AMoRE: Additive Manufacturing of RIS Elements

A deep investigation of Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RIS) and Holographic MIMO (H-MIMO) surfaces in 5G and beyond systems requires numerous tests with various prototypes. Traditional prototyping of these surfaces relies on expensive or time-consuming printed circuit board technologies. Alternatively, additive manufacturing, particularly 3D-printing, offers rapid prototyping of radio frequency components with sophisticated geometry and low cost. This paper presents a novel methodology for additive manufacturing of RIS elements (AMoRE). AMoRE provides a detailed description of the production process of 3D-printed elements of the surface, including dielectric material characterization and waveguide design for measurement. An experimental and simulation comparison of traditional and 3D-printed elements of the surface demonstrates that the latter increases the bandwidth by 40% and reduces losses, being five times cheaper and having the same thickness. The results highlight the potential of additive manufacturing to enable rapid and cost-effective prototyping of the surfaces compared with traditional methods.