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A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Communications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 July 2024 | Viewed by 6006

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Agnese Mazzinghi

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Guest Editor

Department of Information Engineering, University of Florence, Via di Santa Marta 3, 50139 Florence, Italy
Interests: antennas; periodic surfaces; computational methods

Dr. Federico Puggelli

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Huawei Technologies Italia Srl, Milan, Italy
Interests: antennas; signal processing; high-frequency methods for electromagnetic scattering and propagation

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The 5G communication technology is not just an evolution of the 4G network because it has completely different technical characteristics. Indeed, it has been designed to have wide bandwidth, increased data rate, and lower latency through different approaches for managing communications, different frequencies, different antennas, and different data transmission techniques. 5G aims to improve wireless services' flexibility and enable new opportunities for society and businesses. In the near future, it is expected to deal with machines capable of performing smart actions, connected stadiums, ports, and airports, and sensors that collect data and process it in real-time, offering useful information as feedback in an automatic control system. 5G is progressing, but it is not exploiting all its potential yet. It brings new challenges for the physical infrastructure designers in which the antennas play a key role.

5G antennas for base stations and smartphone applications have to be able to cover many frequencies, thus making it possible to achieve faster download speeds, and creating more capacity and connectivity for different devices.

Beamforming is another key wireless technique aimed at increasing network throughput and capacity. Beamforming uses advanced antenna technologies to focus the wireless signal in a specific direction, rather than broadcasting it to a wide area. This technique reduces interference between beams directed in different directions, increasing data rates for all users—it is particularly useful in urban areas with high-rise buildings.

Last, but not least, 5G antenna systems are expected to be efficient: this will not only enhance customer experience (a better signal to noise ratio implies higher quality communications), but also help in reducing both energy consumption and the environmental impacts of our energy use.

This Special Issue is addressed to all types of antennas designed for 5G applications.

Dr. Agnese Mazzinghi
Dr. Federico Puggelli
Guest Editors

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Keywords

MIMO
beamforming
efficiency
capacity
5G technology
wireless applications
bandwidth

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

38 pages, 20966 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Decoupling and Cloaking of Rectangular and Circular Patch Antennas and Interleaved Antenna Arrays with Planar Coated Metasurfaces at C-Band Frequencies—Design and Simulation Study

by Shefali Pawar, Doojin Lee, Harry Skinner, Seong-Youp Suh and Alexander Yakovlev

Sensors 2024, 24(1), 291; https://doi.org/10.3390/s24010291 - 03 Jan 2024

Viewed by 809

Abstract

An electromagnetic cloaking approach is employed with the intention to curb the destructive effects of mutual interference for rectangular and circularly shaped patch antennas situated in a tight spacing. Primarily, we show that by coating the top surface of each patch with an appropriately designed metasurface, the mutual coupling is considerably reduced between the antennas. Furthermore, the cloak construct is extended to a tightly spaced, interleaved linear patch antenna array configuration and it is shown that the coated metasurfaces successfully enhance the performance of each array in terms of their matching characteristics, total efficiencies and far-field realized gain patterns for a broad range of beam-scan angles. For rectangular patches, the cloaked Array I and II achieve corresponding peak total efficiencies of 93% and 90%, in contrast to the total efficiencies of 57% and 21% for uncloaked Array I and II, respectively, at their operating frequencies. Moreover, cloaked rectangular Array I and II exhibit main lobe gains of 13.2 dB and 13.8 dB, whereas uncloaked Array I and II only accomplish main lobe gains of 10 dB and 5.5 dB, respectively. Likewise, for the cloaked circular patches, corresponding total efficiencies of 91% and 89% are recorded for Array I and II, at their operating frequencies (uncloaked Array I and II show peak efficiencies of 71% and 55%, respectively). The main lobe gain for each cloaked circular patch array is approximately 14.2 dB, whereas the uncloaked Array I and II only achieve maximum gains of 10.5 dB and 7.5 dB, respectively. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue 5G Antennas)

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15 pages, 1949 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Joint Active and Passive Beamforming in RIS-Assisted Secure ISAC Systems

by Jinsong Chen, Kai Wu, Jinping Niu and Yanyan Li

Sensors 2024, 24(1), 289; https://doi.org/10.3390/s24010289 - 03 Jan 2024

Viewed by 932

Abstract

This paper investigates joint beamforming in a secure integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) system assisted by reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS). The system communicates with legitimate downlink users, detecting a potential target, which is a potential eavesdropper attempting to intercept the downlink communication information from the base station (BS) to legitimate users. To enhance the physical-layer secrecy of the system, we design and introduce interference signals at the BS to disrupt eavesdroppers’ attempts to intercept legitimate communication information. The BS simultaneously transmits communication and interference signals, both utilized for communication and sensing to guarantee the sensing and communication quality. By jointly optimizing the BS active beamformer and the RIS passive beamforming matrix, we aim to maximize the achievable secrecy rate and radiation power of the system. We develop an effective scheme to find the active beamforming matrix through fractional programming (FP) and semi-definite programming (SDP) techniques and obtain the RIS phase shift matrix via a local search technique. Simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed methods in enhancing communication and sensing performance. Additionally, the results demonstrate the effectiveness of introducing the interference signals and RIS in enhancing the physical-layer secrecy of the ISAC system. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue 5G Antennas)

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14 pages, 7195 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Miniature Eight-Port Antenna Array Based on Split-Ring Resonators for 5G Sub-6 GHz Handset Applications

by Jianlin Huang, Lingrong Shen, Shanshan Xiao, Xiaojing Shi and Gui Liu

Sensors 2023, 23(24), 9734; https://doi.org/10.3390/s23249734 - 10 Dec 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 714

Abstract

In this article, a miniature eight-port multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna array is proposed for fifth-generation (5G) sub-6 GHz handset applications. The individual antenna element comprises a radiator shaped like the Chinese character “王” (phonetically represented as “Wang”) and three split-ring resonators (SRR) on the metal frame. The size of the individual antenna element is only 6.8 × 7 × 1 mm³ (47.6 mm³). The proposed antenna element has a −10 dB impedance bandwidth of 1.7 GHz (from 3.3 GHz to 5 GHz) that can cover 5G New Radio (NR) sub-6 GHz bands N77 (3.3–4.2 GHz), N78 (3.3–3.8 GHz), and N79 (4.4–5 GHz). The evolution design, the current distribution, the effects of single-handed holding, and the analysis of the parameters are deduced to study the approach used to design the featured antenna. The measured total efficiencies are from 40% to 80%, the isolation is better than 12 dB, the calculated envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) is less than 0.12, and the calculated channel capacity (CC) ranges from 35 to 38 bps/Hz. The presented antenna array is a good alternative to 5G mobile handsets with wideband operation, a metal frame, and minimized spacing. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue 5G Antennas)

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13 pages, 6899 KiB

Open AccessCommunication

Superdirective Wideband Array of Circular Monopoles with Loaded Patches for Wireless Communications

by Ping Lu, Zhiwei Liu, Enpu Lei, Kama Huang and Chaoyun Song

Sensors 2023, 23(18), 7851; https://doi.org/10.3390/s23187851 - 13 Sep 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 581

Abstract

A wideband superdirective array, composed of a two-element circular monopole configuration, is introduced. The monopoles are placed in close proximity, facing each other on a metal ground. To ensure good matching at high frequencies, two pairs of elliptical patches are added to the sides of the monopoles, enhancing the surface current of the circular patch for wideband performance. To achieve equal amplitude excitation and the desired phase difference, a wideband power divider with a phase shifter is designed to feed the antenna array. Simulation and measurement results demonstrate that the proposed wideband antenna array, operating within the frequency range of 2.94–7.93 GHz, exhibits a maximum directivity of 8.36–10 dBi, with an antenna efficiency ranging from 47.86 to 83.18% across the bandwidth. The proposed array has the advantages of miniaturization, high directivity and wideband operation and can be widely used in various portable wireless communication systems, including WLAN (5.05–5.9 GHz), ISM (5.725–5.875 GHz), 5G communication (3.3–3.8 GHz), etc. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue 5G Antennas)

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21 pages, 3810 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Beam-Switching Antennas for 5G Millimeter-Wave Wireless Terminals

by Khaled M. Morshed, Debabrata K. Karmokar, Karu P. Esselle and Ladislau Matekovits

Sensors 2023, 23(14), 6285; https://doi.org/10.3390/s23146285 - 10 Jul 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1474

Abstract

Beam-switching is one of the paramount focuses of 28 GHz millimeter-wave 5G devices. In this paper, a one-dimensional (1D) pattern reconfigurable leaky-wave antenna (LWA) was investigated and developed for wireless terminals. In order to provide a cost-effective solution, a uniform half-width LWA was used. The 1D beam-switching LWA was designed using three feed points at three different positions; by selecting the feeds, the direction of the beam can be switched. The antenna can switch the beam in three different directions along the antenna axis, such as backward, broadside, and forward. The 1D beam-switching antenna was fabricated, and because of the wide beamwidth, the measured radiation patterns can fill 128

^{\circ}

of space (3 dB coverage), from

θ

= −64

^{\circ}

to +64

^{\circ}

ϕ

= 0

^{\circ}

. Following this, two of these antennas were placed at right angles to each other to achieve two-directional (2D) beam switching. The 2D beam-switching antenna pair was also prototyped and tested after integrating them into the ground plane of a wireless device. The antenna is able to point the beam in five different directions; moreover, its beam covers 167

^{\circ}

(

θ

= −89

^{\circ}

to +78

^{\circ}

) at

ϕ

= 0

^{\circ}

, and 154

^{\circ}

(

θ

= −72

^{\circ}

to +82

^{\circ}

) at

ϕ

= 90

^{\circ}

. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue 5G Antennas)

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16 pages, 6045 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Cloaking of Equilateral Triangle Patch Antennas and Antenna Arrays with Planar Coated Metasurfaces

by Shefali Pawar, Harry Skinner, Seong-Youp Suh and Alexander Yakovlev

Sensors 2023, 23(12), 5517; https://doi.org/10.3390/s23125517 - 12 Jun 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1074

Abstract

We have proposed an effective metasurface design to accomplish the cloaking of equilateral patch antennas and their array configuration. As such, we have exploited the concept of electromagnetic invisibility, employing the mantle cloaking technique with the intention to eliminate the destructive interference ensuing between two distinct triangular patches situated in a very congested arrangement (sub-wavelength separation is maintained between the patch elements). Based on the numerous simulation results, we demonstrate that the implementation of the planar coated metasurface cloaks onto the patch antenna surfaces compels them to become invisible to each other, at the intended frequencies. In effect, an individual antenna element does not sense the presence of the other, in spite of being in a rather close vicinity. We also exhibit that the cloaks successfully reinstate the radiation attributes of each antenna in such a way that it emulates its respective performance in an isolated environment. Moreover, we have extended the cloak design to an interleaved one-dimensional array of the two patch antennas, and it is shown that the coated metasurfaces assure the efficient performance of each array in terms of their matching as well as radiation characteristics, which in turn, enables them to radiate independently for various beam-scanning angles. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue 5G Antennas)

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