Metasurface-Inspired, Ultra-Wideband, and Dual-Polarized Dipole Antenna for Vehicular Sensing and Communications

Targeting the high-quality and high-speed transmission signal in intelligent Internet of Vehicular (IoV) applications for sensing and communications, this paper proposes an ultra-wideband dual-polarized dipole antenna inspired by metasurface (MS). To widen the impedance bandwidth, hexagon-shaped cross-dipole with coupling-fed technique is utilized. Feed balun with truncated ground plane and stepped feedline are employed for improving the impedance matching. To restore the radiation deterioration in the higher band, a MS layer consisting of several periodic smaller patches and a larger patch in the center is loaded above the dipole radiators. Throng this novel scheme, the surface wave along the MS is excited, contributing to the broadside radiation significantly. The larger patch in the center is also excited for further improving the radiation performance in the higher band. As a result, good broadside radiation with stable gain of 8.8±1.2 dBi is maintained over the frequency range of 1.7–5.7 GHz, while it only covers from 1.7–3.9 GHz without the MS. This indicates that the gain bandwidth is significantly broadened by 37.5% utilizing the proposed MS layer. In addition, the proposed antenna achieves an ultra-wide impedance bandwidth from 1.7–5.7 GHz (108%) with reflection coefficients less than −15 dB and high isolation larger than 27 dB. The designed antenna is fabricated and tested, experimental results verify the ultra-wideband impedance and radiation performance, demonstrating that our antenna is very competitive for multiple applications in the future wireless vehicular systems.