Design and Data-Efficient Optimization of a Dual-Band Microstrip Planar Yagi Antenna for Sub-6 GHz 5G and Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything Communication

The booming number of EVs and autonomous vehicles is driving the demand for the development of 5G and connected vehicle technologies. However, the design of compact, multi-band vehicular antennas with multiple communication standard support is complex. Traditional experience-based and parameter-sweeping approaches to antenna optimization are often inefficient and limited in scalability, while machine learning-based methods require extensive datasets, which are computationally intensive. This study proposes a microstrip planar Yagi antenna optimized for Sub-6 GHz 5G and C-V2X communication. As a way to approach antenna optimization with lower computing cost and less data, a hybrid optimization strategy is presented that combines parametric analysis and curve fitting based data visualization approaches. The proposed antenna exhibits a reflection coefficient of -31.68 dB and -29.36 dB with 700 MHz and 900 MHz bandwidths for frequencies of 3.5 GHz and 5.9 GHz, respectively. Moreover, the proposed antenna exhibits a peak gain of 7.55 dB with a size of 0.44×0.64 λ2, while achieving a peak efficiency of 90.1%. The antenna has been integrated and simulated in a model Mini Cooper to test the effectiveness of vehicular communication.