Conformal Ink-Jet Printed $C$-Band Phased-Array Antenna Incorporating Carbon Nanotube Field-Effect Transistor Based Reconfigurable True-Time Delay Lines

Chen, Maggie Yihong; Pham, D.; Subbaraman, Harish; Lu, Xuejun; Chen, R. T.

doi:10.1109/tmtt.2011.2173209

Cited by 37 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Printed, flexible, and conformal-phased array antennas have also emerged, which are becoming increasingly popular for radar communications [94,119,120]. These antennas utilize printed CNT thin film transistors and multilayer interconnects to generate a fully packaged system that allows nonmechanical beam steering with an 8.2 dB insertion loss and 11.2 mW power consumption operating at 5 GHz.…”

Section: Printed Antennasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Printable Materials for the Realization of High Performance RF Components: Challenges and Opportunities

Rosker

Sandhu

Hester

et al. 2018

International Journal of Antennas and Propagation

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Printing methods such as additive manufacturing (AM) and direct writing (DW) for radio frequency (RF) components including antennas, filters, transmission lines, and interconnects have recently garnered much attention due to the ease of use, efficiency, and low-cost benefits of the AM/DW tools readily available. The quality and performance of these printed components often do not align with their simulated counterparts due to losses associated with the base materials, surface roughness, and print resolution. These drawbacks preclude the community from realizing printed low loss RF components comparable to those fabricated with traditional subtractive manufacturing techniques. This review discusses the challenges facing low loss RF components, which has mostly been material limited by the robustness of the metal and the availability of AM-compatible dielectrics. We summarize the effective printing methods, review ink formulation, and the postprint processing steps necessary for targeted RF properties. We then detail the structure-property relationships critical to obtaining enhanced conductivities necessary for printed RF passive components. Finally, we give examples of demonstrations for various types of printed RF components and provide an outlook on future areas of research that will require multidisciplinary teams from chemists to RF system designers to fully realize the potential for printed RF components.

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Section: Printed Antennasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Printable Materials for the Realization of High Performance RF Components: Challenges and Opportunities

Rosker

Sandhu

Hester

et al. 2018

International Journal of Antennas and Propagation

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“…Almost all the investigations above have been dedicated to the design and fabrication of the 3D printed passive antenna and microwave devices. As for the active antenna array, Chen and her teams have firstly demonstrated an inkjet-printed flexible phasedarray antenna without any lithography process [26][27][28]. Passive and active components, such as microstrip transmission lines, phase shifters, and RF power distribution networks, are all developed adopting a room temperature 3D printing process.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design, Fabrication, and Testing of Active Skin Antenna with 3D Printing Array Framework

Zhou

Kang

et al. 2017

International Journal of Antennas and Propagation

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An active skin antenna with structural load-bearing and electromagnetic functions is usually installed in the structural surface of mobile vehicles such as aircrafts, warships, and high-speed train. This paper presents the design, fabrication, and testing of a novel active skin antenna which consists of an encapsulation shell, antenna skin, and RF and beam control circuits. The antenna skin which consists of the facesheet, honeycomb, array framework, and microstrip antenna elements was designed by using Bayesian optimization, in order to improve the design efficiency. An active skin antenna prototype with 32 microstrip antenna elements was fabricated by using a hybrid manufacturing method. In this method, 3D printing technology was applied to fabricate the array framework, and the different layers were bonded to form the final antenna skin by using traditional composite process. Some experimental testing was conducted, and the testing results validate the feasibility the proposed antenna skin structure. The proposed design and fabrication technique is suitable for the development of conformal load-bearing antenna or smart skin antenna installed in the structural surface of aircraft, warships, and armored vehicles.

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“…Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) have also been used to print Thin-film Transistors (CNT-TFTs) [19], which can be used as a switch between the delay-line feeding network to control a 2-bit two-element printed PAA [20]. Flexible printed circuits [21], or stamped antennas, have also been reported, using silver nano-inks for printing the feed lines and power dividers. The same method is used in [22,23] with ink-jet printed 2-bit, 1 × 4 PAA system on a flexible Kapton polyimide substrate utilizing CNT-TFTs as switching elements in the phase-shifting network.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design and Simulation of Fully Printable Conformal Antennas With BST/Polymer Composite Based Phase Shifters

Haghzadeh¹,

Jaradat²,

Armiento³

et al. 2016

PIER C

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Abstract-A fully printable and conformal antenna array on a flexible substrate with a new LeftHanded Transmission Line (LHTL) phase shifter based on a tunable Barium Strontium Titanate (BST)/polymer composite is proposed and computationally studied for radiation pattern correction and beam steering applications. First, the subject 1 × 4 rectangular patch antenna array is configured as a curved conformal antenna, with both convex and concave bending profiles, and the effects of bending on the performance are analyzed. The maximum gain of the simulated array is reduced from the flat case level by 34.4% and 34.5% for convex and concave bending, respectively. A phase compensation technique utilizing the LHTL phase shifters with a coplanar design is used to improve the degraded radiation patterns of the conformal antennas. Simulations indicate that the gain of the bent antenna array can be improved by 63.8% and 68% for convex and concave bending, respectively. For the beam steering application, the proposed phase shifters with a microstrip design are used to steer the radiation beam of the antenna array, in planar configuration, to both negative and positive scan angles, thus realizing a phased array antenna.

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Conformal Ink-Jet Printed $C$-Band Phased-Array Antenna Incorporating Carbon Nanotube Field-Effect Transistor Based Reconfigurable True-Time Delay Lines

Cited by 37 publications

References 14 publications

Printable Materials for the Realization of High Performance RF Components: Challenges and Opportunities

Printable Materials for the Realization of High Performance RF Components: Challenges and Opportunities

Design, Fabrication, and Testing of Active Skin Antenna with 3D Printing Array Framework

Design and Simulation of Fully Printable Conformal Antennas With BST/Polymer Composite Based Phase Shifters

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