3D Printing Antennas for 5G and Millimeter Wave 6G Applications

The use of inexpensive open-source 3D printing technologies for the development of antennas for future communication systems is proposed. Two antennas have been designed and then fabricated using additive manufacturing techniques. The first is a patch antenna developed using a combination of fuse filament fabrication (FFF) for the supporting substrate and direct write to for the metal layers. The patch antenna is integrated into an also 3D printed wearable ring and operates at the 28 GHz band allocated to 5G systems. The second is an aperture coupled dielectric resonator antenna (DRA). It employs a high-performance dielectric substrate which is 3D printed using fuse filament fabrication. The DRA operates at 13.2 GHz and is used as an initial test to assess the technology. The aim is to further develop DRA antennas at millimeter wave frequencies. CST Microwave studio was used for the design of the antennas. Measurements compare well with simulations It illustrates the potential of low-cost open-source 3D printing techniques for the development of antennas for the fifth generation (5G) and future millimeter wave (mmW) sixth generation (6G) wireless communication systems applications.