Research on Structurally Integrated Phased Array for Wireless Communications

• Main Authors: Qing-Qiang He, Shuai Ding, Chen Xing, Jun-Quan Chen, Guo-Qing Yang, Bing-Zhong Wang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2020-01-01
• Series: IEEE Access
• Subjects: 5G communications; phased array antenna; structurally integrated active antenna; low-temperature cofired ceramic (LTCC); micro-channel heat sinks
• Online Access: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9035441/

Structurally integrated antenna is a kind of highly integrated microwave device with a load-bearing function, and it is usually installed on the structural surface of the air, water and ground vehicles. This paper presents the design, fabrication and testing of a novel structurally integrated Ka-band active antenna for airborne 5G wireless communications. The proposed antenna is mainly composed of three parts: a package layer, a control and signal process layer and a RF layer. In the RF layer, the microstrip antenna array, tile transmitting (Tx) modules, micro-channel heat sinks and a stripline feeding network are highly integrated into a functional block with a thickness of 2.8 mm. Electromechanical co-design methods are developed to design the active antenna array with the superstrates, and two schemes for designing micro-channel heat sinks are evaluated to obtain a uniform temperature distribution. The RF layer is fabricated by using the low-temperature cofired ceramic process, and the three layers are assembled to form the full-size antenna prototype. The mechanical and electromagnetic experiments are carried out, and the results demonstrate the feasibility of the structurally integrated active antenna for airborne wireless communications.