A transparent meshed solar monopole antenna for UWB applications

Abstract

This paper demonstrates the integration of a transparent meshed circular monopole antenna with a polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) solar cell operating as an RF ground plane in addition to its photovoltaic function. While the meshed circular monopole with the feed line printed on a clear acrylic substrate placed upon the poly-Si solar cell offers an optical transparency of 91%, it is demonstrated that the meshed transparent monopole proposes similar radiation characteristics in comparison with its conventional solid counterpart and operates across a measured frequency band of 2.33-10.8 GHz covering UWB applications with an average broadband gain of 4.1 dBi. The proposed meshed solar monopole antenna generates a DC power output of 65.5 mW and operates with a measured adequate solar efficiency of 13.1%.

Design of transparent microstrip grid array antenna

“…The typical structure of a microstrip patch antenna consists of a thick metal layer as the radiating patch, and Ground, placed on a dielectric substrate. Transparent antenna normally designed by replacing the metal patch with Transparent Conducting Oxides (TCO) thin film, and clear glass [1][2][3][4] or PET film [5,6] as the dielectric substrate.…”

“…Normally for semi-transparent solar antenna, clear glass or plastic will be used as the substrate but still using solid metal as the radiating element. The structure of the patch improvised to permit sunlight to pass through to the solar cell that normally placed on the bottom as Ground [3,19,20] or as the reflector of the antenna [21]. One of the problems of these antennas is the shadowing effect that affecting solar performances as the structure of the antenna itself blocked the sunlight to reach the solar cell due to its material properties.…”

New Transparent Bandpass Filter Using Aluminum Thin-Film Micromesh Structure

“…In recent years, the use of a metal mesh film structure has been reported in applications of a transparent antenna [5]- [8]. Yurduseven et al demonstrated the integration of a transparent meshed circular monopole antenna by using a printed Cu mesh [5]. Hong et al proposed transparent (above 60%) microstrip patch antennas fabricated using 5-µm-thick Cu micromesh films [6].…”

Ku-Band Suspended Meshed Patch Antenna Integrated With Solar Cells for Remote Area Applications

“…In relevant studies, several researches have been carried out on the integration of microwave antennas and solar PV cells [8,9]. First combined photovoltaic solar printed patch antenna was proposed by [10], then the integrated solar cells with antennas have been developed recently with dramatic success, in order to achieve a good antenna performance and a compromise between RF performance and transparency as in [11]. However, the design presented in [11] exhibits a bi-directional radiation pattern due to the truncated ground plane and therefore is not suitable for SATCOM applications.…”

“…First combined photovoltaic solar printed patch antenna was proposed by [10], then the integrated solar cells with antennas have been developed recently with dramatic success, in order to achieve a good antenna performance and a compromise between RF performance and transparency as in [11]. However, the design presented in [11] exhibits a bi-directional radiation pattern due to the truncated ground plane and therefore is not suitable for SATCOM applications. Analyzing the fullintegration topologies presented in [10,[12][13][14][15][16][17] most studies have focused on the combination of solar PV cells and antennas operating in relatively low frequency bands and exhibiting narrow bandwidths.…”