Inkjet-Printed Millimetre-Wave PET-Based Flexible Antenna for 5G Wireless Applications

This paper presents a millimetre-wave (mm-wave) flexible antenna designed on Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) substrate for the 5th generation (5G) wireless applications. The antenna geometry comprises of a T-shaped patch integrated with symmetrically designed slot arrangements. The defected ground structure (DGS) concept is utilised for bandwidth enhancement and a coplanar waveguide (CPW)-fed slotted monopole antenna is embedded within an aperture cut inside the ground plane. The measurements of the inkjet-printed antenna prototype depict an impedance bandwidth of 26–40 GHz, consistent omnidirectional radiation pattern and a peak gain of 7.44 dBi at 39 GHz. The conformity and flexibility suggest potential applications of the proposed antenna in future 5G applications especially in wearables such as uniform or casual clothing.

[1]  Theodore S. Rappaport,et al.  Millimeter Wave Mobile Communications for 5G Cellular: It Will Work! , 2013, IEEE Access.

[2]  Akram Alomainy,et al.  Millimetre-wave T-shaped MIMO antenna with defected ground structures for 5G cellular networks , 2018 .

[3]  A. Momciu,et al.  Flexible polyethylene terephthalate-based inkjet printed CPW-fed monopole antenna for 60 GHz ISM applications , 2013, 2013 European Microwave Integrated Circuit Conference.

[4]  Yong-xin Guo,et al.  A flexible modified dipole antenna printed on PET film , 2012, 2012 IEEE Asia-Pacific Conference on Antennas and Propagation.

[5]  Wei Hong,et al.  What will 5G Antennas and Propagation Be , 2017 .

[6]  Volker Zöllmer,et al.  Printing technologies for the manufacturing of passive microwave components: antennas , 2017 .

[7]  Akram Alomainy,et al.  Low-profile flexible frequency-reconfigurable millimetre-wave antenna for 5G applications , 2018, Flexible and Printed Electronics.

[8]  Theodore S. Rappaport,et al.  Overview of Millimeter Wave Communications for Fifth-Generation (5G) Wireless Networks—With a Focus on Propagation Models , 2017, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation.

[9]  Akram Alomainy,et al.  Planar millimeter-wave antenna on low-cost flexible PET substrate for 5G applications , 2016, 2016 10th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP).

[10]  D. Pham,et al.  Conformal Ink-Jet Printed $C$-Band Phased-Array Antenna Incorporating Carbon Nanotube Field-Effect Transistor Based Reconfigurable True-Time Delay Lines , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques.

[11]  Xiaowei Shi,et al.  An Overview on Defected Ground Structure , 2008 .