Optically-Transparent EM Skins for Outdoor-to-Indoor mm-Wave Wireless Communications

TL;DR

This paper introduces optically-transparent electromagnetic skins (OTO-EMSs) that can be applied to windows and glass panels to facilitate outdoor-to-indoor millimeter-wave wireless communication, optimizing phase coverage and transparency.

Contribution

It presents the design and optimization of passive, optically-transparent EMSs integrated with standard glass to enable efficient mmWave O2I transmissions supporting non-Snell refraction directions.

Findings

Feasibility demonstrated through numerical simulations.

Optimized phase coverage and optical transparency of copper-based meta-atom.

Supports high-efficiency mmWave outdoor-to-indoor communication.

Abstract

Optically-transparent opportunistic electromagnetic skins (OTO-EMSs) are proposed to enable outdoor-to-indoor (O2I) millimiter-wave (mmW) wireless communications with existing windows/glass-panels. More in detail, static passive EMSs consisting of optically-transparent conducting patterned layers attached to standard glass-panels are designed. Towards this end, both the phase coverage and the optical transparency of a meshed copper-based meta-atom printed on a non-dedicated insulated glass substrate are optimized. Successively, the feasibility of OTO-EMSs able to support mmW high-efficiency O2I transmissions along non-Snell refraction directions is numerically demonstrated.