Analytical Characterization of a Transmission Loss of an Antenna-Embedded Wall

Abstract

An analytical model for an antenna-embedded wall, also called signal-transmissive wall, is presented in this work. In the signal-transmissive wall, multiple antenna elements are distributed periodically on both wall sides, and connected back-to-back through coaxial cables. Numerical full-wave simulations of the signal-transmissive wall are computationally demanding due to the fine meshes required in the cables while having an electrically large wall size. Therefore the simulations above 8 GHz are not feasible even with a powerful cluster computer of the authors’ research site. The analytical model is an attractive alternative to the full-wave simulation of the wall, which combines the individual transmission characteristics of the bare wall, realized gains of antenna elements and cable losses. The analytical model accurately reproduces the full-wave simulated transmission coefficient of the signal-transmissive wall up to 8 GHz for arbitrary polarizations and incident angles of a plane wave. The model therefore allows analysis of the signal-transmissive wall beyond 8 GHz, showing more than 70 dB reduction of the transmission loss at 30 GHz compared to a bare wall.

Keywords

• Antenna-embedded walls
• analytical modeling
• smart buildings