Modern 5G antennas are no longer bolt-on accessories; they are woven into the industrial design of smartphones, vehicles and street furniture. Glass-mounted transparent arrays, reconfigurable intelligent surfaces and even clothing-integrated textiles are entering field trials. On the network side, active antenna systems (AAS) merge radio-unit and antenna into a single enclosure, eliminating coaxial loss and enabling real-time amplitude/phase calibration. Regulatory compliance has also evolved: over-the-air (OTA) chambers now measure three-dimensional beam patterns, error-vector magnitude and radiated spurious emissions in a single sweep. Looking ahead, research is targeting simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT), holographic massive MIMO with tens of thousands of elements, and AI-driven self-optimising arrays that learn traffic patterns to pre-steer beams. As 5G evolves toward 5G-Advanced and 6G, the antenna will remain the decisive bottleneck—or the breakthrough—that turns ambitious air-interface mathematics into user-perceived speed and reliability.
