Suppression of Common-Mode Resonance in Multiband Base Station Antennas

Abstract

5G demands a significant increment in the number of connected devices. As a result, gNodeBs are constantly pushed to serve more spectrum and smaller sectors. These increased capacity demands are met by using multiband antennas in base stations. One of the key challenges with multiband antennas is the pattern distortions due to the presence of other surrounding antenna element structures. This work provides a novel approach to address the challenge of pattern distortion in the lower frequency band 690–960 MHz due to common-mode (CM) currents in the high- frequency-band antenna element operating in the 1810–2690 MHz band. A common-mode suppression circuit is integrated with the impedance matching network of the high-band antenna element to reduce these common-mode currents. The experimental results verified that the common-mode suppression circuit reduces the common-mode currents at low-band frequencies by moving the common-mode resonance frequency outside the low frequency band, resulting in cleaner low-band patterns meeting pattern specifications.