Ultracompact Dual-Polarized Cross-Dipole Antenna for 5G Base Station
Array of Low Wind Load
Abstract
Very high wind loads represent one of the major problems for the
ultralarge-scale 5G base station array at the sub-6 GHz band, where
dozens of or hundreds of antennas are used. An ultracompact
dual-polarized cross-dipole antenna with an extremely small overall
projected area is presented. The array with low wind load is realized by
miniaturized cross dipoles and the replacement of the traditional ground
plane with a defected ground structure (DGS) and metal mesh reflector.
The DGS is utilized to realize size reduction and isolation enhancement.
The projected area of the antenna is reduced by 70%. Therefore, each
antenna in the array can be independently packaged using a streamlined
radome with a low wind load. And the inter-radome spacing is large
enough to make holes that are used to further reduce wind load. The
antenna prototype is designed, fabricated, and measured for the sub-1
GHz band. The measured results show that the impedance bandwidth is
680-970 MHz, the polarization isolation is higher than 20 dB, and the
gain is around 6.5 dBi. It is verified that the proposed ultracompact
antenna of high radiation performance is very suitable for an
ultralarge-scale array of low wind load in a 5G base station.