Dual-beam antenna aperture

An improved antenna arrangement for base stations in communication networks is disclosed. The arrangement has panel apertures (3) generating a multi-beam pattern simultaneously as producing acceptable side-lobe levels. A typical arrangement consists of a plurality of radiator elements (5) arranged in three separate vertical columns of radiating elements along the antenna panels thereby forming the radiation aperture. A number of such panels together form a base station antenna, where each such aperture produces two beams. Each group of three separate columns is generally further divided into sub-panels for providing different elevation patterns. Feeding signals for the two lobes from each group of three separate columns is then connected to a an elevation beam-forming network and further to an azimuth beam-forming network (7) having three output terminals forming antenna ports. The beam-forming network (7) generally creates a 90 DEG phase-gradient between the signals appearing at the antenna ports. The three separate columns are typically vertically polarized and consist of a number of sub-panels in the elevation direction and each of the three columns contains at least three aperture-coupled radiator elements. The aperture-coupled radiator elements (5) generally consist of patch antenna elements and are typically separately fed by a strip-line network. The beam-forming networks may either be supporting a 90 DEG phase-gradient angle or may be supporting arbitrary angles.