3D Printing of Adaptable Wireless Systems

我们建议开发新的材料和方法，用于新的增材制造，并将其应用于智能电子产品和高频通信天线。随着电子设备和无线通信协议的激增，需要改进数据的无线传输和接收的尖端技术来最佳地利用可用带宽并减小封装尺寸。与晶体管不同，天线设计将具有在特定频率下有效的基本尺寸限制。对于要生产的紧凑型天线设计，实际上需要制造具有3D特征的天线，而不是大多数电子产品中常见的典型平面设计。这种结构对于采用传统制造技术的小型天线来说过于昂贵。微加工，可以产生感兴趣的特征尺寸和质量，主要限于平面，刚性基板，如硅或玻璃。然而，逐层构建材料的增材制造技术对于这些应用来说更具成本效益，因为可以在单个过程中生产微结构化特征以及更大的结构。然而，大多数人不允许的是同时打印各种不同材料的能力。此外，商业3D打印机通常只使用一种技术，而不是同时使用两种技术。为了生产天线和电子产品，使用喷墨技术打印的金属纳米颗粒的添加应该与挤出型工艺中3D部件的经济生产相结合。我们开发的定制3D打印机采用多沉积技术，用于多种材料集成，将生产紧凑高效的智能材料和天线。此外，这些天线还将通过集成MEMS和微流体致动器来动态修改天线形状和性能，从而适应环境和通信要求。从工业角度来看，增材制造是一个非常感兴趣的领域，在美国有大量投资。加拿大将通过对这项工作的支持，走在这一领域研究的前列。

We are proposing the development of novel materials and methods for new additive manufacturing and its application towards smart electronics and antennas for high frequency communications. With the proliferation of electronic devices, and wireless communications protocols, cutting edge techniques to improve the wireless transmission and reception of data are necessary to make best use of available bandwidth, and reduce package sizes. Unlike transistors, antenna designs will have a fundamental size limitation to be effective at specific frequencies. For compact antenna designs to be produced, it is actually required to manufacture them with 3D features rather than the typically planar designs found in most electronics. Such structures are prohibitively expensive for small antennas with traditional manufacturing technologies. Microfabrication, which can produce the feature sizes and quality of interest is limited primarily to flat, rigid substrates like silicon or glass. Additive manufacturing techniques which build up a material layer by layer are much more cost effective for these applications however, as microstructured features can be produced as well as larger structures in a single process. What most do not allow however is the ability to print widely different materials all at the same time. Additionally, commercial 3D printers will often use only a single technique but not both at once. To produce antennas and electronics, the addition of metal nanoparticles, printed with inkjet techniques should be combined with economical production of 3D parts in extrusion type processes. Our development of a custom 3D printer with multi-deposition technology for multiple material integration will produce smart materials and antennas that are compact and efficient. Additionally, these antennas will also be adaptable to environmental and communications requirements through the integration of MEMS and microfluidics actuators to dynamically modify antenna shapes and performance. Additive manufacturing is an area of extreme interest from an industrial perspective with heavy investment within the US. Canada will be at the forefront of research in this field through the support of this work.