Integration of Slot Antennas in Commercial Photovoltaic Panels for Stand-Alone Communication Systems

Author

Caso, Roberto ; D´Alessandro, Andrea ; Michel, Andrea ; Nepa, Paolo

Author_Institution

Dept. of Inf. Eng., Univ. of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

Volume

61

Issue

1

fYear

2013

Firstpage

62

Lastpage

69

Abstract

The integration of slot antennas in a class of commercial photovoltaic (PV) panels is addressed. The basic idea is to exploit the room available between adjacent solar cells, also taking advantage of the presence of the cover glass layer that gives a valuable miniaturization effect. As test cases, two antenna designs are presented for stand-alone communication systems operating in the GSM/UMTS (1710-2170 MHz) and WiMAX (3300-3800 MHz) frequency bands, respectively. At early design stage, antenna design has been performed by resorting to a simplified numerical model; afterwards, the effects on the antenna performance of nearby solar cells and DC bus wires have been numerically evaluated. The impedance tuning of the final antenna design has been carried out through a measurement campaign with slot antenna prototypes attached to real PV panels.

Keywords

3G mobile communication; WiMax; cellular radio; numerical analysis; slot antennas; solar cells; DC bus wires; GSM-UMTS; PV panels; WiMax; adjacent solar cells; commercial photovoltaic panel; cover glass layer; frequency 1710 GHz to 2170 GHz; frequency 3300 GHz to 3800 GHz; impedance tuning; measurement campaign; miniaturization effect; numerical model; slot antenna integration; stand-alone communication system; Glass; Numerical models; Photovoltaic cells; Slot antennas; Wires; Integrated antennas; photovoltaic panels; slot antennas; solar cells; stand-alone communication systems;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Antennas and Propagation, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-926X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TAP.2012.2220111

Filename

6310017