Conductive Electrifi and Nonconductive NinjaFlex Filaments based Flexible Microstrip Antenna for Changing Conformal Surface Applications

Abstract

As the usage of wireless technology grows, it demands more complex architectures and conformal geometries, making the manufacturing of radio frequency (RF) systems challenging and expensive. The incorporation of emerging alternative manufacturing technologies, like additive manufacturing (AM), could consequently be a unique and cost-effective solution for flexible RF and microwave circuits and devices. This work presents manufacturing methodologies of 3D-printed conformal microstrip antennas made of a commercially available conductive filament, Electrifi, as the conductive trace on a commercially available nonconductive filament, NinjaFlex, as the substrate using the fused filament fabrication (FFF) method of AM technology. Additionally, a complete high frequency characterization of the prototyped antenna was studied and presented here through a comparative analysis between full-wave simulation and measurements in a fully calibrated anechoic chamber. The prototyped antenna measures 65.55 × 55.55 × 1.2 mm3 in size and the measured results show that the 3D-printed Electrifi based patch antenna achieved very good impedance matching at a resonant frequency of 2.4 GHz and a maximum antenna gain of −2.78 dBi. Finally, conformality performances of the developed antenna were demonstrated by placing the antenna prototype on five different cylindrical curved surfaces for possible implementation in flexible electronics, smart communications, and radar applications.

Electromagnetic characterisation of conductive 3D‐Printable filaments for designing fully 3D‐Printed antennas

“…They are composed of a blend of polymers and a certain percentage of conductive parts: carbon nanotubes in the Fiberforce Conductive filament [28], conductive black carbon in the Proto-Pasta filament [29], graphene in the Black-Magic filament [30], or even copper, as in the case of the Electrifi filament [31] produced by Multi3D (Cary, North Carolina, USA). From preliminary tests, Electrifi appears to be the most promising one, and some works exploiting its properties to realise 3D-printed antennas and microwave devices are already published, [2,[32][33][34][35][36][37]. In particular, in Ref.…”

“…For example, in Ref. [35], the attenuation and phase constant from the measured reflection and transmission coefficients have been estimated up to 4 GHz by using a 50 Ω Electrifi transmission line. In Ref.…”

Curved Photodetectors Based on Perovskite Microwire Arrays via In Situ Conformal Nanoimprinting

“…[ 11–13 ] In aerospace engineering, conformal antenna arrays and sensors attached to the irregular surface of an aircraft can effectively reduce the space required for antenna installation, weight of the aircraft, air resistance, and radar scattering area. [ 14–16 ] Nonconformal optical elements with curved structures are essential components of nonconformal optical systems, [ 17–19 ] such as, curved surface imagers. [ 2,4,20–22 ] For example, inspired by the eyes of aquatic animals, Kim et al.…”

Development of a flexible antenna-wristband for wearable wrist-worn infocommunication devices of the LTE standard

“…The design of wrist worn devices consists of a strap or wristband and the body of the device. The most common type of antennas is printed patch antennas [6]. The classical approaches of antenna theory require that the linear dimensions of the antenna be a multiple of the operating wavelength.…”