3D printed PLA/copper bowtie antenna for biomedical imaging applications

This study aims to increase the performance of the microwave antenna by using 3D printed conductive substrates, which is mainly used in biomedical imaging applications. Conventional antennas such as Horn and Vivaldi have coarse dimensions to integrate into the microwave imaging systems. Therefore, 3D printed Bowtie antenna structures were developed, which yield low cost and smaller sizes. PLA, PLA/copper, and PLA/carbon substrates were produced with a 3D printer. These materials were tested in terms of their dielectric constants between 1 and 10 GHz. The conductive part of the antenna was copper, with a thickness of 0.8 mm, which was embedded in the substrate parts. The reflection coefficients of the antennas were tested within 0–3 GHz frequency range via miniVNA network analyzer. The results show that the 3D printed PLA/copper and PLA/carbon antenna are highly suitable for the usage in biomedical imaging systems.