Projects:2021s1-13111 Novel 3D printing antennas for Internet of Things (IoT)

Introduction

Additive manufacturing technologies, also known as 3D printing, have received much attention with impressive demonstrations ranging from small mechanical and electrical components to large section or even the entire body of a vehicles. Diverse constitutive materials including metal, polymer, ceramics, biological tissues and even concrete, have been increasingly incorporated in various 3D printing technologies. This further opens novel directions and design paradigms for numerous products including 3D radio-frequency structures such as antennas, waveguides and lenses. Through the ability to accurately control material properties and implement complex shapes, advanced design can be readily realized in 3D printing technology. The capabilities of 3D-printed-enabled antenna technology become extremely important for Internet of Things (IoT) where conformal and/or integrated antennas are needed for the connected devices.

This project will consider designing novel antennas based on 3D printing technology using conductive and dielectric filaments for IoT devices based on Wi-Fi technology, e.g., 2.45 and 5 GHz dual-band conformal directional antennas. The project will focus on electrical property characterization of conductive and dielectric 3D printed materials as well as advanced 3D printed antenna design. It will involve computer-assisted design with state of the art electromagnetic simulations tools. After completion of the design, prototypes will be fabricated and tested in the anechoic chamber of the university and Wi-Fi communication links.

Project team

Project students

• Amelina Yoo
• Joseph Draper

Supervisors

• Dr. Christophe Fumeaux
• Dr. Shengjian Jammy Chen

Objectives

Set of objectives

Introduction

Motivation

Antennas play the crucial role of enabling us to wirelessly communicate. Their fundamentality leads one to devise improved ways of manufacturing antennas. In this project, we seek to explore 3D printing as an antenna manufacturing process. A key advantage of 3D printing is its ability to fabricate complex structures which may otherwise be very difficult to achieve via conventional techniques. To 3D print out antennas, we consider a copper-based filament called ‘Electrifi’.

Aims and Objectives

‘Electrifi’ is one of the world’s first conductive filaments, promising a resistivity of 6x10⁻⁵Ω#m. This project aims to provide insight into how this material, together with 3D printing technology, can change how antennas are manufactured. The project focuses on characterising the properties of Electrifi, devising novel antenna designs within the IoT frequency range (2.45 – 5 GHz) that exploit the design potential of 3D printing, and comparing the simulated antenna performance results against those measured. It is of the utmost interest to fully exploit the full design potential of 3D printing technology, and deliver antennas that can be more aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

Proposed Antenna Design

In this project, each team member delivered an antenna. One of these antennas is a 'volcanic smoke' antenna, and another is a slotted spherical antenna. In this project, we explore the performance of Electrifi, and compare it against its contender - the metallisation of plastic surfaces.

Method

Designed antennas in CST Studio Suite.

Measured antenna performance in the anechoic chamber.

Results

Volcanic Smoke Farfield Patterns

References

[1] a, b, c, "Simple page", In Proceedings of the Conference of Simpleness, 2010.

[2] ...