| Printed antennas are highly desirable due to low material cost, fabrication simplicity, compact design, low profile, and ease of installation. The goal of this research is to develop low-cost inkjet printed antenna technology using flexible Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) substrate material and conductive silver ink. The electrical behavior of porous, silicatecoated PET was previously undetermined, however simulation studies and experimental verification yielded an estimated dielectric constant of 4.0 with loss tangent of 0.01. In contrast to this, when used as a coplanar waveguide (CPW) transmission line, this material yielded a higher loss tangent of 0.2. Therefore, the loss tangent of this material is not deterministic since the sample PET sheets in the two fabrications are not the same.;In addition to the CPW transmission line as mentioned earlier, several sample printed antennas such as the microstrip patch and microstrip slot antennas were designed, developed, and experimentally verified to establish that the developed method for ink-jet printing works properly. Finally, a novel ultra-wideband (UWB) planar monopole antenna was designed, developed and characterized.;The UWB printed monopole antenna operating at 3.4-12 GHz was designed and tested for scattering parameters and radiation pattern response. The measured reflection coefficient magnitude for the fabricated antenna exhibited a bandwidth of 8.6 GHz, with near omni-directional radiation patterns present. The effects of mounting the UWB printed antenna on various curved surfaces were also evaluated. Omnidirectional radiation pattern coverage was evident in all surface curvature cases with improved gain performance for the smaller radii curvatures towards the lower frequencies (3 and 7.14 GHz). |
