A Wideband Dual-Function Solar Cell Dipole Antenna for Both Energy Harvesting and Wireless Communications

IEICE Electron. Express

et al. 2020

Self Cite

A linearly polarized slot antenna integrated with solar cells is presented. The proposed antenna operates at the center frequency of 1.575 GHz for the global navigation satellite systems. 40 solar cells are adopted for the radiation structure and 4 slots are formed by these solar cells, which can not only be used for wireless communication but also generate DC energy via the photoelectric effect. The proposed design has achieved a relative bandwidth of 19.9% from 1.45 GHz to 1.77 GHz. Bidirectional radiation performance has been realized and the measured gain at 1.575 GHz is 6.6 dBi.

Section: Optical Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Dual-function slot antenna integrated with solar cells for the 1.575-GHz band

Zhao

IEICE Electron. Express

et al. 2020

Self Cite

“…One type of solar cell with the size of 11.2 mm × 11.5 mm is chosen for the dual-function design. Its multi-layer structure is depicted in Figure 2, which is similar to that in [22]. As the size of a single solar cell is relatively small compared with the wavelength of its working frequency, six solar cells are in a serial connection with every two adjacent solar cells overlapped along the long edge.…”

Section: Dualband Solar Cell Antenna Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The disadvantage is that the radiator will cause certain optical blockages. For the third type, the solar cells are adopted for the radiation structure directly [22][23][24][25][26][27]. It contains the dipole [22], shorted patch [23,24], microstrip [25,26], slot [27,28], and Vivaldi antennas [29].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dual-Band Antenna Integrated With Solar Cells for WLAN Applications

Luo

2021

Front. Phys.

Self Cite

A single-port dual-band antenna integrated with solar cells is reported for the 2.4/5-GHz wireless local area network (WLAN) applications. Thirty solar cells are adopted and integrated into the antenna structure for both energy harvesting and wireless communication. The solar cells can act as a director for the lower band, and the main radiation structure for the higher band. The slot and microstrip antennas are incorporated into the compact structure and multiple resonant modes are utilized for dual-band performance. The measurement results show that the lower band is from 2.27 to 2.5 GHz with an omnidirectional radiation pattern and the upper band is from 4.8 to 6.9 GHz with a directional radiation pattern. The proposed solar cell antenna can provide a dual-band performance with the ability of DC power generation, which can be a potential candidate for future green low-carbon communication.

“…A solar cell has been integrated with a dipole antenna for energy harvesting and wireless communications 19 , whereas a solar-cell-integrated antenna has been proposed for 2.4 GHz applications with a low profile structure 20 . Different antenna arrays have been integrated with a solar cell 21 – 25 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ultra-low profile solar-cell-integrated antenna with a high form factor

Ahmed

Lee

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

This paper presents an ultra-low-profile copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) based solar cell integrated antenna with a high form factor. A tiny slot was etched from the solar cell to develop an ultra-low-profile solar-cell-integrated antenna. This tiny slot increases the form factor due to the small clearance area from the solar cell. A ground-radiation antenna design method was applied in which lumped elements were employed inside the tiny slot for antenna operation. Another substrate was used under the solar cell for designing the feeding structure with lumped elements connected to the tiny slot using via holes. A prototype was fabricated and measured to verify the operation of a built-in solar-cell antenna and validate the simulated results. The measured results demonstrate that the solar-cell-integrated antenna covers the entire frequency range of the Industrial Scientific Medical band, from 2.4 to 2.5 GHz, with a maximum gain of 2.79 dBi and radiation efficiency higher than 80% within the impedance bandwidth range. Moreover, the proposed design has an ultra-low-profile structure of only 0.0046 λo, where λo represents the free space wavelength at 2.45 GHz, and a high form factor of 99.1% with no optical blockage. The antenna and solar cell were designed to avoid affecting the performance of each other using the radio-frequency decoupler.