Design and Fabrication Methods for a Biconical Antenna at 28 GHz

This paper investigates the design and fabrication of a low-cost biconical antenna for wireless channel characteristic studies at mmW bands. The proposed antenna consists of a plastic base with two cone indentations, covered with a conductive material. The antenna has a -10 dB impedance bandwidth of 21 to 33 GHz, 1.4 dBi realised gain in the H-plane, and 0.05 dB gain variation in the H-plane at 28 GHz based on the full-wave simulations. The effects of the metal's thickness, roughness, and conductivity on the antenna's radiations are studied before fabrication. Finally, the metal coating of the antenna is fabricated with 3 different methods, and it is found that using a hand-painted silver paint surface is comparable to an industrially painted copper paint surface with 1.3 dBi realised gain and 1.4 dB gain variation in the H-plane at 28 GHz. Copper tape produced much worse results and was found only suitable for some applications that do not need high performance.