| Summary: | In this article, a rectangular dielectric resonator antenna (RDRA) with circularly polarized (CP) response is presented for 5G NR (New Radio) Sub-6 GHz band applications. A uniquely shaped conformal metal feeding strip is proposed to excite the RDRA in higher-order mode for high gain utilization. By using the proposed feeding mechanism, the degenerate mode pair of the first higher-order, i.e., <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><msubsup><mrow><mi>TE</mi></mrow><mrow><mi mathvariant="sans-serif">δ</mi><mn>13</mn></mrow><mi mathvariant="normal">x</mi></msubsup></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula> at 4.13 GHz and <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><msubsup><mrow><mi>TE</mi></mrow><mrow><mn>1</mn><mi mathvariant="sans-serif">δ</mi><mn>3</mn></mrow><mi mathvariant="normal">y</mi></msubsup><mo>,</mo><mo> </mo></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula> at 4.52 GHz is excited to achieve a circularly polarized response. A circular polarization over a bandwidth of ~10%, in conjunction with a wide impedance matching over a bandwidth of ~17%, were attained by the antenna. The CP antenna proposed offers a useful gain of ~6.2 dBic. The achieved CP bandwidth of the RDRA is good enough to cover the targeted 5G NR bands around 4.4–4.8 GHz, such as n79. The proposed antenna configuration is modelled and optimized using computer simulation technology (CST). A prototype was built to confirm (validate) the performance estimated through simulation. A good agreement was observed between simulated and measured results.
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