The%20Fourth%20International%20Fab%20Lab%20Forum%20and%20Symposium%20on%20Digital%20Fabrication

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Field Fabrication of Advanced Antennas

• George D. Sergiadis
• Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
• School of Engineering, Dept. of Electrical
  Computer Engineering
• Telecommunications Laboratory

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Communications, communications, communications,
communications

• We need all sorts of communications, voice, data

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Rural mesh model - main components

• Hardware
• Routers
• Antennas, cables
• Power supplies - Solar
• Structural solutions
• Software
• Networking and dynamic multihop routing
• QOS control
• Management
• Security and privacy

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Advanced Antennas
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Advanced Antennas at 2 to 5 GHz

1. High Gain
2. High Manufacturing Accuracy
3. Specialized Materials
4. High cost

Price 349.90
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Field produced Antennas
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Fab Lab Approach

• Very low material cost, 1 to 3 US
• Low Manufacturing Sensitivity
• Locally Found Materials
• Fab Lab easily reproducible, by unskilled
  Fablabers, using the Fab Lab tools

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Collinear Antennas, 2.4 GHz, 3 to 9 dbi
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Planar Antennas, 8 dipoles, 2.4 GHz, 9 dbi
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Wide bandwidth
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High gain
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Very high gain systems, 64 dipoles

• Planar design
• Paralleling of elementary dipoles
• Glass dielectric
• Phased feeding
• But, Sensitive to Glass thickness and er

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Challenging research issues

• Glass dielectric constant variability
• Glass losses
• Glass width variability
• Dielectric homogeneity, higher frequencies
• Manufacturing tolerant design
• Low cost testing tools

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New approach Air dielectric 9 to 13 dbi
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First simulation results
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Dual band function, 2.4 and 5 GHz operation
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Related publications

• A wideband printed dipole antenna with optimized
  tapered feeding balun for ISM and FWA bands
  Microwave and Optical Technology Letters
  (Wiley), Vol. 43, No. 5, pp. 437-441, December
  2004.
• Wideband Printed Dipole Antenna Parasitically
  Enhanced with Over-an-Octave bandwidth. Dual-band
  Variant for WLAN Applications Microwave and
  Optical Technology Letters (Wiley), Vol. 48,
  No.3, pp. 444-449, March 2006.

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Field Fabrication of Advanced Antennas

• George D. Sergiadis
• Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
• School of Engineering, Dept. of Electrical
  Computer Engineering
• Telecommunications Laboratory