A 5G Camouflage Antenna for Pico-Cell Base Stations

A camouflage dual-polarised antenna for 5G pico-cell (PC) base stations is proposed in this study. The antenna offers good coverage for the 5G sub-6 GHz frequency band (3.3–3.8 GHz) with a reflection coefficient better than −15 dB and a port-to-port coupling less than −23 dB. The proposed antenna consists of two layers (a radiating layer and a feeding layer) separated by an air gap. The radiating layer uses a transparent conducting film (indium tin oxide) to form two patches (a radiating patch and a parasitic patch) printed on the opposite sides of a glass laminate. The radiating layer has visual transparency of 77%, which makes it possible to be integrated with the glass cover of the head of a street lamp while the feeding layer is embedded inside the head for camouflage. A 2 × 2 antenna array is formed to achieve a realised gain of 13.2 dBi and a 3-dB solid angle of 33° × 33°. Therefore, the proposed design is very suitable to be employed as a camouflage 5G PC base station.