Cost-Effective Fabry–Pérot Antenna via Conductive Inkjet and Additive Printing

The employment of unconventional and very cheap materials is proposed for fabricating a complex radiating structure, with the aim to test the actual feasibility. A partially reflective surface (PRS) is designed to enhance the broadside directivity of an inkjet printed V-slot loaded patch antenna, by means of the Fabry-Pérot resonance effect. The proposed multilayer PRS is obtained by means of ultra-thin polyethylene terephthalate (PET) layers, conductive ink patterns and alldielectric 3D printed polyethylene terephthalate glycol (PETG) layers to achieve a positive reflection phase gradient as a function of frequency f. A prototype of the Fabry-Pérot antenna is fabricated for the first time with the described materials and lowcost technology. The measurements are in good agreement with the design, proving the intended performance. The measured maximum gain is <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">G_M</i> = 13.2 <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">dBi</i>, the 3<italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">dB</i> gain bandwidth is <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">BW_G =</i> 24.5% within the impedance matched bandwidth <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">BW_%</i> = 31.3%. The obtained result promises low-cost fabrication for conformal antennas exhibiting good performance even when compared to high quality substrates and more sophisticated technologies.