Carleton University

Purpose

This project addresses the development of next generation 5G wireless networks. The quest for additional spectrum at millimetre-wave frequencies poses fundamental challenges in radio-frequency communications including the need for more bandwidth, high propagation loss as well as inability to adapt to changes in environmental and operational conditions. Additive manufacturing will be used to implement RF lenses and Antennas with Gradient-index (GRIN) operating at X-band. Using vat polymerization 3D printing, this project proposed to evaluate the properties of GRIN lenses with active control using Ferro-magnetic materials. Characterization of the ferro-electric materials at high frequency will lead to a demonstration of this process in robust RF lenses capable of mulitplexing RF signals with low-loss while also capable of adapting via magnetic control. The proposed active control will also be transparent to the RF signal thus resulting in high-quality transmission at millimetre-wave frequencies. The proposed implementation using 3D additive printing will add more design flexibility.