2017 11th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EUCAP)
Stacked Patch Antenna Sub-array with Low Mutual
Coupling for 79 GHz MIMO Radar Applications
M. Mosalanejad1,2 , S. Brebels1 , I. Ocket1,2 , C. Soens1 , G. A. E. Vandenbosch2
1 IMEC, SSET/CSI, Kapeldreef 75, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium
2 KU Leuven, Div. ESAT-TELEMIC, Kasteelpark Arenberg 10, B-3001, Leuven, Belgium
mohammad.mosalanejad@imec.be
AbstractIn this paper, new wideband cavity backed aperture
coupled microstrip antenna is presented for 79 GHz MIMO radar
applications. This designs is based on a sub-arrays consisting
of two single elements, which have stacked rectangular patch
radiators. A microstrip to stripline transition and a series
feeding topology is used to feed the elements. The antennas are
manufactured by using a new high resolution multi-layer PCB
technology. The performance of this antennas have been verified
by both simulations and measurements. Antenna bandwidth is
9.7%, and the gain is more than 5.2dBi. Large beam widths of
138 degrees in E-plane and 40 degrees in H-plane are obtained.
Antenna radiation efficiency is more than 75%, the mutual
coupling between the array elements is less than -18dB.
Index TermsAdvanced multi-layer PCB, cavity backed an-
tenna, millimeter wave, MIMO radar applications.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Millimeter wave (MMW) applications have become increas-
ingly important in recent years, both in communications and in
sensing. The latter is currently dominated by automotive radar,
but it is expected that millimeter wave sensing applications are
to follow the growth of millimeter wave communications. As
CMOS is emerging as a viable technology for 79 GHz radar
Systems-On-Chip, lower system cost [1] will be the result.
The concept of MIMO radar has received considerable
attention within the context of automotive radar. MIMO beam-
forming has several benefits over classical beam forming,
the main benefit being that it synthesizes virtual antenna
arrays with a larger number of elements [2], leading to
increased angular resolution [3]. In continuous wave MIMO
radar, mutual coupling between the transmitter and receiver
antennas is an important drawback, and its effect on system
performance must be mitigated as much as possible [4]. Even
though different people have reported various methods in the
literature to control and reduce this mutual coupling, most of
these methods suffer from low bandwidth and difficulties in
the fabrication procedure. These methods are mainly focused
on EBG, metamaterial [5], and defected ground structures, or
using non-regular patch shapes.
Another reported technique is to use a metallic cavity
around the patch elements. This metallic cavity can be imple-
mented by metallic micro-vias in PCB technology. Indeed this
metallic cavity reduces the mutual coupling by suppressing
978-88-907018-7-0/17/$31.00 2017 IEEE 190
the surface waves through the substrate. Even though various
kinds of cavity backed antennas are proposed in literature
at millimeter wave frequency bands, none of them are suit-
able to be used in MMW MIMO radar modules. The main
problems are narrow beam width [6], high manufacturing cost
[7], fabrication difficulties [8], and large size of the antenna
element which must be strictly less than half a lambda for
radar applications [6].
Multi-layer technologies like LTCC (low temperature co-
fired ceramic), LCP (liquid crystal polymer), and MLO (plastic
or multi-layer organic packages), and advanced multi-layer
PCB technology are common technologies that have been
extensively used in various electronic devices, owing to their
numerous advantages. The main advantages are high density,
small size, and simple installation. These technologies are
also very useful and applicable in high speed circuits. On
the other hand, some disadvantages still remain, such as high
cost, and long production cycle. In [9], [10] the authors have
used LTCC technology to realize antenna arrays for 60 GHz
communication systems. Even though this technology is very
high-performance, it is currently considered too expensive
for many applications. Also, in [11], a broadband 60-GHz
aperture-coupled patch antenna is designed and integrated into
a 5-layer LCP PCB technology. But air cavities have been
embedded into the PCB, which makes the fabrication more
difficult and expensive.
In this paper, a cavity backed stacked patch antenna sub-
array, which is designed for a 79 GHz MIMO radar application
is presented. This antenna has been fabricated with a cheaper
advanced multi-layer PCB technology. In the next sections,
MIMO radar configuration, PCB technology, antenna topol-
ogy, simulation and measurement results will be discussed.
II. MIMO R ADAR C ONFIGURATION
The configuration of the MIMO array implemented in our
radar group is shown in Fig. 1. According to the concept of the
virtual array as described in [2], with a spatial convolution of
the 4 elements both in the Tx and Rx arrays, a virtual linear
array with 16 elements in the receiver part is formed. It is
evident that since the reflected radar signal level in the Rx is
low, the mutual coupling between the Tx and Rx must be as
low as possible, for the proper functioning of the radar.
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Fig. 1: MIMO Radar Configuration.
The main requirement of the MIMO system considered is
the cross talk between the antennas. The target was to reach
less than -40 dB between the Rx and Tx antennas and less than
-18 dB between the Rx and Rx and the Tx and Tx antennas,
respectively. A -10 dB bandwidth of at least 4 GHz had to be
reached. The gain and efficiency had to be more than 4 dB
and 75%, respectively. The allowed size of the receiver part of
the antenna and the issue of grating lobes demands a distance
between the elements not larger than half a lambda in free
space.
III. PCB T ECHNOLOGY
The PCB technology that is exploited here is referred to as
Any-Layer PCB Technology. The Any-Layer technology is
an advancement of standard existing HDI (High Density In-
terconnect) technology in PCBs. With Any-Layer technology
all electrical connections between the individual PCB layers
are formed by laser-drilled micro-vias. This gives the design
community optimum design freedom as each layer or connec-
tion on a specific layer can be connected to every other layer
within the PCB stack-up. In general, conventionally through
holes vias are replaced by micro-vias with quite a bit smaller
features. There is also an extensive space saving opportunity,
reducing size, layer-count or weight of a product or increasing
routing density on a certain given product dimension.
Although the features for this technology is a little bigger
than the features for other multi-layer technologies, it benefits
from lower cost, and also less fabrication difficulty. For
instance, LTCC, LCP, and MLO are all advanced and accurate
multi-layer technologies with quite a bit small features, but
they suffer from two disadvantages. The first one is the high
tape-out cost, and the second one is the specific material that
is used during their process and makes the fabrication more
difficult. On the other hand, Any-Layer technology is really
cheaper, and can be implemented with ordinary substrates
found in the market. For a better comprehension, a good
comparison between the LTCC and An-Layer technologies are
done in Table I.
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TABLE I: A comparison between Any-Layer PCB, and LTCC.
TABLE II: Characteristics of the multi-layer stack.
IV. A NTENNA SUB - ARRAY
In this section, we will talk about the antenna structure.
As already discussed, for fabrication of this antenna, a high
resolution multi-layer PCB technology is used. The antenna
build-up is shown in Table II. As it is clear, this build-up
is completely symmetrical along the substrate thicknesses.
Eight metal layers, and seven different substrates are used.
All of these substrates are from Panasonic Megtron 6. The
three middle substrates, substrates 3, 4, and 5, are the thickest
substrates to reach more bandwidth. The others which are
more close to the bottom and top, are chosen thinner to get
an acceptable width for microstrip and strip lines. Among the
metal layers in the build-up, metal layers 2, 4, and 7 are the
ground planes. Other metal layers including layers 1, 3, 5, 6,
8 are reserved for the signal routes. The slot is embedded into
GND2 layer, and two patches are placed in metal layer 5 and
8 relatively.
In this antenna, a wideband microstrip to stripline feed
transition is designed through the first ground plane (GND1
in the build-up). The reason is to avoid back side radiation of
the antenna on the chip side. This transition can be seen in
the side view of the antenna in Fig. 2.
This antenna is a sub-array of two elements which are put
in each others H-Plane. The reason is to make the beam
width in this plane narrower to lower the mutual coupling
between the receiver and transmitter, and also increase the
gain. In each antenna element, two rectangular stacked patches
are surrounded by a cavity implemented by metallic micro-
vias, which suppress surface waves. The diameter of the cavity
micro-vias is 125um, and the pitch between them is 250um.
Top view and side view of the antenna, with all dimensions
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(a)
(b)
(c)
Fig. 2: Antenna topology and dimensions: The sub-array
dimensions: W1= 0.13mm, W2= 0.1mm, L2= 0.6mm, Lt1=
0.1mm, R1= 0.175mm, R2= 0.1mm, R3= 0.2mm, Lt2=
0.3mm, W3= 0.25mm, L3= 0.75mm, Lt3= 0.1mm, W4=
0.09mm, W5= 0.09, L5= 1.85mm, W6= 0.11, L6= 1.84mm,
W7= 0.11mm, L7= 1.21mm, PW1= PL1= PW3= PL3=
0.62mm, PW2= PL2= PW4= PL4= 0.68mm, CW1= CW2=
1.27mm, CL1= CL2= 1.35mm, D1= 1.75mm.
are shown in Fig. 2. Also the fabricated antenna is shown in
Fig. 3.
Two sub-array elements are placed about a half free space
wavelength apart (2mm), and fed with a series feeding network
and an inset feeding technique for each patch. The topology
is shown in Fig. 2. The Tx and Rx sub-arrays must be placed
in each others H-plane in order to minimize the coupling
between them. The coupling in E-plane is much larger, but less
critical. However, the distance between sub-arrays in E-plane
must be less than half a lambda in order to avoid side lobes,
as shown in Fig. 1. The chosen corporate feeding network
topology offers a simple solution to be able to do this.
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Fig. 3: Top view of fabricated antenna with advanced multi-
layer PCB technology.
Fig. 4: Simulated and measured S11.
V. A NTENNA C HARACTERISTICS
A. Reflection coefficient and mutual coupling
For this antenna, the simulated and measured antenna re-
flection coefficient are shown in Fig. 4. All of the simulations
are done by Ansys HFSS. According to this figure, the -10
dB input impedance bandwidth is from 75.65 GHz to 83.32
GHz, which is equal to 7.67 GHz, and 9.7 % of the center
frequency. The measured results, show a shifted bandwidth
from 74 GHz to 81.9 GHz. Fabrication tolerances on the
material characteristics, substrates thicknesses, and dimensions
are probably the main reasons for this 1.6 GHz shift. But
according to a survey from the authors, some change in the
material characteristics has the highest possibility among the
above reasons, which means that by choosing better materials,
more exact results can be achieved. It must be noted even
with this frequency shift, the antenna sub-array still covers
the required bandwidth of the MIMO radar, which is from 77
to 81 GHz.
As it is clear from Fig. 4, this antenna has two different
resonance frequencies in the band of 77-81 GHz. Although
the cavity has some impact on these resonance frequencies,
but they mainly come from the two stacked patches.
B. Gain and Radiation characteristics
This antenna has a gain of 5.2 dB at 79 GHz, and the
radiation efficiency is at least 75%, regarding the high loss
of materials in the build-up and 0.6 dB path loss along
the feed transition. The normalized radiation pattern for this
antenna sub-array is measured, and the results are shown
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(a)

Fig. 6: Snapshot of simulated electric field intensity in H-plane

in logarithmic scale at 79 GHz.

(b)
Fig. 5: Single element radiation pattern in 77 GHz, a) E-plane
and b) H-plane.

versus simulation in Fig. 5 for both E and H-planes. For the

Co polarization, there is a good match between the measured
and simulated results, but for the cross polarization, there is a
discrepancy. The reasons can be listed as: the uncertainty of
the measurement itself, the slight asymmetry in the fabricated (a)
antenna, and finally the small misalignment between the AUT
and the horn antenna. Also, regarding these plots, this antenna
has a very wide 3-dB beam width of 138 degrees in E-plane
and a narrower beam width of 40 degrees in the H-plane.
C. Shielding effectiveness of package
The electrical field intensity is simulated and illustrated
in Fig. 6. This figure clearly shows the near-field radiation
emerging from the top patch on the top of the package, and the
field intensity reduction at the bottom of the package. In this
figure, Red color corresponds with maximum electrical field (b)
intensity, yellow 10 dB lower, green 20 dB lower and dark-blue
30 dB lower. According to this figure, the field intensity at the Fig. 7: Mutual Coupling in, a) E-plane, and b) H-plane.
bottom of the package is around 20 dB lower than the intensity
directly on top of the radiating patches. The bottom shielding
layer (GND1 in the build-up) has a significant impact on the grade the radar functionality. In this case, using metallic micro-
backside radiation reduction, which allow us to place the chip via cavities around the patches can significantly decrease this
directly below the radiation elements, thereby decreasing the mutual coupling. In our radar module, our requirements was
interconnect length and losses. to reach less than -18dB for the mutual coupling between
Rx or Tx elements, and less than -40dB between Rx and Tx
VI. M UTUAL C OUPLING elements. The second target was really more crucial for whole
As mentioned before, in MIMO radar applications, high radar system.
level of mutual coupling between the elements can really de- In this section, the mutual coupling between the elements in

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different scenarios has been studied through simulations. The
results are illustrated in Fig. 7. The number of the ports in
these plots are all referred to ports in Fig. 1.
As mentioned before, the main advantage of using cavities
in cavity backed antennas is to reduce the mutual coupling
between the array elements, which can enhance the function-
ality of the MIMO radar a lot. For this MIMO radar, the
target for mutual coupling between the Tx or Rx subarrays
was -18 dB, while the target for mutual coupling between the
complete Tx and Rx antennas was -40 dB. The second target is
a really crucial one for the whole radar system. Hence, in this
section, the mutual coupling between the elements in different
scenarios has been studied through simulations, and the results
are plotted in 7. The number of the ports in these plots are all
referred to ports in Fig. 1. In the first plot, the mutual coupling
between port 6 and ports 5, 7, and 8 (all in the Rx part) is
given. The distance between the Rx sub-arrays is 2mm mm,
which is half wavelength in free space at 79 GHz. Regarding
this plot, the mutual coupling is less than -18 dB. In the second
plot, the mutual coupling between the Rx and Tx sub-arrays
is figured, which are in 7.6 mm or two free space wavelength
far from each other. Here, the mutual coupling is less than -52
dB within the MIMO radar band, which completely satisfy the
requirements of the MIMO radar application.
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VII. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, a new broadband cavity backed stacked patch
antenna sub-array for MMW MIMO radar applications was
introduced. This antenna was fabricated through a low cost
advanced PCB technology. The antenna topology and the
PCB technology have been explained in details. Reflection
coefficient and radiation pattern measurements and simulations
show a good agreement. The antenna topology has a broad
bandwidth of 9.7% and, and also a very wide beam width in
E-plane. The mutual coupling between receiver and transmitter
antennas is designed to be below -18 dB over the whole
bandwidth.

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