A flexible transparent wideband four-element MIMO antenna with a connected ground plane is proposed with numerical computation and experimental measurement studies. The optical transparency is obtained using flexible conductive oxide material AgHT-4 and Melinex substrate. The radiating elements are in the form of circular stub-loaded C-shaped resonators, which are positioned in a carefully structured flexible Melinex substrate with an interconnected partial ground plane structured in the form of an L-shaped resonator, attaining an overall antenna size of $0.33\lambda \times 0.48\lambda $ at the lowest operating frequency. The proposed antenna spans over a −10 dB impedance bandwidth of 2.21–6 GHz (92.32%) with an isolation level greater than 15dB among all elements. The maximum gain is 0.53dBi with a minimum efficiency of 41%, respectively which is satisfactory considering flexible structure and sheet impedance of $4\Omega $ /sq. MIMO antenna parameters in terms of the envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) and diversity gain (DG) are also extracted where all the values are satisfactory for MIMO applications. The bending analysis of the proposed transparent MIMO antenna along the X and Y axis has revealed good performance in terms of scattering parameters and radiation pattern along with MIMO diversity performance. All of these technical points make the flexible MIMO antenna suitable for smart devices using sub-6 GHz 5G and WLAN band in IoT applications where visual clutter and co-site location issues need to be mitigated with the integration ease of conformal placement on the curved component/device surfaces.

A dual-port transparent multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna resonating at sub-6 GHz 5G band is proposed by using patch/ground material as transparent conductive oxide (AgHT-8) and a transparent Plexiglas substrate. Two identical circular-shaped radiating elements fed by using a microstrip feedline are designed using the finite element method (FEM) based high-frequency structure simulator (HFSS) software. The effect of the isolation mechanism is discussed using two cases. In case 1, the two horizontally positioned elements are oriented in a similar direction with a separate ground plane, whereas in case 2, the elements are vertically placed facing opposite to each other with an allied ground. In both cases, the transparent antennas span over a −10 dB band of 4.65 to 4.97 GHz (300 MHz) with isolation greater than 15 dB among two elements. The diversity parameters are also analyzed for both the cases covering the correlation coefficient (ECC), mean effective gain (MEG), diversity gain (DG), and channel capacity loss (CCL). The average gain and efficiency above 1 dBi and 45%, respectively with satisfactory MIMO diversity performance, makes the transparent MIMO antenna an appropriate choice for smart IoT devices working in the sub-6 GHz 5G band by mitigating the co-site location and visual clutter issues.

RF-based wireless energy harvesting (WEH) and wireless power transfer (WPT) are gaining attention due to their capability of powering various sensors and devices. A low-power device can be fed wirelessly by capturing ambient RF energy through a WEH system. In the case of a high-power device, a WPT system can provide the required amount of power using intentional RF sources.

In this paper, a 2.45 GHz band microwave sensor design is introduced to be utilized for the dielectric constant determination of ethanol-water solutions. The introduced microwave sensor is composed of two symmetrically positioned, directly coupled inter-connected split-ring resonators with a circular ring-shaped detection area in the middle region, into which a small amount of ethanol-water solution is dropped. The fabricated prototype of the microwave sensor has a total component size of 12 mm x 30 mm on Rogers RO4003 substrate. The sensor measurement performance is numerically evaluated and experimentally validated in good agreement. The introduced microwave sensor has the structural design novelty of possessing the main detection region in a form of a circular hollow where a disposable 3D printed fluid cup can be accommodated for multiple uses. The introduced microwave sensor has technical feasibility to be used as an ingredient identification device for the chemical solutions to figure out complex dielectric parameters of ethanol-water specimens with small, low-cost, reusable, easy-to-fabricate features as well as the determination of volume percentage concentration of ethanol content.

In this paper, a novel machine learning assisted microwave sensor is introduced for the dielectric parameter characterization of ethanol liquid samples with different ingredient concentrations. The proposed sensor is designed with structural geometry of two intercoupled spiral resonators on Rogers RO4003 substrate in band stop filter configuration. The fabricated prototype has overall physical size of 15 mm x 20 mm in 1.8 GHz frequency band. The quantitative sensing performance is numerically analyzed and experimentally verified with the result of good agreement in between. One design novelty in the proposed microwave sensor is that the middle part of main sensing unit is empty for a disposable 3D printed cap to be placed into. These results minor amount of liquid samples to be dropped without the requirement of whole microwave sensor circuit to be replaced for each sample measurement. The liquid samples dropped into the middle part of microwave sensor change the stop band frequency, which is the main parameter to be correlated to dielectric parameters of liquid samples. The proposed microwave sensor has technical potential to be utilized as quality benchmarking equipment for ethanol samples in a compact size with low cost, high sensitivity, reusable, easy fabrication, and machine learning assisted operability features.