This paper presents a novel dual-loop array antenna targeted at current and future base station applications. The antenna has four rectangular loops and four trapezoidal loops printed on the front… Click to show full abstract
This paper presents a novel dual-loop array antenna targeted at current and future base station applications. The antenna has four rectangular loops and four trapezoidal loops printed on the front and back sides, respectively, of a substrate placed above a flat square reflector. All eight loop radiators are excited simultaneously with properly designed feed networks to achieve its ±45° polarization states. The trapezoidal loops act like folded (electric) dipoles; the rectangular loops act primarily as magnetic dipoles. The combination of these two loop arrays leads to a type of magnetoelectric loop antenna that has stable directivity patterns with high cross-polarization discrimination (XPD) values across a 45.5% operational fractional bandwidth from 1.7 to 2.7 GHz. A fabricated and measured prototype confirms the simulation results and demonstrates that the half-power beamwidths in the horizontal plane vary between 63° and 70°, the XPD values are >20 dB in the boresight direction, and are >10 dB within the entire cellular coverage angular range: $-60^\circ \leq \theta \leq 60^\circ $ .
               
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