Enhancing 5g Antenna Performance By Using 3d Fss Structures

In this work, an enhanced 3D frequency selective surface (FSS) patch antenna is proposed for 5G applications. A 23 to 26 GHz patch antenna was first designed before improving its performance by adding a 3 x 5 unit cell two-layer 2D transmission FSS structure. Then, reflective walls were placed on the side edges of the obtained structure in order to focus the incident field towards the main lobe; the aim being to build a 3D FSS structure without requiring the 3D printing technique. The total size of the obtained antenna is of 40 x 40 x 14 mm(3). A comparative study was carried out between the performances of the patch antenna, the 2D FSS antenna and the 3D FSS antenna. A good agreement was observed between simulated results and measurements. An improvement of almost 3 and 2 dBi was obtained compared to the 2D FSS case, respectively, in simulated and measured results, while the side lobes in radiation patterns were decreased by more than 4 dBi, which confirms the adequate proposed design in switching to 3D structures.