Analysis of Super-Solar Integrated Patch Antenna for Sub-6 GHz and Beyond 6 GHz Millimeter Wave 5G Applications

Abstract

This article describes a new compact parasitic patch-loaded transparent patch antenna with a copper ground plane for wireless-fidelity (Wi-Fi) and 5thgeneration (5G) millimeter-wave (mm-wave) applications. The proposed antenna uses two rectangular parasitic patches with a rectangular main radiation patch. The L-shaped strips are also added to the main radiation patch and one of the rectangular parasitic patches to cover both the sub-6 GHz and beyond 6 GHz mm-wave 5G frequency spectrums. The same transparent patch antenna with a solar ground plane is built, and its effect is parametrically studied alongside the integration of a polycrystalline silicon solar cell. The proposed antennas with a dimension of 42x30x2 mm23 are fabricated and experimentally validated for impedance and radiation characteristics. In terms of impedance bandwidth, the proposed copper ground plane antenna offers 36.89% (5.04-7.32 GHz), 5.15% (14.35-15.11 GHz), 6.23% (27.08-28.79 GHz), and 21.34% (31.64-39.81 GHz). The solar cell serves as both a photovoltaic generator and the ground plane of the transparent antenna. The same radiating patch with a solar ground plane offers impedance bandwidth of 36.03% (4.47-6.56 GHz), 14.4% (9.6-11.12 GHz), 2.55% (22.14-22.71 GHz), and 27.9% (28.79-39.05 GHz) for 5G applications.