Design and Visual Perception Analysis of a Topology Optimized Transparent Monopole Antenna

ABSTRACT Three monopole antennas, based on both solid and mesh conductors, are designed for a 3–6 GHz operation band. Binary topology optimization is applied to reduce the metal‐covered area by 37.2%, which results in an increase in the antenna's optical transparency by 8% compared to antennas based on uniform mesh. Optical ray tracing is used to render images of the antennas in an automotive environment. It is shown that a mesh conductor can decrease the visual detection probability of the antenna by 0.21 and 0.55 for both uniform and topology‐optimized meshes, respectively. Two calculated full‐reference image quality metrics indicate that topology optimization provides over 5% enhancements in visual perception when compared to the uniform mesh.