A Novel Transparent UWB Antenna for Photovoltaic Solar Panel Integration and RF Energy Harvesting

Abstract

A novel transparent UWB antenna for photovoltaic solar-panel integration and RF energy harvesting is proposed in this paper. Since the approval by the Federal Communications Committee (FCC) in 2002, much research has been undertaken on ultrawide band (UWB) technology especially for wireless communications. However, in the last decade, UWB has also been proposed as a power harvester. In this paper, a transparent cone top tapered slot antenna covering the frequency range from 2.2 GHz to 12.1 GHz is designed and fabricated to provide UWB communications whilst integrated onto to solar panels as well as harvest electromagnetic waves from free space and convert them into electrical energy. The antenna when sandwiched between an a-Si solar panel and glass is able to demonstrate a quasi Omnidirectional pattern that is characteristic of a UWB. The antenna when connected to a 2.55-GHz rectifier is able to produce 18 mV DC in free space and 4.4 mV DC on glass for an input power of 10 dBm at a distance of 5 cm. Although the antenna presented in this paper is a UWB antenna, only an operating range of 2.49 to 2.58 GHz for power scavenging is possible due to the limitation of the narrowband rectifier used for the study.

Flexible CPW fed transparent antenna for WLAN and sub‐6 GHz 5G applications

“…Silver combined with tin oxide which is available in two different variants namely AgHT‐4 and AGHT‐8 has emerged as a good alternative for indium owing to its transparent property and the acceptable value of conductivity . Various nonflexible transparent antennas are proposed by researchers for dual‐band operation and wideband applications . Flexible antennas owing to its ease of integration in nonplanar surfaces along with its wide range of applications in flexible electronics and wearable devices have attracted a lot of researchers to work in this domain.…”

“…1 Various nonflexible transparent antennas are proposed by researchers for dual-band operation 2,3 and wideband applications. [4][5][6][7] Flexible antennas owing to its ease of integration in nonplanar surfaces along with its wide range of applications in flexible electronics and wearable devices have attracted a lot of researchers to work in this domain. Various wideband flexible antennas using inkjet printing, FR4, natural rubber, paper, Kapton polyimide, Rogers 6010, poly 3, 4-ethylene dioxythiophene are proposed for wearable, 8,9 WBAN, 10 5G, 11 IoT devices, 12 implantable devices, 13 organic wearable technologies, 14 flexible electronics, 15 and 4G LTE 16 applications.…”

Compact wideband transparent antenna for 5G communication systems

“…Wideband antennas systems are very encouraging due to its use for communications in short range with a high value of data rate, less power consumption, and wide bandwidth. Various transparent antennas are proposed in the literature for dual‐band and ultra‐wideband characteristics but very few covers the millimeter wave applications. Researchers have proposed various nontransparent antennas using array structures for 5G applications and mobile communication networks .…”

Circular Polarized Transparent Antenna for 5.8 GHZ Wlan Applications

“…Lower than 70% transparency has been recorded for AgHT to have an effective conductivity [3] that is enough to ensure good antenna performances, and based on this, various antenna designs have been reported for UWB [4,5] and frequency dependent applications [6]; however, most of them are linearly polarized (LP).…”