Design and empirical investigation of miniaturized mmWave antenna array modules within cellular devices

Millimeter-wave (mmWave) wireless technologies are projected to play an integral role in sustaining the ongoing explosive growth of worldwide data traffic in the next decade. Significant research and development efforts in silicon and compound silicon technology have enabled various forms of mmWave broadband wireless communication applications over the past decade. For example, fixed, point-to-point mmWave communications are increasingly being deployed for fronthaul and backhaul scenarios. For close-range communication applications, the 60 GHz-based IEEE 802.11ad/WiGig standard supports up to 6.75 Gbps. It is mainly targeted to be used in conjunction with legacy radios to support use cases such as extreme high resolution video streaming and high speed data transfers between user equipments (UE) or to a nearby base stations. Furthermore, mmWave mobile broadband (MBB) technology denoted as 5G is being conceived to enhance the capacity of 4G LTE.