3D printed stacked antenna for WLAN drone communication

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle or drone technologies have spread rapidly into areas such as search and rescue, monitoring, surveillance, emergency assistance, delivery of goods, and aerial photography and video. The design of compact, low cost, and multi resonant frequency antenna models has become a critical research study for these applications. Although one of the most popular antenna designs that have such specifications are Microstrip Patch Antennas (MPA), they have the handicap of narrow operation band. Stacking is one of the techniques that not only improve the bandwidth of the antenna but also makes it possible to increase its gain and expand its operation band. Herein, design of a low cost low weight wideband Stacked (MPA) design suitable for WLAN drone communication applications is studied. By using unique features of 3D printing technology the proposed design will be prototyped for satisfying the aimed design goals. For this purpose, the antenna is simulated in CST Microwave Studio by a 3D electromagnetic based model, and maximum gain level that is approaching 9.3 dBi at 5.8 GHz frequency has been achieved. Next, the antenna design is prototyped using 3D printing technology, and a gain level of 7.5, 8.3 dBi are measured at the operating frequencies 5.2 GHz and 5.8 GHz WLAN applications. The results show that the proposed antenna achieves higher performance than its counterparts in literature based on measures such as operation bandwidth, gain, size and manufacturing costs. © Yildiz Technical University. All Rights Reserved.