Inkjet-Printed CPW-Fed Meandered Inverted-F Triband Antenna on PET for Sub-GHz IoT ISM and 5/6 GHz Wi-Fi Applications

The fifth and sixth generation wireless communication systems and internet of things have created an urgent demand for cost-effective and multiband connectivity devices operating across multiple frequency standards. In this paper, we present a new design based on a coplanar waveguide and a modified inverted-F configuration with specific meandering to achieve multiband resonances. The proposed antenna fabricated on a cost effective flexible and transparent polyethylene terephthalate substrate using inkjet printing technology with functional silver nanoparticle ink, demonstrating significant advantages over conventional printed circuit board manufacturing. The proposed antenna achieves multiband operation covering sub-GHz IoT/ISM (0.7793-1.0109 GHz), a mid-band centered at 2.151 GHz(2.0320-2.2709 GHz), and 5 / 6 GHz Wi-Fi portions (5.3526-6.7900 GHz) with excellent performance characteristics including a simulation peak gain of 16.21 dBi and fractional bandwidths of 25.9%, 11.1%, and 23.7% respectively. The proposed antenna performance is comprehensively evaluated via electromagnetic simulations in high frequency structure simulator and experimental validated via vector network analyzer and an anechoic chamber measurement. The measured results show that the prototype is effectively working across all three operating bands with excellent radiation characteristics suitable for diverse wireless communication applications including IoT sensor networks, wireless local area networks, and next generation 5 G systems.