Solar-Cell Metasurface-Integrated Circularly Polarized Antenna With 100% Insolation

A circularly polarized (CP) patch antenna loaded with a metasurface, which is realized with a lattice of 4 × 4 square solar cells, is presented. The antenna is composed of a slotted circular patch sandwiched between the metasurface and the ground plane. This arrangement not only allows for total exposure of the solar cells to sunlight (100% insolation) but also improves antenna performance greatly. The final design, with an overall size of 40 mm × 40 mm × 3.5 mm (0.87λ
_o
× 0.87λ
_o
× 0.076λ
_o
at 6.5 GHz) yields a VSWR <;2 bandwidth of 6.05-7.33 GHz and 3 dB axial-ratio (AR) bandwidth of 6.0-7.05 GHz. The antenna yields good broadside, right-hand CP radiation with a peak gain of 9.0 dBic, and high radiation efficiency of >85% across its 3 dB AR bandwidth.