A Compact Shared-Aperture Hybrid-Mode Antenna for Sub-6G Communication

A shared aperture enabled hybrid-mode antenna in a compact structure is proposed for Sub-6GHz communication in this paper. The proposed antenna is composed of a slotted rectangular patch to enhance the impedance bandwidth, a feeding dipole to excite the patch, and a ground plane to obtain unidirectional radiation. Three modes are sequentially excited in the operating band. The slot mode dominates the low frequency band, the patch mode determines the middle frequency band, and the dipole mode governs the high frequency band. The size of the proposed antenna is $0.46\lambda_{0}\times 0.32\lambda_{0}\times 0.13\lambda_{0}$ ( $\lambda_{0}$ is the wavelength in the free space at the center of operating frequency). The simulated results demonstrate a wide impedance bandwidth of 55.35% (2.94 GHz to 5.19 GHz) and a stable gain around 8.96 dBi in the band of 3 GHz to 5 GHz. The proposed compact antenna is applicable for micro base station in Sub-6G communication system.