Ultra-Thin Compact Bidirectional S-Slot Antenna for 5G Communications

Abstract

A compact and low-profile S-slot antenna for millimeter-wave wireless communication applications is presented in this paper. The antenna employs an S-shaped slot etched within a ground plane and excited by a hook-shaped microstrip feeding line to radiate a linearly polarized wave with a bidirectional broadside radiation beam. The antenna geometrical parameters are optimized to cover the n257 and n261 5G bands of the 5G mobile communications. The proposed antenna is fabricated and measured. Simulated and measured results demonstrate good impedance matching, with a measured fractional bandwidth of 18.3% and a maximum realized gain of 4.8 dBi across the desired operating bandwidth for the S-slot antenna with extended ground plane necessary for the purpose of measurements. The performance remains largely unaffected when the ground plane is reduced, highlighting the antenna’s suitability for compact implementations. Consequently, the proposed antenna is well suited for indoor 5G small-cell deployments and future railway wireless communication systems. Moreover, it can serve as a unit element in MIMO arrays or larger antenna configurations. To further demonstrate scalability and system-level applicability, the antenna element is extended into a compact eight-element MIMO array providing dual linear polarization. The array exhibits low mutual coupling, an envelope correlation coefficient on the order of 10−3, and a diversity gain approaching 10 dB. These results demonstrate highly independent radiation characteristics and reliable MIMO performance in multipath environments.