A Broadband Transparent Antenna Integrated with an Indoor Solar Cell for WLAN Applications

The design of a broadband transparent antenna integrated with an indoor solar cell for WLAN communication systems is described. The transparent patch antenna is realized using two layers of copper mesh with micron-sized linewidth. Measurement results show that a broad bandwidth of 20% covering the WLAN band from 4.8 to 5.9 GHz and a uni-directional radiation pattern with backlobe and cross-polarization below −20 dB can be achieved. By utilizing a transparent copper mesh ground on top of the solar cell, a good antenna gain of up to 7 dBi can be achieved. We also utilize two methods to evaluate the transparency of the proposed antenna and it is found to be at least 83%.