Low-Cost Differentially-Driven Circularly Polarized Antenna for 60 GHz communications

Abstract

The 60 GHz band provides very broad frequency bands to serve the need of new generations of communication systems demanding ever-increasing data rates. Designing an antenna working at this band is crucial to such systems, and circular polarization is desirable for its advantage in combating multi-path interferences or fading. A circularly polarized antenna with working frequency centered at 60 GHz has been designed in this project. It is a slotted substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) cavity antenna with rotated dipole array to generate circularly polarized radiation. The design uses two layers of Rogers 5880 substrate and can be manufactured using PCB process, which ensures the characteristics of low profile and low cost. Simulation results show that the antenna has right-hand circularly polarized gain of 15 dB, and it has adequate bandwidth to cover the operating bandwidth of 60 GHz. A prototype is manufactured and measured to validate the design.