High-Gain Lens-Horn Antennas for Energy-Efficient 5G Millimeter-Wave Communication Infrastructure

Lower efficiencies of power amplifiers and increased path losses at higher frequencies are two reasons why utilizing millimeter-wave frequencies for future wireless communications is challenging. In this article, a high-gain multilens-horn antenna system is presented. The antenna system provides highly effective isotropic radiated power by using only a few high-gain antenna elements, where each element only needs a low transmit power of 26 dBm to reach users at far distances. Moreover, due to channel reciprocity, both down- and uplink benefit from an increased antenna gain. It is shown that a reasonable number of high-gain antennas can provide coverage in a 60° sector with an inter-site distance of 300 m. Based on radio-planning simulations, three horn shapes are identified to provide sufficient coverage. The final optimized dual-polarized multilens-horn design is fabricated and experimentally verified. With a low transmit power at the base station (BS) of 26 dBm, a signal strength of at least -65 dBm is achieved in 98.9% of the sector at 28 GHz under non-line-of-sight conditions for the vertical polarization. For the horizontal polarization, an area of 96.2% is covered.