Field Fabrication of Advanced Antennas

The Fourth International Fab Lab Forumand Symposium on Digital Fabrication

Field Fabrication of Advanced Antennas

George D. Sergiadis

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece School of Engineering, Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering

Telecommunications Laboratory

George Sergiadis The Fourth International Fab Lab Forum and Symposium on Digital Fabrication – Chicago, August 22-23 2007

Communications, communications, communications, communications

• We need all sorts of communications, voice, data…


Rural mesh model - main components

• Hardware:– Routers– Antennas, cables– Power supplies - Solar – Structural solutions

• Software:– Networking and dynamic multihop routing– QOS control– Management– Security and privacy


Advanced Antennas


Advanced Antennas at 2 to 5 GHz

1. High Gain2. High Manufacturing Accuracy3. Specialized Materials4. High cost

Price: $349.90


Field produced Antennas


Fab Lab Approach

• Very low material cost, 1 to 3 US $• Low Manufacturing Sensitivity• Locally Found Materials• Fab Lab easily reproducible, by unskilled

“Fablabers”, using the Fab Lab tools


Collinear Antennas, 2.4 GHz, 3 to 9 dbi


Planar Antennas, 8 dipoles, 2.4 GHz, 9 dbi


Wide bandwidth


High gain


Very high gain systems, 64 dipoles

• Planar design• Paralleling of

elementary dipoles• Glass dielectric• Phased feeding• But, Sensitive to Glass

thickness and er


Challenging research issues

• Glass dielectric constant variability• Glass losses• Glass width variability• Dielectric homogeneity, higher frequencies• Manufacturing tolerant design• Low cost testing tools


New approach – Air dielectric – 9 to 13 dbi


First simulation results


Dual band function, 2.4 and 5 GHz operation


Related publications

• “A wideband printed dipole antenna with optimized tapered feeding balun for ISM and FWA bands” Microwave and Optical Technology Letters (Wiley), Vol. 43, No. 5, pp. 437-441, December 2004.

• “Wideband Printed Dipole Antenna Parasitically Enhanced with Over-an-Octave bandwidth. Dual-band Variant for WLAN Applications” Microwave and Optical Technology Letters (Wiley), Vol. 48, No.3, pp. 444-449, March 2006.

The Fourth International Fab Lab Forumand Symposium on Digital Fabrication

Field Fabrication of Advanced Antennas

George D. Sergiadis

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece School of Engineering, Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering

Telecommunications Laboratory

Field Fabrication of Advanced Antennas

Documents

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