Additive manufactured tripolar antenna system for link improvement in high multipath environments

Abstract

A 2.4 GHz single-piece additive manufactured tripolar antenna system is presented for integration with a commercially available wireless node. The antenna is 3D-printed using fused deposition modeling of ABS plastic and micro-dispensing of silver paste. Performance is evaluated in anechoic and highly reflective environments achieving a return loss greater than 15 dB at the desired frequency of operation and median and 1% link margin improvements through selection diversity of 4 dB and 11 dB, respectively.