Flexible Cylindrical Dielectric Resonator Antenna for X-Band Satellite, Space, Wireless Sensor Networks, and Flexible Applications

Growing demand for flexible and conformal electronics has led to the development of mechanically stable antennas. This research investigates a fully flexible cylindrical dielectric resonator antenna (FCDRA) designed using elastomer materials for X-band operations (near to 10GHz). The antenna comprises of Liquid Silicone Rubber-Strontium Titanate (SrTiO3) ceramic nanocomposite resonator integrated on Liquid Silicone Rubber (LSR) substrate excited with a step-shape microstrip feed, ensuring efficient impedance matching and ease of integration. Comprehensive material characterization yielded a relative permittivity (ℇr) 4.25, and loss tangent (tan δ) of order 10-2at 10 GHz for the resonator. These values were exploited to design a thin antenna featuring a resonator height of 1 mm (aspect ratio of 15) and 0.5mm thin substrate, maintaining the overall antenna thickness below 2 mm. To refine the antenna functionality, various aspect ratio (a/H) analyses were performed using CST simulator. Mode transition from HE11δto HE12δmode was noticed, as the resonator height decreases from 8 mm to 0.6 mm. Measured gain was approximately 5 dBi at 10.5 GHz in comparison to 6.24 dBi (10.076 GHz) simulated gain with broadside radiation pattern. Thus, a compact, flexible and desired radiation profile antenna was realized for emerging RF communication systems in the 10.27–10.72 GHz frequency range. Bending analysis of the antenna was also demonstrated and validated. Experimental results showed a good agreement with the simulation. Most conventional dielectric resonator antennas were non-flexible either in resonator and substrate. Therefore, this study focused on fully flexible design based on novel elastomer-ceramic composite radiator.