A Novel Design and Development of a Strip-Fed Circularly Polarized Rectangular Dielectric Resonator Antenna for 5G NR Sub-6 GHz Band Applications

In this article, a rectangular dielectric resonator antenna (RDRA) with circularly polarized (CP) response is presented for 5G NR (New Radio) Sub-6 GHz band applications. A uniquely shaped conformal metal feeding strip is proposed to excite the RDRA in higher-order mode for high gain utilization. By using the proposed feeding mechanism, the degenerate mode pair of the first higher-order, i.e., TE delta 13x at 4.13 GHz and TE1 delta 3y, at 4.52 GHz is excited to achieve a circularly polarized response. A circular polarization over a bandwidth of similar to 10%, in conjunction with a wide impedance matching over a bandwidth of similar to 17%, were attained by the antenna. The CP antenna proposed offers a useful gain of similar to 6.2 dBic. The achieved CP bandwidth of the RDRA is good enough to cover the targeted 5G NR bands around 4.4-4.8 GHz, such as n79. The proposed antenna configuration is modelled and optimized using computer simulation technology (CST). A prototype was built to confirm (validate) the performance estimated through simulation. A good agreement was observed between simulated and measured results.

Automated summary

This article presents a rectangular dielectric resonator antenna with circularly polarized response for 5G NR Sub-6 GHz band applications, achieving high gain utilization through a uniquely shaped conformal metal feeding strip and successfully achieving circular polarization response and wide impedance matching.