3D Printed Folded Monopole Antennas

Three fully 3D printed wideband monopole antennas are presented. The antennas are elliptical monopole. The first antenna is a traditional flat monopole antenna on a dielectric substrate. The second and third antennas feature unique single and double folded dielectric substrate, which enables increase in the bandwidth. The silver conductive traces were aerosol jet printed on the conformal substrate using reactive silver ink. This ink has conductivity close to bulk silver and requires low sintering temperature of 80 °C. The antennas show wideband performance and omnidirectional radiation patterns in the azimuth plane.