Dual-Polarized Integrated Lens Antenna for Outdoor 60 GHz Point-to-Point Systems

The paper presents a design of a dual-polarized integrated lens antenna (ILA) dedicated to outdoor point-to-point systems operating in the 57-64 GHz frequency range. The ILA primary feed is based on a combination of a dual-polarized aperture coupled microstrip antenna (ACMA) patch and a low-profile metal adapter with a circular waveguide opening that corrects the patch radiation to provide effective illumination of the lens collimating surface and therefore high aperture efficiency of the antenna. A hemielliptical lens is made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and has a diameter of D = 120 mm needed to provide a high gain and cover large communication distance. Characteristics of the ILA were optimized using full-wave simulations and confirmed by the dedicated measurements of the fabricated antenna samples. Measurement results demonstrate that the designed dual-polarized ILA in the 57-64 GHz frequency range provides a gain value of 36-36.8 dBi with a reflection coefficient of > 10 dB and isolation between orthogonal linear polarizations exceeding 35 dB. In addition, the designed ILA has been integrated with a millimeter-wave monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) transceiver for operation in point-to-point systems with time-division duplexing (TDD).