Cylindrical Polydimethylsiloxane (cPDMS)-Resonator Antenna for Broadband and Flexible Radio-Frequency Electronic Devices

This letter presents a cylindrical polydimethylsiloxane (cPDMS)-based resonator antenna (RA) specifically designed for flexible and broadband radio-frequency (RF) applications. The cPDMS-RA is excited using a microstrip line (ML) circuit with a rectangular slot (referred to as an ML slot circuit), and its performance is evaluated through both full-wave simulations and experimental measurements. The cPDMS-RA achieves peak gains of 6.52 dBi (V-plane) and 4.47 dBi (H-plane), representing improvements over the corresponding reference values of 5.15 dBi and 0.96 dBi, respectively, as well as a broadened −10 dB bandwidth from 1.14 GHz to 2.61 GHz, when compared with the reference ML slot circuit. These results demonstrate both the feasibility and advantages of incorporating elastomeric materials into RF resonator designs, supporting the development of next-generation flexible RF systems such as near-body/wearable nodes and wireless sensors.