In this paper, dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) with enhanced gain operating on the higher order mode (15 ) is presented. The dielectric resonator antenna with dielectric constant  of 10 and loss tangent of 0.002 is used. The DRA is fed by microstrip line through an aperture slot. The proposed antenna is designed at 26 GHz and achieved a gain of 7.9 dBi with corresponding simulated radiation efficiency of 93%. The impedance bandwidth of 1.5 GHz from 25.1 GHz to 26.6 GHz has been achieved. The reflection coefficient, antenna gain, radiation patterns, and efficiency of the antenna are studied. Simulations are performed using CST microwave studio, and their results are presented

Ali, Irfan

Dahri, M. H.

Gaya, Abinash

Jamaluddin, Mohd Haizal

Kamarudin, M. R.

English

TELKOMNIKA (Telecommunication Computing Electronics and Control)

TELKOMNIKA, Vol.17, No.4, August 2019, pp.1670~1673 
ISSN: 1693-6930, accredited First Grade by Kemenristekdikti, Decree No: 21/E/KPT/2018 
DOI: 10.12928/TELKOMNIKA.v17i4.12770   1670 
  
Received October 6, 2018; Revised March 1, 2019; Accepted March 28, 2019 
Gain enhancement of dielectric resonator antenna for 
millimeter wave applications  
 
 
Irfan Ali
1
, Mohd Haizal Jamaluddin*
2
, M. R. Kamarudin
3
, Abinash Gaya
4
, M. H. Dahri
5
 
1,2,4,5
Wireless Communication Centre, School of Electrical Engineering, 
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru 81310, Malaysia 
3
Centre for Electronic Warfare Information and Cyber, Cranfield Defence and Security, 
Cranfield University, Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, Shrivenham SN6 8LA, UK  
*Corresponding author, e-mail: haizal@fke.utm.my 
 
 
Abstract  
In this paper, dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) with enhanced gain operating on the higher 
order mode (𝑇𝐸𝛿15
𝑥  ) is presented. The dielectric resonator antenna with dielectric constant 𝜀𝑟 of 10 and 
loss tangent of 0.002 is used. The DRA is fed by microstrip line through an aperture slot. The proposed 
antenna is designed at 26 GHz and achieved a gain of 7.9 dBi with corresponding simulated radiation 
efficiency of 93%. The impedance bandwidth of 1.5 GHz from 25.1 GHz to 26.6 GHz has been achieved.  
The reflection coefficient, antenna gain, radiation patterns, and efficiency of the antenna are studied. 
Simulations are performed using CST microwave studio, and their results are presented.  
 
Keywords: dielectric resonator antenna (DRA), high gain, higher order mode (HOM),  
millimeter wave (mm-wave) 
 
Copyright © 2019 Universitas Ahmad Dahlan. All rights reserved. 
 
 
1. Introduction 
Rapid growth of wireless communication technology in millimeter wave (mm-wave) 
frequency spectrum have got tremendous attention. Due to the scarcity of frequency spectrum 
below 6 GHz, millimeter wave frequency band ranging from 10 GHz to 100 GHz is considered 
as a potential candidate for the next generation 5G technology. According to Friss formula,  
the free space loss increases as the frequency increases [1]. Therefore, there is a need of 
designing new antennas that are not only more efficient and compact in design but also offer 
higher gain to compensate the additional incremental losses at higher frequencies. 
During the last few years, the two main classes of antennas such as microstrip patch 
antenna (MSA) and dielectric resonator antenna (DRA), are under investigation at higher 
frequencies for the modern communication systems. MSA is good choice for the modern 
communication systems because of their characteristics of light weight, low profile, small size 
and simplicity of manufacturing [2]. However, microstrip antenna suffers from low gain and very 
narrow bandwidth. In addition, the radiation efficiency of the microstrip patch antenna reduced 
significantly due to the metallic losses and surface wave excitation at higher frequencies.  
In contrast to MPAs, DRAs have high gain and wider bandwidth. Furthermore, DRAs are 
characterized by high radiation efficiency in the absence of surface waves and metallic  
losses [3] because it is simply made of dielectric material. Other substantial advantages and 
appealing features include Light weight, low cost, compact size, low profile, low loss, and ease 
of excitation [4]. Therefore, Dielectric resonator antennas have received great attention [5] by  
the antenna research community as an attractive alternative of microstrip antennas. As a result, 
DRAs are considered as a very promising candidate to be used for the next generation  
5G technology at millimetre wave frequencies. 
The DRA is a 3-D structure, allowing designers to have more degree of freedom  
in design than the 2-D and 1-D structure such as microstrip patch antennas and monopole 
antennas [6]. It comes in various shapes such as cylindrical, triangular, and hemispherical, 
rectangular [7, 8]. Additionally, several different types of feeding mechanisms can be used to 
excite DRAs such as microstrip feed lines [9], probe feeding [10], coplanar waveguides  
(CPWs) [11], and an aperture-coupled microstrip transmission line [12]. 
Over last three decades, numerous approaches have been suggested to enhance  
the gain of the dielectric resonator antennas by the previous researchers. These approaches 
TELKOMNIKA  ISSN: 1693-6930  
 
Gain enhancement of dielectric resonator antenna for millimeter wave applications (Irfan Ali) 
1671 
include stacked DRA [13–17], integration of additional structures [18,19], modifying the shape of 
the DRA [20, 21] operating in the lower order mode. However, the proposed approaches have 
major drawbacks of large volume, complexity in structure and the increased cost, which may not 
be suitable for the modern communication applications. Recently, higher order modes operation 
technique has been adopted to enhance the gain of the DRA. Higher order mode technique 
have been already adopted in both rectangular [22] and cylindrical [23] shaped DRAs  
to enhance the gain at 11 GHz and 7 GHz, respectively. In this paper, square shaped DRA 
operating with higher order 𝑇𝐸𝛿15 
𝑥 mode as shown in Figure 1, has been proposed to improve 
gain at 26 GHz frequency. The paper is organized as follows. In Section II, the configuration of  
the proposed DRA is described. The simulated results of prototype design are discussed in 
Section III. Finally, a conclusion is drawn in Section IV. 
 
 
2. Antenna Configuration  
The configuration of the proposed dielectric resonator antenna is shown in Figure 1. 
The DRA has a relative dielectric constant of 𝜀𝑟 and dimensions of length 𝑎, width 𝑏, and height 
𝑑. The DR is excited by 50𝛺 microstrip line fed by a slot aperture coupled on Rogers substrate 
of dielectric constant (𝜀𝑟) 𝑜𝑓 2.2 and thickness ℎ𝑠. The dielectric wave-guide model is used to 
analyze the rectangular DRA. The resonant frequency, 𝑓𝑜 of the 𝑇𝐸𝛿𝑚𝑛
𝑥  mode can be predicted 
by means of the following transcendental [24]: 
 
𝑘𝑥 tan (
𝑘𝑥𝑑
2
) = √(𝜀𝑟 − 1)𝑘𝑜
2 − 𝑘𝑥
2  
 
𝑘𝑥
2 + 𝑘𝑦
2 + 𝑘𝑧
2 = 𝜀𝑟𝑘𝑜
2 
 
𝑘0 =
2𝜋𝑓𝑜
𝑐
 , 𝑘𝑦 =
𝑚 𝜋
𝑏
 , 𝑘𝑧 =
𝑛𝜋
𝑑
 
 
where “𝜀𝑟” is the dielectric constant of the DRA, 𝑘𝑜 denotes free-space wave number, c is  
the speed of light (in free space). The dimensions of the proposed structure are given in Table 1. 
 
 
Table 1. Optimized Dimensions of the Proposed Antenna 
S.No. Parameters Dimensions 
1 Substrate 𝑅𝑜𝑔𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑅𝑇5880  (𝜀𝑟 = 2.2) 
(𝐿𝑠 × 𝑊𝑠 × ℎ𝑠) 
11.5 × 11.5 × 0.254 
2 Ground plane 
(𝐿𝑔 × 𝑊𝑔 × ℎ𝑔) 
11.5 × 11.5 × 0.0175 
3 Dielectric resonator antenna (𝜀𝑟 = 10) 
(𝑎 × 𝑏 × 𝑑) 
2.98 × 2.98 × 6.26 
4 Slot (𝑙𝑠 ×  𝑤𝑠) 0.33 × 2.02 
5 Length of stub (s) 1.36 
6 Type of Feed Aperture coupled 
Unit: mm 
 
 
 
 
Figure 1. Geometry of the proposed DRA 
                     ISSN: 1693-6930 
TELKOMNIKA  Vol. 17, No. 4, August 2019:  1670-1673 
1672
3. Results and Discussions 
In this section, simulated results of proposed design are discussed. The objective is to 
design a single element DRA with improved gain operating on higher order 𝑇𝐸𝛿15
𝑥  mode at  
mm-wave frequency. The proposed DRA antenna is simulated by using the CST Microwave 
studio. The reflection coefficient versus frequency of the DRA structure is shown in Figure 2. 
With reference to the figure, the |𝑆11| < −10 𝑑𝐵,bandwidth is about 5.7% (25.1-26.6 GHz).  
The plot of the gain and efficiency versus frequency is presented in Figure 3. It can be seen 
from the plot that, antenna offers a gain of 7.9 dBi and efficiency of 93% at 26 GHz. The far field 
radiation pattern is depicted in Figure 4 whereas the normalized radiation pattern in both  
E(yz) and H(xz) plane are shown in Figure 5. A broadside direction radiation pattern in  
E- planes and H-planes. A comparison of the proposed DRA with previously reported structures 
is tabulated in Table 2. From the table, it can be seen that, proposed structure demonstrates 
more gain compared to the gain of [25] and [26], whereas it is relatively low profile as compared 
to the design of [25]. 
 
 
 
 
Figure 2. Simulated |S11| of the DRA 
operating on 𝑇𝐸𝛿15
𝑥  mode 
 
 
Figure 3. Simulated gain and efficiency Vs 
frequency of the DRA operating on 𝑇𝐸𝛿15
𝑥  
 
 
 
 
Figure 4. Simulated 3D radiation pattern 
at 26 GHz 
 
 
Figure 5. Simulated radiation pattern of the DRA, 
E(yz) plane and H(xz) plane at 26 GHz 
 
 
Table 2. Comparison of the Proposed Structure with the Previous Work 
Ref εr Shape mode fo (GHz) BW (%) Gain (dB) Eff. (%) Area (λ
2) Height (λ) 
[25] 10 Rect. TEδ15
y
 
TEδ19
y
 
24 5.75 
3.4 
5.8 
6.3 
NM 
NM 
 
1.6λ × 1.6λ 
0.5λ 
0.9λ 
[26] 10 Rect. TEδ13
x  
TEδ15
x  
135 7 
7 
6.2 
7.5 
46 
42 
 
0.4λ × 0.4λ 
0.6λ 
1λ 
PS 10 Rect. TEδ15
x  26 5.7 7.9 93 1λ × 1λ 0.6λ 
𝜀𝑟—dielectric constant of the DRA, Rect.—Rectangular,𝑓𝑜—resonant frequency (GHz), BW—Bandwidth (%), 
Gain—simulated in dBi, Eff. —Efficiency (%) NM—Not Mentioned, PS—Proposed Structure 
 
 
4. Conclusion 
Dielectric resonator antenna with enhanced gain operating on higher order mode is 
proposed in this paper. The enhanced gain of dielectric resonator antenna is achieved by higher 
TELKOMNIKA  ISSN: 1693-6930  
 
Gain enhancement of dielectric resonator antenna for millimeter wave applications (Irfan Ali) 
1673 
order (𝑇𝐸𝛿15
𝑥 ) mode operation. The simulated results show that, a gain of 7.9dBi achieved for 
DRA operating at the frequency of 26 GHz. The impedance bandwidth of 1.5 GHz from  
25.1 GHz to 26.6 GHz has been achieved.  
 
 
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Gain enhancement of dielectric resonator antenna for millimeter wave applications

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