Insights into Fabrication and Measurements of PCB-Based Passive Millimeter Wave Antennas.

Future cellular communication systems might be based on millimeter wave frequencies. So, there is a need to design and deploy antennas which operate in the millimeter wave spectrum integrated in mobile terminals, portable wireless devices, base stations and access points. Even though a lot of articles exist on the design of such antennas, fabrication and measurement nuances of such antennas are addressed rarely in the open literature. Initially, the fabrication process of printed circuit board (PCB) antennas is discussed in detail with sources of error and possible precautions. A case study of microstrip-based tapered slot antenna operating at 28 GHz is presented. The variations in the antenna characteristics with slight variations due to fabrication errors are presented. A detailed discussion on S-parameters, pattern and gain measurements is also presented along with possible sources of errors associated with them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]