Investigation of Antennas Integrated Into Disposable Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

The integration of antennas into disposable paper drones using inkjet printing technology is presented. These drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are developed using origami folding structures. Two vertical monopole antennas based on the same design concept are proposed and their performance assessed for two different conditions. The conditions relate to the placement of the other electronic components and circuits on the origami drones as reported in the literature. The first is when the electromechanical components and corresponding metallic layers are located in the wings. In this case, the effect of the possible location of the antenna as well as the deformation of the wings on S
₁₁
is discussed. The second is a more general case scenario which includes when the components and motors are placed at the tail and lower part of the body of the drone. The antenna elements are directly printed onto a photo paper substrate using silver nanoparticle conductive ink. Subsequently, the substrate is folded to create a paper drone. Low-cost desktop inkjet printing equipment is used to deposit the metallic tracks of the antenna. The designs target the current frequency bands employed in the control and wireless communication of commercial drones (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands). The purpose of this work is to investigate potential antenna scenarios for disposable drones which may one day be fully fabricated using inkjet printing technology. All antenna designs and studies have been simulated using CST Microwave Studio and compared well with experimental results.