A novel 3D printed curved monopole microstrip antenna design for biomedical applications

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel and compact monopole microstrip antenna (MA) design with a three-dimensional (3D) printed curved substrate for biomedical applications. A curved substrate was formed by inserting a semi-cylinder structure in the middle of the planar substrate consisting of polylactic acid (PLA). The antenna was fed with a microstrip line, and a partial ground plane was formed at the bottom side of the substrate. The copper plane with two triangular slots is arranged on the curved semi-cylinder structure of the substrate. The physical dimensions of the radiating plane and ground plane were optimally determined with the use of the sparrow search algorithm (SpaSA) to provide a wide -10 dB bandwidth between 3 GHz and 12 GHz. A total of six microstrip antennas having different parameters related to physical dimensions were designed and simulated to compare the performance of the proposed antenna with the help of full-wave electromagnetic simulation software called CST Microwave Studio. The proposed curved antenna was fabricated, and a PNA network analyzer was used to measure the S11 of the proposed antenna. It was demonstrated that the measured S11 covers the desired frequency range.