Triple-Band High-Gain Shared-Aperture Antenna for Internet of Vehicles

The realization of Internet of Vehicles (IoV) supports the development of intelligent transportation in a smart city. Existing and coming wireless networks allowing vehicles connect to terrestrial base stations (BS), autonomous aerial vehicles (AAV), and satellites networks are the key to accomplish this ambitious goal of IoV connectivity. The wireless industry as well as the vehicle leaders are now seeking antenna innovations to support the integration of sub-6 GHz (vehicles-to-AAV), 24 GHz (vehicles-to-BS), and 20/30 GHz (vehicles-to-satellites) networks. Here, we introduce a new triple-band high-gain antenna, which produces the operating frequencies at sub-6, <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">K</i>- and <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Ka</i>- bands for the first time. The triple-band performance is realized on a shared-aperture configuration by hybridizing a sub-6 GHz Fabry-Perot Cavity antenna (FPCA), a <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">K</i>-band folded reflectarray antenna (FRA) and a <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Ka</i>-band reflectarray antenna (RA). Three kinds of meta-atoms (MAs) with distinct functions at different frequency bands are used to constitute the respective three functional metasurfaces of the proposed shared-aperture antenna. For demonstration, a prototype is fabricated and measured. The measured effective bandwidths (for the reflection coefficient ≤ −10 dB and the gain variation ≤ 3 dB) are 5.62 to 5.94 GHz, 19.5 to 26 GHz, and 29.5 to 35 GHz with the peak gain of 16 dBi, 27.4 dBi and 30.9 dBi at three bands, respectively.