A modified microstrip patch antenna is implemented on Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate with a thickness of 0.125 mm for 5G applications. The wideband antenna of 60 375 mm 2 total dimensions is fabricated using novel inkjet printer and silver nano-particles as the conductive ink. The designed and fabricated antenna operates within 7 to 13 GHz and exhibits almost omnidirectional radiation pattern with an average gain of 5 dBi. The flexible antenna was also tested under bending conditions and showed good performance within the Xband region. The originality of the work lies in the combination of the antenna's structure, flexibility, and targeted frequency of operation.5G, flexible antenna, PET, wideband, X-band
| I NT ROD UCTI ONWith the advent of 5G networks, a need to connect most devices and gadgets together and to the internet has become inevitable. The diversity in the interconnected devices rose the idea of designing flexible and robust antennas able to be mounted on curvy shaped or wearable devices. Such antennas must be able to be bent and deformed while maintaining good performance in terms of bandwidth, radiation patter, gain, and efficiency. The shift from rigid to flexible and bendable antennas imposes the employment and MPAs are a category of planar antennas which have been researched and developed extensively in the last three decades. They have been favored among antenna designers and have been used in many applications in wireless communication systems, both in the military and commercial sectors. These planar antennas have shown major advantages being low profile, planar, light, and easy to integrate with circuit elements. However, MPAs suffer from serious drawbacks including a very narrow bandwidth typically less than 5%, high feed network losses, high cross polarization, and low RF power handling capabilities due to the small separation between the radiating patch and its ground. 5,6,8 Therefore, many researches have been conducted on the conventional MPA to overcome the drawbacks mentioned earlier. For instance, the narrow bandwidth has been improved and increased in comparison with the conventional MPA by using different techniques such as truncated corners of the rectangular patch, 10,11 the employment of different substrate and conductive material with different thicknesses, and the use of partial ground as reported in many ultrawideband antennas. 4,6,10,[12][13][14][15][16] Because flexibility of antennas was not of a major concern until recently due to wearable devices and other medical applications, few are the works done on this field as compared to others. Therefore, in this project a flexible antenna targeting X-band frequencies is designed and fabricated by means of novel inkjet printing technology. The antenna's design in terms of operation, flexibility, size, materials, and technology used is one of its kind to our best knowledge and has yielded satisfactory results within the required specifications.
| A NTEN NA DE S IG N AND C ONF I GU RATI ONThe proposed antenna i...