A High-Performance Transmitarray Antenna with Thin Metasurface for 5G Communication Based on PSO (Particle Swarm Optimization)

• Main Authors: Chengtian Song, Lizhi Pan, Yonghui Jiao, Jianguang Jia
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-08-01
• Series: Sensors
• Subjects: high gain; transmitarray (TA) antenna; metasurface (MS); PSO; side-lobe level (SLL) reduction
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/20/16/4460

A 5G metasurface (MS) transmitarray (TA) feed by compact-antenna array with the performance of high gain and side-lobe level (SLL) reduction is presented. The proposed MS has two identical metallic layers etched on both sides of the dielectric substrate and four fixed vias connecting two metallic layers that works at 28 GHz to increase the transmission phase shift range. The proposed planar TA consisting of unit cells with different dimensional information can simulate the function as an optical lens according to the Fermat’s principle, so the quasi-spherical wave emitted by the compact Potter horn antenna at the virtual focal point will transform to the quasi-plane wave by the phase-adjustments. Then, the particle swarm optimization (PSO) is introduced to optimize the phase distribution on the TA to decrease the SLL further. It is found that the optimized TA could achieve 27 dB gain at 28 GHz, 11.8% 3 dB gain bandwidth, −30 dB SLL, and aperture efficiency of 23% at the operating bandwidth of 27.5–29.5 GHz, which performs better than the nonoptimized one. The advanced particularities of this optimized TA including low cost, low profile, and easy to configure make it great potential in paving the way to 5G communication and radar system.