Dual Polarization Dynamic Alignment of Integrated Phased Arrays

Abstract

This study proposes the concept of dual polarization dynamic alignment (DPDA) technique for integrated phased arrays. The proposed technique enables the alignment of two polarization signals in the receive dual-polarized (DP) antenna, independent of the alignment conditions between the transmit and receive antennas, while effectively mitigating cross-polarization leakage (XPL). To verify the proposed technique, a receive phased array IC with 2V ${+} \,\, 2$ H configuration was fabricated using a 65-nm CMOS process, and a prototype antenna-in-package (AiP) was fabricated by integrating it with a 2-element dual-polarized antenna. The experimental results show that the prototype AiP achieves 20–32 dB cross-polarization isolation (XPI) within 2 GHz bandwidth at 58.2 GHz center frequency when the proposed technique is adopted, even if there is misalignment between the transmit and receive antennas up to 90°. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study for DP signals to improve XPI even under conditions where the transmit and receive antennas are misaligned by up to 90° in a 60 GHz unlicensed band.