CN217691625U - Radiator, antenna and base station - Google Patents

Abstract

The present disclosure provides a radiator, an antenna and a base. The radiator comprises a conductor adapted to be arranged in an antenna for transmitting and/or receiving electromagnetic waves; and a pair of slots formed in the electric conductor and intersecting at a predetermined angle, each slot of the pair of slots including an elongated section at a middle portion and a widened section at both ends, so that the electric conductor is partitioned by the pair of slots into: a continuous outer frame portion; and the surrounded portion is surrounded by and connected to the continuous outer frame portion. Therefore, the bandwidth of the antenna can be remarkably widened while the advantages of light weight, easy layout, wide application range, small size, low cost and the like of the patch antenna are maintained.

Description

Radiator, antenna and base station

Technical Field

Example embodiments of the present disclosure relate generally to an antenna, and more particularly, to a radiator, an antenna, and a base station.

Background

The wireless mobile communication industry is currently rapidly developing. The capacity of a wireless mobile communication system is closely related to the use of frequencies. The spectrum upon which wireless communication devices rely is a limited natural resource. One major problem with radio communication systems is the limited availability of the radio spectrum due to high demand. Therefore, an ideal mobile system is defined as a system that operates within a limited designated frequency band and provides services to an almost unlimited number of users.

This inevitably involves providing radio coverage in multiple frequency bands and complicates the design of the network base station transceiver. In terms of antennas, the expense of multi-base station antenna installation and public resistance to unsightly antenna placement has prompted the installation of multi-band antennas at the base station, thereby avoiding the increase in antenna masts and costs. Microstrip Patch Antennas (MPA) are a class of planar antennas that have been widely studied and developed in the last forty years. They have become the favorite of antenna designers and have found use in many applications in wireless communication systems due to their light weight, ease of layout, wide range of applications, compact structure, and low cost.

SUMMERY OF THE UTILITY MODEL

Microstrip patch radiating elements often suffer from electromagnetic coupling problems that reduce efficiency, correlation and ultimately degrade the communication quality of the overall antenna system. To address, at least in part, the above and other potential problems, example embodiments of the present disclosure provide a radiator, and antenna, and associated base station.

In a first aspect of the present disclosure, a radiator is provided. The radiator comprises a conductor adapted to be arranged in an antenna for transmitting and/or receiving electromagnetic waves; and a pair of slots formed in the electric conductor and intersecting at a predetermined angle, each slot of the pair of slots including an elongated section at a middle portion and a widened section at both ends, so that the electric conductor is partitioned by the pair of slots into: a continuous outer frame portion; and the surrounded portion is surrounded by and connected to the continuous outer frame portion.

The conductor is divided into a continuous outer frame portion and an enclosed portion by a slot formed in the conductor, so that an antenna using the conductor can operate in two modes, i.e., a patch antenna mode and a dipole antenna mode. Therefore, the bandwidth of the antenna can be remarkably widened while the advantages of light weight, easy layout, wide application range, small size, low cost and the like of the patch antenna are kept.

In an example embodiment the radiator further comprises two pairs of feed conductors for feeding said conductors.

In an example embodiment, the two pairs of feed conductors are arranged to support the electrical conductor and comprise a first pair of feed conductors and a second pair of feed conductors.

In some example embodiments, the enclosed portion comprises a first pair of radiating elements coupled to a first feed unit by a first pair of feed conductors; and a second pair of radiating elements coupled to the second feed element by a second pair of feed conductors.

In some example embodiments, the radiator is configured to operate electromagnetic waves having different polarization directions by feeding different feeding currents through the first feeding unit and the second feeding unit.

In some example embodiments, each of the first and second pairs of radiating elements comprises a pair of radiating conductors, each radiating conductor comprising a feed defined by the pair of slotted elongate sections and connected to a corresponding one of the first and second feed units, being centrosymmetric with respect to an intersection of diagonals of the conductive body; and a connecting arm defined by the pair of slotted widened sections for connecting the feeding portion and the continuous outer frame portion.

In some exemplary embodiments, the connecting arms extend diagonally.

In some example embodiments, each of the widened sections has a width that gradually increases or steps in a direction from the center to the ends.

In some example embodiments, the pair of slots are orthogonal to each other.

In some example embodiments, the electrical conductor has one or more of the following shapes: rhombus, diamond, circular, oval, rectangular, hexagonal, octagonal, parallelogram and trapezoidal.

In some exemplary embodiments, the continuous outer frame portion and the surrounded portion are arranged in the same plane.

In some example embodiments, the radiator is a patch structure radiator.

In some example embodiments, the radiator further comprises at least one parasitic radiating element disposed above the conductive body.

In a second aspect of embodiments of the present disclosure, an antenna is provided. The antenna comprises a plurality of radiators according to the first aspect of the present disclosure; at least one reflector on which the plurality of radiators are supported, the at least one reflector being configured to reflect a portion of an electromagnetic wave radiated by the plurality of radiators; and a first feeding unit and a second feeding unit configured to feed the plurality of radiators.

In some example embodiments, the antenna comprises a massive MIMO antenna, a wideband antenna, or a multiband antenna.

In a third aspect of the disclosure, a base station is provided. The base station comprising at least one antenna according to the second aspect of the preceding paragraph.

It should be understood that the summary is not intended to identify key or essential features of the embodiments of the disclosure, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the disclosure. Other features of the present disclosure will become readily apparent from the following description.

Drawings

The above and other objects, features and advantages of the present disclosure will become more apparent by describing in more detail exemplary embodiments thereof with reference to the attached drawings, in which like reference numerals generally represent like parts in exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure.

Fig. 1 shows a perspective view of a radiator in the prior art;

fig. 2 illustrates a top view and a perspective view of a portion of an array antenna for use as a multi-band antenna according to an example embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 3 illustrates a top view and a perspective view of a portion of an array antenna used as a MIMO antenna according to an example embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 4 shows a top view of an electrical conductor according to an example embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 5 shows a schematic top view of a slot formed in an electrical conductor as shown in FIG. 4;

FIG. 6 shows a continuous outer frame portion formed by a slot and an enclosed portion, wherein the enclosed portion is highlighted, according to an example embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 7 illustrates some possible shapes of a slot formed in a conductor of a radiator according to an example embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 8 illustrates a perspective view of a radiator according to an example embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 9 illustrates a perspective view of a radiator disposed on a reflector according to an example embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 10 shows a side view of a radiator arranged on a reflector according to an example embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 11 and 12 illustrate current distributions and patterns of an antenna according to an example embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 13 shows a schematic diagram of a pattern of radiators according to an example embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 14 shows a radiation pattern and S11, S21 and S22 graphs of an antenna according to an example embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 15 shows a perspective view of a radiator arranged on a reflector according to an example embodiment of the present disclosure; and

fig. 16 shows S11, S21, and S22 graphs of an antenna according to an example embodiment of the present disclosure.

The same or similar reference numbers will be used throughout the drawings to refer to the same or like elements.

Detailed Description

The present disclosure will now be described with reference to several exemplary embodiments. It should be understood that these examples are described only for the purpose of enabling those skilled in the art to better understand and thereby enable the present disclosure, and are not intended to set forth any limitations on the scope of the technical solutions of the present disclosure.

References in the disclosure to "one embodiment," "an example embodiment," etc., indicate that the embodiment described may include a particular feature, structure, or characteristic, but every embodiment may not necessarily include the particular feature, structure, or characteristic. Moreover, such phrases are not necessarily referring to the same embodiment. Further, when a particular feature, structure, or characteristic is described in connection with an embodiment, it is submitted that it is within the knowledge of one skilled in the art to effect such feature, structure, or characteristic in connection with other embodiments whether or not explicitly described.

It will be understood that, although the terms first, second, etc. may be used herein to describe various elements, these elements should not be limited by these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish one element from another. For example, a first element could be termed a second element, and, similarly, a second element could be termed a first element, without departing from the scope of example embodiments. As used herein, the term "and/or" includes any and all combinations of one or more of the listed terms.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of example embodiments. As used herein, the singular forms "a", "an" and "the" are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms "comprises," "comprising," and/or "having," when used herein, specify the presence of stated features, elements, and/or components, etc., but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, elements, components, and/or groups thereof.

As used herein, the term "include" and its variants are to be read as open-ended terms meaning "including, but not limited to. The term "based on" will be read as "based at least in part on". The terms "one embodiment" and "an embodiment" should be understood as "at least one embodiment". The term "another embodiment" should be understood as "at least one other embodiment".

The term "circuitry" as used herein refers to one or more of the following:

(a) Hardware-only circuit implementations (such as implementations in only analog and/or digital circuitry); and

(b) A combination of hardware circuitry and software, such as (if applicable): (i) A combination of analog and/or digital hardware circuitry and software/firmware, and (ii) any portion of a hardware processor and software (including a digital signal processor, software, and memory that work together to cause a device such as an OLT, ONU, or other computing device to perform various functions); and

(c) A hardware circuit and/or processor, such as a microprocessor or a portion of a microprocessor, that requires software (e.g., firmware) for operation, but may lack software when software is not required for operation.

The definition of circuit applies to all usage scenarios of this term in this application, including any claims. As another example, the term "circuitry" as used in this application also encompasses implementations of merely a hardware circuit or processor (or multiple processors) or portion of a hardware circuit or processor and its accompanying software and/or firmware. The term circuitry also encompasses, for example, a baseband integrated circuit or processor integrated circuit for a mobile device or a similar integrated circuit in a server, a cellular network device, or other computing or network device, as may be appropriate for a particular claim element.

The term "communication network" as used herein refers to a network that conforms to any suitable communication standard, such as New Radio (NR), long term evolution technology (LTE), LTE-advanced (LTE-a), wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA), high Speed Packet Access (HSPA), narrowband internet of things (NB-IoT), and so forth. Further, communication between the terminal devices and the network devices in the communication network may be according to any suitable generation communication protocols, including but not limited to first generation (1G), second generation (2G), 2.5G, 2.75G, third generation (3G), fourth generation (4G), 4.5G, fifth generation (5G) communication protocols, and/or any other now known or later developed protocol. Embodiments of the present disclosure may be applied to various communication systems. Given the rapid development of communications, there will of course be future types of communication technologies and systems in which the present disclosure may be implemented. The scope of the present disclosure should not be considered as being limited to the above-described systems.

The term "network device" as used herein refers to a node in a communication network through which a terminal device accesses the network and receives services therefrom. A network device may refer to a Base Station (BS) or Access Point (AP), such as a NodeB (NodeB or NB), evolved NodeB (eNodeB or eNB), NR NB (also referred to as gNB), remote Radio Unit (RRU), radio Header (RH), remote Radio Header (RRH), relay, low power node, and technology.

The term "terminal device" as used herein refers to any terminal device capable of wireless communication. By way of example, and not limitation, a terminal device may also be referred to as a communication device, user Equipment (UE), subscriber Station (SS), portable subscriber station, mobile Station (MS), or Access Terminal (AT). The end devices may include, but are not limited to, mobile phones, cellular phones, smart phones, voice over internet protocol (VoIP) phones, wireless local loop phones, tablets, wearable end devices, personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), portable computers, desktop computers, image capture end devices such as digital cameras, gaming end devices, music storage and playback devices, in-vehicle wireless end devices, wireless terminals, mobile stations, laptop embedded devices (LEEs), USB dongles, smart devices, wireless client devices (CPEs), internet of things (IoT) devices, watches or other wearable devices, head Mounted Displays (HMDs), vehicles, drones, medical devices and applications (e.g., tele-surgery), industrial devices and applications (e.g., robots and/or other wireless devices operating in industrial and/or automated processing chain environments), consumer electronics, devices operating on commercial and/or industrial wireless networks, and the like. In the following description, the terms "terminal device", "communication device", "terminal", "user equipment" and "UE" may be used interchangeably.

In a communication network in which a plurality of network devices are jointly deployed in a geographical area to serve respective cells, a terminal device may have an active connection with a network device when located within a respective cell. In an active connection, a terminal device may communicate with the network device on both Uplink (UL) and Downlink (DL) frequency bands. A terminal device may need to handover a link in one direction, such as the UL, to another network device for various reasons, such as quality degradation in the UL.

Communication technology has now evolved into a fifth generation new radio, also known as 5G NR, antenna devices usually consisting of a larger antenna array, e.g. comprising a large number of Antenna Elements (AE) to form a multiband antenna. For example, an antenna device used in a radio cellular network typically comprises an antenna array containing 192 AEs (96 dual-polarized patches) to synthesize the required beam pattern.

The basic structure of a conventional dual polarized patch antenna used in a base station is shown in fig. 1. Which consists of a metallised area, i.e. an electrical conductor 501, which is supported and fed in place by a feed unit via four feed conductors 502. The shape of the conductor 501 may be arbitrary in principle; in practice, rectangular, circular, triangular and annular shapes are common shapes. The electrical conductor as shown in fig. 1 has a substantially rectangular shape.

The two feed conductors substantially on the diagonal are a pair of feed conductors. The first pair of feed conductors 502 is configured to feed electricity to the conductors to generate electromagnetic waves of a first polarization direction; the second pair of feed conductors is used to feed the conductors to generate electromagnetic waves of a second polarization direction. The first polarization direction and the second polarization direction are orthogonal to each other.

In its basic form, a microstrip antenna has a narrow impedance bandwidth. However, various bandwidth widening techniques have been developed. One of the bandwidth widening techniques involves a stacked structure of radiators with parasitic conductor structures added above the conductors. The stacked patch arrangement, consisting of one layer of feed patches and another layer of parasitic patches, is one of the more popular broadband microstrip antennas today. The parasitic patch introduces a second resonance. However, this method has a limited effect while increasing the size of the radiator.

In order to increase the bandwidth of the patch radiating element, there is also a method of using a resonant tank feed network. In this method, the feed of the electrical conductor consists of an open microstrip on a dielectric plate above the ground plane. The microstrip antenna is formed on a separate dielectric plate above the ground plane, with the two structures electromagnetically coupled through an electrical aperture in the ground plane between them. However, this approach makes the feed structure and the ground structure more complicated.

To address, at least in part, the above and other potential problems, example embodiments of the present disclosure provide radiators and associated antennas with widened bandwidths, while maintaining the advantages of patch antennas, including light weight, ease of layout, wide range of applications, compactness, and low cost. Some example embodiments will now be described with reference to fig. 2 to 16.

Fig. 2 illustrates a top view and a perspective view of a portion of an array antenna 300 for use as a multi-band antenna according to an example embodiment of the present disclosure. The multiband antenna 300 shown in fig. 2 includes at least three groups of radiators for transmitting and/or receiving electromagnetic waves of different frequency bands, i.e., two low band radiators 301, eight mid band radiators 302, and a plurality of high band radiators 303. In the array arrangement shown in fig. 2, the radiators are supported on at least one reflector 302. The reflector 302 may be a printed circuit board or a metal sheet located below the radiators to reflect a portion of the electromagnetic waves radiated by the multiple radiators while providing a ground plane layer for the entire radiator. .

It should be understood that reference herein to "high band" and "low band" is not an absolute concept, but a relative concept. In other words, both the "high band" and the "low band" may belong to any one of high band frequencies, mid band frequencies, or low band frequencies as known in the art. In other words, for two different frequency bands, whether they belong to the high, medium or low frequency bands known in the art, "high frequency band" refers to the relatively higher of the two frequency bands, and "low frequency band" refers to the relatively lower frequency band.

It should also be understood that the exemplary embodiments described above, wherein the antenna may be a multi-band antenna, are for illustration only and are not meant to limit the scope of the present disclosure in any way. In some alternative embodiments, the antenna according to embodiments of the present disclosure may also be a massive Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna (as shown in fig. 3) or a wideband antenna, etc.

In the array arrangement as shown in fig. 2 and 3, the radiator 100 according to the example embodiment of the present disclosure may be applied to a medium and high frequency band radiator to obtain a wider bandwidth. It should be understood that the antenna arrangements shown in fig. 2 and 3, to which the radiator according to the example embodiment of the present disclosure is applied, are for illustrative purposes only and do not imply any limitation on the scope of the present disclosure. The radiator according to example embodiments of the present disclosure may be applied to any suitable multi-band antenna arrangement having one or more mid and low band radiators to obtain a widened bandwidth. Hereinafter, the concept of the present disclosure will be discussed in detail by employing the antenna arrangement as shown in fig. 2 and 3. Other antenna arrangements with the radiator 100 are similar and will not be described in detail.

Several exemplary embodiments of an antenna to which a radiator according to exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure may be applied are described above. Several example embodiments of the radiator will be described below with reference to fig. 4 to 16.

As shown in fig. 4, a radiator 100 according to an example embodiment of the present disclosure generally includes a conductive body 101. In some example embodiments, the radiator 100 includes a feed conductor for feeding the conductor 101 in addition to the conductor 101, which will be further described later. The conductor 101 serves as a radiation portion of the radiator 100 to transmit and/or receive electromagnetic waves. In some example embodiments, the radiator 100 may be a patch structure radiator. The conductive body 101 may be made of any suitable conductive material. For example, in some example embodiments, the electrical conductor 101 may be made of a metal sheet such as a copper sheet disposed on a printed circuit board used as a substrate. In this way, the radiator 100 can be manufactured and assembled in a cost-effective manner.

It should be understood that the above-described exemplary embodiment in which the electrical conductor 101 is made of a copper sheet is for illustrative purposes only and is not meant to limit the scope of the present disclosure in any way. The electrical conductor 101 may be manufactured in any suitable manner. For example, in some alternative example embodiments, the electrical conductor 101 may be formed directly from a metal sheet or plate made of a metal such as copper, aluminum, or alloys thereof, without using a printed circuit board as the substrate. Furthermore, in some further alternative example embodiments, conductive body 101 may also be made using any type of metal or conductive material formed on a non-conductive support, such as a plastic support, for example, but not limited to: molded Interconnect Devices (MID), laser Direct Structuring (LDS), heat staking metal plates to plastic supports, etc.

Further, in some example embodiments, as shown in fig. 4, the electrical conductor 101 has a generally rectangular shape. It should be understood that electrical conductor 101 may also have any suitable shape, including, but not limited to, for example, a rhombus, a diamond, a circle, an oval, a rectangle, a hexagon, an octagon, a parallelogram, or a trapezoid, among others. Furthermore, the conductive body 101 may also have any suitable three-dimensional shape, such as a truncated cone, a cylinder, a semi-cylinder, and the like. Hereinafter, the concept of the present disclosure will be discussed in detail by explaining possible shapes of the electrical conductor 101 as shown in fig. 4-16. Other shapes of the conductor 101 are similar and are not described in detail.

The radiator 100 also includes a pair of slots 102 formed in the conductor 101. They intersect at a predetermined angle. Fig. 4 shows that a pair of slots 102 are orthogonal to each other, i.e. intersect at 90 ° in the electrical conductor 101. It should be understood that the orthogonal intersection 102 of two slots may also mean that the angle between them may be in the range of 90 ° ± 5 ° due to machining tolerances, etc. It should also be understood that the two slots 102 may intersect at any other angle other than 90 °, such as 80 ° or 75 °, etc. The concepts of the present disclosure will be described by taking orthogonal intersecting slots 102 as an example. Other embodiments where the slots 102 intersect at other suitable angles are similar and will not be described in detail below.

The slot 102 forms a hollow portion in the conductive body 101 due to the presence of the slot 102. Both slots 102 have the same shape and each slot 102 includes an elongated section 1021 in the center and a widened section 1022 in both. The width of the widened section 1022 is wider than the width of the elongated section. That is, the slot 102 is substantially dumbbell-shaped, as shown in FIG. 5. Thus, the conductor 101 is partitioned by the slot 102 into a continuous outer frame portion 1011 and an enclosed portion 1012 surrounded and connected by the continuous outer frame portion 1011, as shown in fig. 4 and 6.

It should be understood that the above-described exemplary embodiment in which the two slots 102 are of the same shape and size as shown in fig. 4 is illustrative only and does not imply any limitation on the scope of the application. In some alternative example embodiments, the two slots 102 may also have different shapes and/or different sizes. The concept of the present application will be discussed by way of example with an exemplary embodiment as shown in fig. 4. This is also the case for other cases where the two slots 102 have different shapes and/or different dimensions, which will not be described separately below.

Although reference is made to the division of the conductor 101 into two parts, namely a continuous outer frame part 1011 and an enclosed part 1012, this is for convenience of the following description only, it being understood that these two parts are integrally formed in the conductor 101 and as a whole realize both modes of operation of the radiator 100, as will be discussed further below.

Fig. 4 and 5 show that the elongate section 1021 has substantially the shape of an elongate strip. The two slots 102 intersect at the center of their elongated section 1021. As shown in fig. 5, in some exemplary embodiments, the widened sections 1022 disposed at both ends of the slot 102 each have a trapezoidal shape with a centerline extending generally in the direction of extension of the elongated section 1021. As shown in fig. 4 and 5, in some exemplary embodiments, the widened sections 1022 have a gradually increasing width in a direction from the center to the ends.

It should be understood that the above-described embodiment in which slot 102 has the shape shown in fig. 4 and 5 is for illustrative purposes only and does not imply any limitation on the scope of the present disclosure. Each slot 102 formed in the electrical conductor 101 may also have any other suitable shape. Fig. 7 shows some possible shapes of the slot 102. That is, in some example embodiments, each widened section 1022 may also have a shape including, but not limited to, rectangular, triangular, inverted triangular, circular, or elliptical. In some alternative example embodiments, each widened section 1022 may also have a width that increases in a stepwise manner in the direction from the center to the ends. It should be understood that the shapes of the slots shown in fig. 7 are not exhaustive and that any other suitable shape may be present as long as a pair of slots 102 intersecting at a predetermined angle may divide the conductor 101 into a continuous outer frame portion 1011 and an enclosed portion 1012.

It should also be understood that different shapes of slot 102 will result in different shapes of continuous outer frame portion 1011 and enclosed portion 1012. The concept of the present disclosure will be discussed by taking as an example the shape of the continuous outer frame portion 1011 and the enclosed portion 1012 shown in fig. 4. The continuous outer frame portion 1011 and the enclosed portion 1012 of other shapes formed by other shapes of the slot 102 are also similar and will not be described separately below.

In some example embodiments, the enclosed portion 1012 includes two pairs of radiating elements, namely, a first pair of radiating elements 1013 and a second pair of radiating elements 1014.

In some example embodiments, the first and second radiating element pairs 1013, 1014 can have the same arrangement. In particular, each of the first and second pairs of radiating elements 1013, 1014 may comprise a feed 1015 defined by an elongate section 1021 and a connecting arm 1016 defined by a widened section 1022 of the pair of slots 102. The connecting arm 1016 is arranged to connect the power feed 1015 to the continuous frame portion 1011 as shown in fig. 4.

In some example embodiments, the radiator 100 may further include two pairs of feed conductors 1031, 1032, i.e., four feed conductors, arranged to support the conductive body 101, as shown in fig. 8 to 10. The four feed conductors may include a first feed conductor pair 1031 and a second feed conductor pair 1032.

The two feeding portions 1015 of the first pair of radiating elements 1013 are coupled to the first feeding unit through the first pair of feeding conductors 1031; and both feed portions 1015 of the second pair of radiating elements 1014 are coupled to a second feed unit via a second pair of feed conductors 1032. The first and second feeding units may comprise a first feeding port and a second feeding port, respectively, arranged in the feeding network.

The first and second feeding units can feed different feeding currents to the radiator 100. The radiator 100 is capable of operating an electromagnetic wave having a first polarization direction in a case where a first feeding current is fed by the first feeding unit. In case a second feeding current is fed by the second feeding unit, the radiator 100 is able to operate the electromagnetic wave having a second polarization direction, which is different from the first polarization direction. For example, in some example embodiments, the first polarization direction and the second polarization direction are orthogonal. This arrangement may further widen the bandwidth of an antenna using the radiator 100 according to an example embodiment of the present disclosure

A first pair of feed conductors 1031 is coupled to the first feed port and is configured to feed equal and opposite current to the two feeds 1015 of the first pair of radiating elements 1013. Similarly, a second pair of feed conductors 1032 is coupled to the second feed port for feeding equal amplitude, opposite phase currents to the two feed portions 1015 of the second radiating element pair 1014.

Taking the working frequency band of the antenna as 1.7G-2.4 GHz as an example, how the antenna works in two modes is analyzed to realize the improvement of the widened bandwidth. The same is true for antennas in other operating frequency bands, which will not be described in detail below. When the radiator 100 is fed with a current of 1.8GHz from the first feeding unit, the current distribution on the conductor 101 is as shown in fig. 11. It can be found that the current is concentrated and confined on the continuous outer frame portion 1011, more specifically, on the upper and right edges of the continuous outer frame portion 1011, whereby the upper and right edges of the continuous outer frame portion 1011 form a half-wavelength slot antenna structure for radiating electromagnetic waves. In this case, the radiator 100 operates in a patch antenna mode.

When the radiator 100 is fed with a current of 2.3GHz from the first feeding unit, the current distribution on the conductor 101 is as shown in fig. 12. It can be seen that the current is concentrated and confined to the lower left and upper right connecting arms 1016, forming an effective pair of dipole arms for the radiation of electromagnetic waves. In this case, the radiator 100 operates in a dipole antenna mode, and the diagonal length of the conductive body 101 corresponds to half of the wavelength of the medium corresponding to the resonant frequency of the antenna (i.e., 2.3GHz in this example).

That is, by appropriately sizing the conductor 101 and the slot 102 according to the operating frequency band of the antenna 300, the antenna 300 can be effectively operated in two modes, i.e., a patch antenna mode and a dipole antenna mode, as shown in fig. 13. Fig. 14 shows radiation patterns, S11, S21 and S22 graphs of the antenna. It can be seen from fig. 14 that the bandwidth of the antenna is significantly broadened while maintaining the advantages of a patch antenna of light weight, ease of assembly, compactness, low cost, etc.

In some example embodiments, to further improve the performance and bandwidth of the antenna, the radiator 100 may further include at least one parasitic radiating element 104 disposed over the conductive body 101, as shown in fig. 15. The parasitic radiating element is electromagnetically coupled to the conductive body 101. From the perspective of transmit operation, parasitic radiating element 104 receives RF electromagnetic energy from conductive body 101 through mutual electromagnetic coupling between conductive body 101 and conductive body 101. Parasitic radiating element 104 is over the electrically insulating region and emits a portion of the received electromagnetic energy to the surrounding space in the form of RF-electromagnetic radiation. From a receive operational perspective, the parasitic radiating element 104 captures RF-electromagnetic energy from the RF-electromagnetic radiation falling on the parasitic radiating element 104 and transfers a portion of the captured RF-electromagnetic energy to the conductive body 101 through mutual electromagnetic coupling. By means of the parasitic radiating element 104, the performance of the antenna can be further improved, while the bandwidth of the antenna is further enlarged. Fig. 16 shows graphs of S11, S21 and S22 of the antenna with the parasitic radiating element 104. It can be seen from fig. 16 that the bandwidth and performance of the antenna with the parasitic radiating element 104 is further improved compared to the embodiment of the radiator 100 without the parasitic radiating element 104.

According to another aspect of the present disclosure, a base station is provided. The base station comprises at least one antenna as described above. The antenna can improve the performance of characteristics such as gain and radiation pattern of the base station.

It is to be understood that the above detailed embodiments of the present disclosure are merely illustrative of or explaining the principles of the present disclosure and are not limiting of the disclosure. Therefore, any modification, equivalent replacement, and improvement made within the spirit and principle of the present disclosure should be included in the protection scope of the present disclosure. Also, it is intended that the appended claims cover all such changes and modifications that fall within the true scope and range of equivalents of the claims.

Claims (16)

1. A radiator (100), comprising:

an electrical conductor (101) adapted to be arranged in an antenna (300) for transmitting and/or receiving electromagnetic waves; and

a pair of slots (102) formed in the electrical conductor (101) and intersecting at a predetermined angle, each slot of the pair of slots (102) including an elongated section (1021) in the middle and a widened section (1022) at both ends, such that the electrical conductor (101) is divided by the pair of slots (102) into:

a continuous outer frame portion (1011); and

the surrounded portion (1012) is surrounded by the continuous outer frame portion (1011) and connected to the continuous outer frame portion (1011).

2. An emitter (100) according to claim 1, further comprising:

two pairs of feed conductors for feeding said conductors (101).

3. A radiator (100) according to claim 2, wherein the two pairs of feed conductors are arranged to support the conductive body (101) and comprise a first pair of feed conductors (1031) and a second pair of feed conductors (1032).

4. A radiator (100) according to claim 3, wherein the enclosed portion (1012) comprises:

a first pair of radiating elements (1013) coupled to a first feeding unit by the first pair of feeding conductors (1031); and

a second pair of radiating elements (1014) coupled to a second feed unit through the second pair of feed conductors (1032).

5. A radiator (100) according to claim 4, characterized in that the radiator (100) is configured to operate electromagnetic waves having different polarization directions by feeding different feed currents through the first and second feed units.

6. A radiator (100) according to claim 4 or 5, wherein each of the first pair of radiating elements (1013) and the second pair of radiating elements (1014) comprises:

a pair of radiation conductors which are centrosymmetric with respect to an intersection point of diagonal lines of the conductive body (101), each radiation conductor comprising:

a feed (1015) defined by the elongated sections (1021) of the pair of slots (102) and connected to a corresponding one of the first and second feed elements; and

a connecting arm (1016) defined by the widened sections (1022) of the pair of slots (102) for connecting the feeding portion (1015) and the continuous outer frame portion (1011).

7. An emitter (100) according to claim 6, characterised in that the connecting arm (1016) extends diagonally.

8. A radiator (100) according to any of claims 1-5 and 7, wherein each of the widened sections (1022) has a gradually increasing or stepwise increasing width in the direction from the centre to the ends.

9. A radiator (100) according to any one of claims 1-5 and 7, wherein the pair of slots (102) are orthogonal to each other.

10. An emitter (100) according to any of claims 1-5 and 7, characterized in that the conductor (101) has one or more of the following shapes: rhombus, diamond, circular, oval, rectangular, hexagonal, octagonal, parallelogram and trapezoidal.

11. Radiator (100) according to any of claims 1-5 and 7, wherein the continuous outer frame part (1011) and the enclosed part (1012) are arranged in the same plane.

12. An emitter (100) according to any of claims 1-5 and 7, characterized in that the emitter (100) is a patch structure emitter.

13. An emitter (100) according to any one of claims 1-5 and 7, further comprising:

at least one parasitic radiating element (104) arranged above the conductive body (101).

14. An antenna (300), comprising:

a plurality of radiators (100) according to any one of claims 1-13;

at least one reflector (304), the plurality of radiators (100) being supported on the at least one reflector (304), the at least one reflector being configured to reflect a portion of electromagnetic waves radiated by the plurality of radiators (100); and

a first feeding unit and a second feeding unit both configured to feed the plurality of radiators (100).

15. The antenna (300) of claim 14, wherein the antenna (300) comprises a massive MIMO antenna, a wideband antenna, or a multiband antenna.

16. A base station, characterized in that it comprises at least one antenna (300) according to claim 14 or 15.

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