Design and Performance Analysis of PIFA Microstrip Antenna Array at mmWave for MIMO Cellular Radio Communication

Abstract

Patch antennas, which are a major component of modern wireless communication systems, have played a key role in this evolution. Especially compared to conventional microwave antennas, microstrip antennas are smaller, lighter, easier to build, less costly, and easier to integrate into cellular networks. mmWave MIMO Antenna Arrays with beam forming improve the overall user experience by greatly boosting network coverage and capacity while simultaneously minimizing cellular communication interference with the right base station antenna configuration. The Planar Inverted F-Antenna (PIFA) Microstrip Antenna Array is designed in this thesis at mmWave for MIMO Cellular Radio Communication with acceptable bandwidth enhancement at V-band frequency. For mmWave cellular radio communication systems, the Antenna Array design for MIMO PIFA Antenna Array topologies can be used to increase channel capacity and achieve the required effective gain of the Antenna. In this thesis work, modelling was done at various levels of design parameters for a range of PIFA antenna designs. The single element, 1X4 and 4X4 PIFA element level have been built, modelled, and proposed for use in current and future cellular communication technology. Different antenna parameters such as gain, directivity, return loss, polarization, beam width, band width, and radiation patterns are studied and modelled for the PIFA Antenna Array at V-band (60 GHz) operating frequency. In this thesis, a probe-fed PIFA Antenna with infinite ground plane in FEKO, one should create a planar multilayer substrate and set a ground plane with space between the elements to reduce the mutual coupling. Then create wire probes between patches and ground plane. The radius of the wire probe (wire segment radius) is set to be 0.5mm. At V-band, the proposed PIFA Antenna Array achieves Gain 6.25 dBi, 6.67 dBi, and 12.14 dBi, Directivity 10.34 dBi, 12.51 dBi, and 15.12dBi, VSWR 1.01, 1.03, and 1.18, Band width of S11≤-10dB was 3.81GHz, 3.22GHz, and 2.69 GHz, and Return loss -46.1 dB, -48.02dB, and -47.23dB. The 4X4 PIFA Antenna Array outperformed the single and 1X4 PIFA in the majority of performance criteria in the evaluation of the proposed alternative PIFA configurations. When different steering angles are used with the same substrate thickness and the PIFA element is increased, the directivity of the PIFA Antenna Array rises marginally, improving bandwidth efficiency. The entire PIFA Antenna designs discussed was strong competitors for mmWave 5G wireless communications and other applications.