3-D Printed Microwave Patch Antenna via Fused Deposition Method and Ultrasonic Wire Mesh Embedding Technique

In this work, the design, fabrication and characterization of a 3-D printed microwave patch antenna is presented. The antenna is fabricated by combining fused filament fabrication method for the dielectric part and ultrasonic metal wire mesh embedding approach for the conductor part. Full wave finite-element simulations for different wire mesh structures and also the entire antenna have been done to make sure the embedded wire mesh has good performance at microwave frequency. A microstrip patch antenna working around 7.5 GHz is printed and characterized to demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of this technique. The measured reflection coefficient shows a good resonance peak at 7.5 GHz. The measured gain of this antenna is 5.5 dB at the resonance frequency. Good agreement between simulation and measurement is obtained in both reflection coefficient and radiation pattern.