A Cavity-Backed Patch Antenna with Distributed Multi-Port Feeding, Enabling Efficient Integration with Doherty Power Amplifier and Band-Pass Filter

A joint design approach for co-integrated antenna and power amplifier (PA), employing a high-efficiency Doherty PA (DPA) architecture and including a band-pass RF filter, is proposed. This design is realized through the optimally distributed and balanced multi-port feeding of the cavity-backed patch antenna element that provides the desired (unique) loading conditions for the main and auxiliary PA branches and tailored power combining. A novelty and advantage of this feeding solution is that each pair of feeding points form a virtual common feeding centre of the radiating element; as a result, the radiation pattern remains power invariant when the port excitations change. A joint optimization of the integrated antenna-DPA transmitter is carried out to enhance the overall performance and maximize the bandwidth. This optimization is demonstrated through an example design for the sub-6 GHz telecommunication applications that target high power-efficiency (>50%) at the 6dB backed-off power levels and require RF-filtering in a compact integrated design. The latter challenge leads to a non-conventional implementation, which generally does not require the filter to be inserted between the antenna and the final output stage of the PA, and can be embedded in the topology with complex-valued source/load impedance values. Results of numerical studies are supported by measurements obtained with the antenna-DPA-filter prototype system.