28 GHz 5G OTA Test Using Optically-transparent Reflective Surface Fabricated by Electroforming

This paper validates the feasibility of deploying passive reflective surfaces to eliminate the radio shadowing regions in mmWave (28 GHz) fifth-generation (5G) wireless communications. The proposed optically-transparent reflective surface is fabricated by an electroforming process. To confirm the performance of the proposed reflective surface, the radiation pattern is measured in a far-field chamber. In addition, 5G real-time over-the-air (OTA) tests are implemented. Through single-tone and error vector magnitude (EVM) OTA measurements, the received power, EVM, and link throughputs are measured. As a result, radio shadowing regions are diminished in a non-line-of-sight (NLOS) path by approximately 15 dB through the deployment of the proposed optically transparent reflective surface.