Wireless Performance Evaluation of Building Materials Integrated with Antenna Arrays

To avoid negative visual and weight impact of antenna arrays in indoor multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, the antenna arrays can be integrated in building materials. In this letter, we model building materials integrated with antenna arrays and develop an approach that can characterize and evaluate their wireless performance using a ray-tracing model that incorporates multipath propagation from line-of-sight (LOS), reflected, and other paths. The approach comprises the following: 1) Using the effective transmission coefficient to characterize the electromagnetic (EM) coupling between the antenna array and the building material with which it is integrated; 2) Taking the spatially averaged capacity as a performance metric to quantify wireless performance of integrated materials; 3) Optimizing integrated materials’ wireless performance by tuning their conductivity, permittivity, thickness and integration depth; and 4) Comparing wireless performance between optimized and unoptimized integrated materials. Our numerical results show that the spatially averaged capacity varies with different material property settings, indicating that integrated materials should be carefully designed to enhance their wireless performance.