The incoming 5G technology requires antennas with a greater capacity, wider wireless spectrum utilisation, high gain, and steer-ability. This is due to the cramped spectrum utilisation in the previous generation. As a matter of fact, conventional antennas are unable to serve the new frequency due to the limitations in fabrication and installation mainly for smaller sizes. The use of graphene material promises antennas with smaller sizes and thinner dimensions, yet capable of emitting higher frequencies. Hence, graphene antennas were studied at a frequency of 15 GHz in both single and array elements. The high-frequency antenna contributed to a large bandwidth and was excited by coplanar waveguide for easy fabrication on one surface via screen printing. The defected ground structure was applied in an array element to improve the radiation and increase the gain. The results showed that the printed, single element graphene antenna produced an impedance bandwidth, gain, and efficiency of 48.64%, 2.87 dBi, and 67.44%, respectively. Meanwhile, the array element produced slightly better efficiency (72.98%), approximately the same impedance bandwidth as the single element (48.98%), but higher gain (8.41 dBi). Moreover, it provided a beam width of 21.2° with scanning beam capability from 0° up to 39.05°. Thus, it was proved that graphene materials can be applied in 5G.

In the 5G system, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antennas for both transmitting and receiving ends are required. However, the design of MIMO antennas at the 5G upper band is challenging due to the mutual coupling issues. Many techniques have been proposed to improve antenna isolation; however, some of the designs have impacts on the antenna performance, especially on the gain and bandwidth reduction, or an increase in the overall size. Thus, a design with a detailed trade-off study must be implemented. This article proposes a new C-shaped parasitic structure around a main circular radiating patch of a MIMO antenna at 16 GHz with enhanced isolation features. The proposed antenna comprises two elements with a separation of 0.32λ edge to edge between radiation parts placed in a linear configuration with an overall dimension of 15 mm × 26 mm. The C-shaped parasitic element was introduced around the main radiating antenna for better isolation. Based on the measurement results, the proposed structure significantly improved the isolation from −23.86 dB to −32.32 dB and increased the bandwidth from 1150 MHz to 1400 MHz. For validation, the envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) and the diversity gain (DG) were also measuredas 0.148 dB and 9.89 dB, respectively. Other parameters, such as the radiation pattern, the total average reflection coefficient and the mean effective gain, were also calculated to ensure the validity of the proposed structure. Based on the design work and analysis, the proposed structure was proven to improve the antenna isolation and increase the bandwidth, while maintaining the small overall dimension.

In the 5G mobile system, new features such as millimetre wave operation, small cell size and multi beam are requested at base stations. At millimetre wave, the base station antennas become very small in size, which is about 30 cm; thus, dielectric lens antennas that have excellent multi beam radiation pattern performance are suitable candidates. For base station application, the lens antennas with small thickness and small curvature are requested for light weight and ease of installation. In this paper, a new lens shaping method for thin and small lens curvature is proposed. In order to develop the thin lens antenna, comparisons of antenna structures with conventional aperture distribution lens and Abbe’s sine lens are made. Moreover, multi beam radiation pattern of three types of lenses are compared. As a result, the thin and small curvature of the proposed lens and an excellent multi beam radiation pattern are ensured.

Recently, helical antennas had been used as a very small implantable antenna in a capsule endoscopy system. For a helical antenna, a normal-mode helical antenna (NMHA) is promising because of its small size and the completeness of an antenna design method, which has already been established. However, in the human body, the effects of human tissues on the electrical characteristics of an NMHA were not clarified. The most important aspect is to determine the self-resonant structures. In this letter, a deterministic equation is derived for the self-resonant structures of an NMHA in the human body. By utilizing simulation results of an electromagnetic simulator, a capacitive reactance equation is deduced based on the electric field distributions around an antenna. An inductive reactance equation is obtained by modifying the equation of free space to the condition of inside a dielectric material. Finally, by equating the capacitive and inductive reactance equations, the self-resonant equation is determined. The accuracy of the equation is ensured through the agreements of the antenna structures given by equations and electromagnetic simulations. Moreover, by fabricating an NMHA and a human body phantom, the measured results are obtained. The self-resonant structure is ensured through the measured results.

In recent years, the development of healthcare monitoring devices requires high performance and compact in-body sensor antennas. A normal-mode helical antenna (NMHA) is one of the most suitable candidates that meets the criteria, especially with the ability to achieve high efficiency when the antenna structure is in self-resonant mode. It was reported that when the antenna was placed in a human body, the antenna efficiency was decreased due to the increase of its input resistance (R_in). However, the reason for R_in increase was not clarified. In this paper, the increase of R_in is ensured through experiments and the physical reasons are validated through electromagnetic simulations. In the simulation, the R_in is calculated by placing the NMHA inside a human’s stomach, skin and fat. The dependency of R_in to conductivity (σ) is significant. Through current distribution calculation, it is verified that the reason of the increase in R_in is due to the decrease of antenna current. The effects of R_in to bandwidth (BW) and electrical field are also numerically clarified. Furthermore, by using the fabricated human body phantom, the measured R_in and bandwidth are also obtained. From the good agreement between the measured and simulated results, the condition of R_in increment is clarified.

Narrow beam width, higher gain and multibeam characteristics are demanded in 5G technology. Array antennas that are utilized in the existing mobile base stations have many drawbacks when operating at upper 5G frequency bands. For example, due to the high frequency operation, the antenna elements become smaller and thus, in order to provide higher gain, more antenna elements and arrays are required, which will cause the feeding network design to be more complex. The lens antenna is one of the potential candidates to replace the current structure in mobile base station. Therefore, a negative refractive index shaped lens is proposed to provide high gain and narrow beamwidth using energy conservation and Abbe’s sine principle. The aim of this study is to investigate the multibeam characteristics of a negative refractive index shaped lens in mobile base station applications. In this paper, the feed positions for the multibeam are selected on the circle from the center of the lens and the accuracy of the feed position is validated through Electromagnetic (EM) simulation. Based on the analysis performed in this study, a negative refractive index shaped lens with a smaller radius and slender lens than the conventional lens is designed, with the additional capability of performing wide-angle beam scanning.