One of the biggest challenges that companies are facing in the age of universal connection is the ability to bring enough network resources online to support the growing demand for capacity, especially linked to the data generated by the Internet of Things (IoT).

This has pushed several vendors to use millimeter waves to provide high-speed connections, but one of a major concern is that mm-wave mobile networks won’t be able to provide coverage everywhere, particularly in cluttered outdoor environments such as cities, because they can’t always guarantee a Line-of-Sight connection in the presence of obstacles between base stations and mobile terminals.

Our client requires support for a development of Antenna-Embedded building glass working at LTE and 5G frequencies for mobile network applications, which allows the propagation of the radio signal of the mobile networks inside the buildings

We aims to providing professional consultancy support in the phases of study, development and technical assistance necessary to cover all the activities of the project

Working closely with the customer’s staff, sharing design choices, possible developments and providing all the technical knowledge of the employees involved, we provides as well a Project Management Support

Project Description

The glass panels for buildings can be confused as common glass panels or simple windows but in reality they represent a small engineering evolution, as the glass is composed of different layers depending on the applications and in particular some are able to filter the rays UV through the application of extremely thin metal sheet (ex. silver) of the order of tens of micro-meters. The presence of glass and the metallic coating influence the antenna’s performance.

So, our proposal was to start the study from simple antenna (dipole) working in the LTE band of mobile networks and evaluate the effects on performance considering different environments of propagation (free space, immersed in glass and glass with metallic coating). After analyzing and optimizing the dipole with respect to the effects due to the presence of the glass and the metal layer, the analysis was made of the possible configurations and antenna models that can be applied in the real scenario, following the customer’s requests.
The development of the whole project was possible using EM simulation software that use the MoM and MLFMM solvers.

System Overview

According to the technical request provided by the customer, the approach of LRS was to analyzed the effects of glass and metallic coating in the antenna performances.

After the analysis we proceeded to build a 3D model of the glass panel that reflects the physical dimensions and dielectric properties of glass and metallic coating. Afterwards, different types of antennas have been applied that fit well to the scenario to be simulated and different scenarios have been simulated with different configurations, in case of indoor and outdoor antenna configuration.
The characteristic parameters of the performance of the antenay (S11, S21, Gain, Efficiency) were evaluated and optimized respect to reflection and mismatch effects.

One of the problems encountered during the optimization phase was that of positioning the antenna inside the glass because the metallic coating  produced degrading effects on the performance and in the pattern of the antennas.

Conclusion

After the simulations, analysis and optimizations it was possible to create a performance comparison of the simulated data through which it was possible to establish which configuration and antenna model represented the best choice in terms of performance that can be obtained in the building glass structure for the LTE band.

Thanks to the results obtained, it was possible to create guidelines for the development and realization of a physical prototype from which to start for the realization of the final glass panel.