Coplanar flexible antenna design using conductive silver nano ink on paper substrate for wearable antenna applications

In this study, a dual band, coplanar, flexible antenna design based on inkjet printing technology is introduced. For the fabrication of electrically conductive flexible circuits, a commercial printer has been used with conductive silver (Ag) nano ink. Commercially available Mitsubishi Photo paper with thickness 0.14 mm is used as a substrate material. The paper substrate has a relative dielectric constant of 3.6 and loss tangent value of 0.14, respectively. Besides examining the result of design antenna, some fabrication problems of conductive inkjet printing methodologies and their solutions are also presented. In addition, the proposed antenna is analyzed for the different bending conditions in terms of antenna performance parameters such as refraction parameters, efficiency, surface current distributions, gain and farfield results. Finally, the proposed antenna is investigated numerically for a wearable antenna application.