Screen-Printed, Flexible, Parasitic Beam-Switching Millimeter-Wave Antenna Array for Wearable Applications

Abstract

Millimeter wave antennas have applications in several sensing and communication systems. Such antennas, designed for modern miniaturized devices and systems, must be low profile, flexible, and low cost. Some applications also require beam steering for detection purposes. Combining all these features into an antenna system and delivering decent antenna performance is challenging. In this study, we combined a partially reflective surface with a parasitic patch array to create a simple beam-switching, low-profile, and flexible wearable detection system. To ensure lower costs as well as compatibility with wearable systems, screen printing was utilized on a flexible substrate. The antenna array was optimized for the 77 GHz band and had a high gain of 11.2 dBi. The designed system has three independent beams, which can be oriented from bore-sight to ±32 • through a simple switching mechanism. The antenna array maintains its performance in both flat and flexed conditions. Finally, the antenna array was tested in the field to successfully detect objects moving in three different directions.INDEX TERMS Additive manufacturing, beam switching, flexible, low-profile antenna, mm-wave antenna, partially reflecting surface, parasitic antenna arrays.

Flexible Antennas: A Review

“…Screen printing is a simple, fast, cost-effective, and viable solution for fabricating flexible electronics, which has been widely adopted to implement RFID antennas by printing conductive inks or pastes onto low-cost, flexible substrates such as PET, paper, and textile substrates [ 100 ]. It is a woven screen-based technique having different thicknesses and thread densities.…”

Flexible-Screen-Printed Antenna With Enhanced Bandwidth by Employing Defected Ground Structure

“…Fabrication of the antenna is as follows. First, we deposit a layer of commercial silver ink (PE819 from DuPont) on a Kapton substrate through screen printing to form the radiator layer [1]. A mask of the antenna pattern as shown in Fig.…”

“…SING cost-effective additive-manufacturing process to fabricate antennas has been attracted a great deal of interest among researchers and in electronic industries [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. The advances of current wireless communication systems are targeting at the 5th generation (5G) systems, where wireless devices are able to communicate with each other like the Internet of things (IoT).…”

Flexible and reconfigurable radio frequency electronics realized by high-throughput screen printing of vanadium dioxide switches

“…Recently, printed electronics have made rapid progress. By depositing functional materials via conventional printing techniques (e.g., inkjet printing and screen printing), printed electronics offer a new method for achieving highthroughput and roll-to-roll production of electronic devices and integrated systems at low cost [33][34][35][36][37][38] . Despite the great progress made in printable materials and printing technologies, few reports have succeeded in developing printable VO 2 ink to deposit high-quality VO 2 films.…”