An Optically Transparent Low-Profile Dual-Band MIMO Antenna for WLAN System

This work presents an optically transparent multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) antenna operating in 2.4/5 GHz wireless local area network (WLAN). An artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) is designed as the ground plane, effectively reducing the profile and enhancing the gain of the proposed MIMO antenna. To reduce the coupling between two antenna units, a rectangular strip slotted with a rectangular groove is introduced. By utilizing low-loss glass-based indium tin oxide (ITO) as the substrate and reflector, optical transparency of the antenna is achieved. The profile and edge-to-edge distance of the proposed antenna are only 0.067λ0 and 0.075λ0, respectively. The simulated results show that the gain of 1.36 and 6.3 dBi in lower and upper operating band can be achieved, respectively. The proposed MIMO antenna featuring the advantages of miniaturization, high isolation, and high gain shows prospective potential applications in indoor communication systems, solar panel mounted antenna and vehicle communication, where their optical transparency enables seamless integration.