Optimization of Dielectric Rod Antenna Design in Millimeter Wave Band for Wireless Communications

Dielectric rod antennas are promising candidates to be used in millimeter wave band wireless communications. The optimization of a patch-fed dielectric rod antenna design at millimeter wave band is presented in this work. This design is composed of simple dielectric rod antenna made of low cost Teflon with relative permittivity of 2.1 that is fed by a rectangular patch antenna. Compared to the conventionally used tapered dielectric rod antennas, this configuration is capable of producing higher gain for a given antenna length. The design is optimized to achieve gain up to 17.5 dBi and impedance bandwidth up to 4.4 GHz at 60 GHz. A 4-element array is proposed to increase the gain up to 21 dBi. Simulations are performed using CST microwave studio, and their results are presented.