Grant: Strategic Projects - Group

An increasing number of technologies depend on miniaturized antennas for advancement and growth, and a large number of new ones cannot be implemented, due to the lack of super-miniaturized antennas. This is because of the fact that the physical dimensions of electronics can now be reduced to negligible size, but antennas for good performance remain large and in order of their operating wavelength. They can contribute to as much as 99% of the system size in some applications such as small satellites or aerial platforms, and cannot be made small. The problem becomes more severe in portable communication devices necessitating advanced electronics such as multiple input - multiple output (MIMO) communication systems for enhanced performance that require several antennas, thus occupying even larger space for them. Therefore, there is an urgent need for further antenna miniaturization. However, antenna miniaturization degrades its gain and efficiency, due to the internal losses and poor designs. These can be overcome by developing lower loss antenna materials and improved designs to prevent their performance degradation, and thus allow for super-miniaturization. The proposed research is aimed to address both these problems and achieve antenna super-miniaturization. Suitable design techniques for miniaturization of planar directive, omnidirectional and aperture type antennas will be developed, investigated and optimized. Configurations with internal resonance features will be incorporated to eliminate external impedance matching circuits, and improve their performance, while reducing the antenna size. In addition, we will develop low loss engineered Metal-Dielectric composite materials, to replace solid conductors, thereby reducing the antenna internal losses and improve the efficiency. Different microfabrication approaches will be investigated to develop suitable techniques for fabrication of these low loss materials. Low cost fabrications using inkjet and 3D printing will also be developed, to facilitate industrial applications by the supporting partner.