and microwave technology from Xidian University, Xi’an, China, in 2006 and 2011, respectively. He joined Xidian University in 2011 as a lecturer, where he has been a full professor since 2016.

Dr. Deng is a recipient of the National Science Foundation for Outstanding Young Scholars of China. His current research interests include millimeter‐wave antennas, devices and circuits, multibeam antennas, phased array antennas, high‐frequency/very‐high‐frequency (HF/VHF) antennas’ design and measurement, and digital beam forming.

Prof. Haiwen Liu was born in 1975. He received his B.S. degree in electronic systems and M.S. degree in radio physics from Wuhan University, Wuhan, China, in 1997 and 2000, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in microwave engineering from Shanghai JiaoTong University, Shanghai, China, in 2004.

From 2004 to 2006, he was a research assistant professor with Waseda University, Kitakyushu, Japan. From 2006 to 2007, he was a research scientist with Kiel University, Kiel, Germany, granted by the Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship. From 2007 to 2008, he was a professor with the Institute of Optics and Electronics, Chengdu, China, supported by the 100 Talents Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences. From 2009 to 2017, he was a chair professor with East China Jiaotong University, Nanchang, China. In 2014, he joined Duke University, Durham, NC, USA, as a visiting scholar. In 2015, he joined the University of Tokyo, Tokyo, as a visiting professor, supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Invitation Fellowship. In 2016, he joined the City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, as a visiting professor. Since 2017, he has been a full‐time professor with Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China. He has authored or co‐authored more than 100 papers in international and domestic journals and conferences. His current research interests include electromagnetic modeling of high‐temperature superconducting circuits, radio frequency and microwave passive circuits, antennas for wireless terminals, radar system, and radio telescope applications.

Dr. Liu was the recipient of the National Talent Plan, China in 2017. He has served as the editor‐in‐chief of the International Journal of RF and Microwave Computer‐Aided Engineering (Wiley), an associate editor of IEEE ACCESS, and the guest chief editor of the International Journal of Antennas and Propagation. He was the executive chairman of the National Antenna Conference of China in 2015 and the co‐chairman of the National Compressive Sensing Workshop of China in 2011 and the Communication Development Workshop of China in 2016.

Preface

Dielectric resonator antennas (DRAs), which benefited from using a dielectric structure for better radiation performance, have already received considerable attention in the past 30 years. Nevertheless, there is currently no comprehensive study on the classification of these dielectric antennas. The concept of DRA might tend to be abused. In this book, DRAs are theoretically studied, and detailed procedures are provided with plenty of design examples. The fabrication process and the potential applications are discussed. Readers can learn the classification, fundamentals, design, and applications of the dielectric antenna from this book.

The existing DRA books (K. M. Luk and K.W. Leung, 2003), (A. Petosa, 2007), (R. S. Yaduvanshi and H. Parthasarathy, 2016), and (R. K. Chaudhary, R. Kumar and R. Chowdhury, 2021) are classic and written by the experts of dielectric antennas. But these books are published before 2007, while the theories and designs of the dielectric antenna have been updated a lot in recent years. The books (R. S. Yaduvanshi and H. Parthasarathy, 2016) and (R. K. Chaudhary, R. Kumar and R. Chowdhury, 2021) focus on rectangular DRA designs and circular‐polarized DRA designs, respectively. However, designs proposed in these two books are limited to specific rectangular shape or circular‐polarized operation, which is not substantial and needs to be enhanced for real‐life applications. Therefore, it is important to publish a new book to conclude the recent developments in dielectric antennas, especially for microwave and millimeter‐wave communication applications.

The authors wish to acknowledge the financial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No: 62271067, 62022064, and 62171363; Royal Society through International Exchanges 2019 Cost Share (NSFC) under Grant Ref: IEC\NSFC\19178; Beijing Key Laboratory of Work Safety Intelligent Monitoring (Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications); International Cooperation Funds of Shanxi Province under Grant No. 2022KWZ‐15; the Shaanxi Key Laboratory under Grant No. 2021SYS‐04; and the Shaanxi S&T Innovation Team under Grant No. 2023‐CX‐TD‐03. They would also like to acknowledge their national and international collaborators, including Dr. Benito Sanz Izquierdo and Mr. Peter Njogu (both at the University of Kent, UK).

All the works presented in this book are complemented with the help of the authors’ graduate students with their hard work on chapter writing and antenna design works under the supervision of the authors. So, the authors would like to thank all the graduate students involved in chapter writing and DRA design, including Hanjing Wang, Jiabin Ma, Ziwei Li, Xuewen Jiang, Jiuyu Zhang, Haixin Jiang, Wei Song, Zeyu Song, Qi Liu, Ming Zhu, Pufan Li, Xiaohan Yin, Hao Xu, and Hongliang Tian. This book cannot be completed without their helps.

November 2023

Zhijiao Chen

Beijing, China

Jing‐Ya Deng

Xi’an, China

Haiwen Liu

Xi’an, China

1Introduction

CHAPTER MENU

1.1 Motivation

1.2 Background

1.3 Chapter Overview

1.1 Motivation

In 2019, 5G mobile networks appeared, building the base for operators to provide 5G mobile services to industries, enterprises, and consumers. The 5G wireless communication enables various commercial applications such as autopilot, telemedicine, and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). In the Beyond 5G (B5G), communication fabric expands to all intelligent services, allowing people, robots, smart devices, and any intelligent agents to interconnect and collaborate with each other (Figure 1.1).

For example, the IEEE 802.11ad and IEEE 802.11ay standards operating on 60 GHz (covering 57–71 GHz) are the most expected wireless local area network (WLAN) technologies for the ultra‐high‐speed communications. They provide data throughput rates of up to 6 Gbps. However, after years of research and development efforts, mmWave techniques are still on the brink of delivering high‐quality 5G communications.

The low‐cost and high‐reliability mass production of the mmWave devices will be of great importance to complete the 5G story. But the challenges are higher than they have ever been with previous cellular technologies. Especially, there are still many remaining design issues to tackle for 60 GHz WLAN communications. This includes a low‐complexity but efficient mmWave antenna for WLANs that aim to provide low‐cost high quality of services (QoS). Waveguide‐based antenna array and reflector array antenna have shown extraordinary abilities in tracking the targets and wireless sensing. However, most of these existing designs are based on the high‐cost bulky metal structure, which are infeasible for commercialization.

Figure 1.1 The wireless communications for 5G and B5G.

The high‐gain radiating beam suffers from coverage shortfalls. To achieve the full coverage for the 5G users, mmWave systems are equipped with multi‐beam or phase array antennas. This raised a number of computation and implementation challenges on the antenna array to maintain the anticipated performance gain and coverage of mmWave systems. As a result, the quality of experience (QoE) of the 5G devices highly relies on their antenna performances such as the gain for compensating the path loss and the coverage for seamless connection. Most importantly, the high cost on the hardware and software implementations will lead to poor usability ratings and low adoption by service providers and consumers.

Driven by the demand for miniaturized and low‐cost solutions for the mmWave communications, the dielectric‐based fabrication techniques have been investigated by many research groups. This includes investigations on novel dielectric materials and fabrication processes to bring the fundamental improvements in mmWave antennas. Functional dielectrics such as low‐temperature co‐fired ceramic (LTCC) and complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) materials have expanded the antenna applications to many priority research areas like on‐chip implementations. In the commercial marketplace, low‐loss printed circuit boards (PCBs) with a wide range of dielectric constant are sold. For example, Rogers corporation provides a series of PCB with DK value of 2–10 and Df value of 0.0009–0.0045 at 8–40 GHz. Their prices are lower than LTCC and CMOS, but vary from country to country due to different tax rates. The dielectric‐based fabrication offers a competitive solution for low‐cost and high‐reliability mass production of the mmWave antenna. Especially, mmWave antennas based on the substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technique show advantages of easy fabrication, low cost, and reduced size over the metal waveguide, while overcoming the radiating loss of the microstrip line on the mmWave band.

Promising candidates for the high frequency applications includes the lens antenna and dielectric resonator antenna (DRA). The lens antenna utilized the dielectric lens to control the field distribution at the aperture, providing a high‐gain antenna system with a simple architecture. The high‐gain radiation is dominated by the focal distance of several wavelengths, thus resulting in a bulky structure of the lens antenna. In comparison, DRA has a low‐profile structure but has limited gain enhancement, thus requiring array feeding network for high‐gain radiation. Nevertheless, the employed dielectric loading enables dielectric modes for better radiation performance especially enhanced gain.

With the enhanced element gain, DRA shows potential to minimize the element scale for simplified, low‐profile, and high‐gain antenna array. Figure 1.2 depicts the number of research articles on DRAs, showing a consistent upward trend since 1989, highlighting the increasing interest in this area.

Figure 1.2 The number of articles retrieved from the IEEE website from 1989 to 2023.

Source: Adapted from survey based on 258 papers in IEEE Xplore Digital Library.

1.2 Background

DRAs have gained significant attention in recent years due to their ability to efficiently radiate and confine electromagnetic energy. DRAs are constructed using high dielectric constant materials, which can support specific resonant modes based on their shape and size. When an electromagnetic wave interacts with a dielectric resonator, it creates a resonant response in the dielectric material, leading to the interaction between the electric and magnetic fields. At a specific frequency, this interaction can result in multiple resonant modes and high radiation efficiency of the DRA. As a result, compared to other types of antennas, DRAs offer wider bandwidths or cover multiple frequency bands with proper design on their resonant modes. Additionally, DRAs are cost‐effective due to their use of inexpensive materials and simple fabrication processes, which also makes them easy to integrate and assemble especially on higher frequency bands.

Figure 1.3 shows a pie chart based on the investigation on 258 research papers related to DRA that are available on IEEE Xplore Digital Library. It reveals that DRA is highly attractive for various applications such as mobile communications, radar, satellite communications, and WLAN. Overall, DRA has proven to be a promising and versatile candidate with significant potential for future advancements.

Figures 1.4 and 1.5 survey the frequency range and research characteristics of DRA based on the 258 research papers carried out in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library. These research papers focus on the continuous advancement of wireless communication technology. It was found that the development trend of DRAs is primarily focused on five aspects: multi‐band design, wideband high‐gain design, miniaturized design, high‐frequency design, and new material utilization.

Figure 1.3 Application field of DRAs.

Source: Adapted from survey based on 258 papers in IEEE Xplore Digital Library.

Figure 1.4 Frequency ranges of DRAs.

Source: Adapted from survey based on 258 papers in IEEE Xplore Digital Library.

Figure 1.5 Research on the DRA characteristics.

Source: Adapted from survey based on 258 papers in IEEE Xplore Digital Library.

First, DRA designs increasingly emphasize multi‐band support to meet the communication needs of various frequency bands since more and more devices require multi‐band communication. Second, DRA with high‐efficiency and multi‐mode characteristics are utilized to enhance the antenna gain and bandwidth. Third, DRA with high dielectric constant is employed to miniaturize the antenna size, which is essential for implementing the compact structure and high integration of the electronic devices. Fourth, by overcoming the metal loss on high frequency, DRA is preferred for the millimeter‐wave and terahertz communications. Thus future DRA designs are likely to be focused on high‐frequency support and performance optimization. Finally, with the continuous development of dielectric materials, DRAs are benefited from better performance and lower costs. For instance, low‐loss high integration dielectric materials can be used to achieve compact size and lower loss of DRA‐based device, while 3D printed dielectrics can be used to achieve higher flexibility of DRA with better performance. It can be seen that DRAs are worthy to be explored in multiple aspects to contribute to the ever‐changing wireless communication requirements.

1.3 Chapter Overview

This book offers a unique and comprehensive treatment of microwave and millimeter‐wave DRAs designed and experimented by our group in the past few years. This book is relevant for readers in academia, industry, and education: the primary audience could be researchers and students majoring in electrical engineering, and the secondary audience could be engineers in wireless communication. Chapters 1 and 2 act as introductory, and the remaining chapters are for the specialist. Based on the category of the used resonators and the types of frequency responses, six chapters (Chapters 3–8) are arranged to present our works based on DRA technology. The main contents of the remaining chapters are overviewed as follows.

Chapter 2 begins with the fundamentals of dielectric antenna by identifying DRA, dielectric patch antenna (DPA), dielectric loaded antenna (DLA), and stacked DRA (SDRA). The configurations and modes of these antennas are discussed, with the analysis on the design capabilities for performance enhancements. Then, dielectric materials for DRA are introduced in detail, which includes sintered ceramics, organic dielectric, tunable dielectric, and 3D printed material. Antenna utilizing these dielectric materials would be provided as examples. Especially, these dielectric materials are utilized in our proposed DRA designs, and these DRA designs would be specified in the following chapters.

Chapter 3 introduces the fundamentals of SDRA by classifying its analytical methods. Aiming for the indoor base station antenna applications, a series of SDRA structures are proposed to enable full exploitation of the IEEE 802.11ac WLAN and the long‐term evolution (LTE) services. And a wideband circularly polarized antenna with passive beam steering function is proposed based on the SDRA for indoor base station.

Chapter 4 classifies the pattern diverse DRAs according to their working principles and design approaches. As an example, a pattern diverse DRA is analyzed for their modes and operations. Then, the uniform linear antenna array is studied for its limitation in scanning ability. The method of using pattern diverse DRA to widen the array scanning angle is proposed. After that, the schematic of using pattern diverse DRA array is explored for shaped beam synthesis and compared with that of conventional antenna array. Optimization algorithms are compared and applied for both schematic. The results validate the feasibility of using pattern diversity DRA as an energy‐efficient means for the base station antenna array to handle with users and interferences.

Chapter 5 overviews the requirements of multiple‐in multiple‐out (MIMO) antenna in the 5G environment at first, and then classifies the decoupling methods of MIMO antenna based on their principles. This is followed with several DRA MIMO antenna examples operating with different isolation enhancement methods. It can be seen that DRA has great potential to implement MIMO antennas due to the compact size, high radiation efficiency, and versatility in shape and feeding mechanism. Especially, the 3D structure of the DRA offers additional degrees of freedom in exciting various modes in one antenna structure. After that, a MIMO DRA with enhanced isolation and symmetrical pattern is proposed for the future 5G mmWave applications.

Chapter 6 discusses the feasibility of 3D printing technologies in dielectric antenna and antenna with dielectric substrate. 3D printing technology is given in detail with its definition, advantages, application fields, classification, and characteristics. Then, a 3D‐printed dielectric antenna and a 3D‐printed metal antenna are proposed with complementary structure. Comparisons are made between them in terms of the size, weight, fabrication tolerance, and performance. After that, 3D‐printed finger nail antennas for 5G application are introduced to show their fabrication process and fabrication tolerance.

In Chapter 7, DRA and DRA array are proposed for 5G mmWave applications and their advantages have been demonstrated. First, a dual‐band dual circularly polarized DRA has been verified for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) satellite communication. Then, SIW technology is introduced to provide the merits of lightweight, high gain, and high efficiency of the antenna array in mmWave band. SIW power dividers and waveguide to SIW transition are designed for large‐scale antenna array. After that, an SIW‐fed DRA array is designed with wideband, high gain, and enlarged dimensions for improved fabrication tolerance, which is suitable for 5G base station antenna. The results and comparison are discussed, showing DRA a promising candidate for 5G mmWave applications.

Chapter 8 focuses on the filtering antenna and diplex/duplex antennas. Classifications have been made according to design methodologies. The comparison between conventional antenna designs and DRA designs features great potential for DRA realizing filtering antennas and diplex/duplex antennas. Recent advanced designs have been given with a wideband and high‐gain filtering DRA, and a differentially fed duplex filtering DRA is demonstrated. The differentially fed duplex filtering DRA features high isolation between channels, common mode signal suppression, low cross‐polarization level, and good symmetry in radiation patterns. It provides a set of useful references for developing multifunctional antennas that integrate the functions of multiple devices such as duplexer, filter, and antenna into one compact unit.

Chapter 9 summarizes the contributions presented in this book and recommends some future research directions for DRA.

2Classifications on Dielectric Resonator Antenna

CHAPTER MENU

2.1 Overview

2.2 Dielectric Antenna Classifications

2.3 Dielectric Material Classifications

2.3.1 Sintered Ceramics

2.3.2 Organic Dielectric Material

2.3.3 Tunable Dielectric Material

2.3.4 3D Printing Material

2.4 Summary

References

2.1 Overview

Dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) was first proposed by Long in 1983 for the original goal to avoid the conduction losses of the metal mmWave radiating structure [1]