Multi-physics Modeling Characterization of Aerosol Jet Printed Transmission Lines

With the increased demand in wearable devices, the design of Flexible Hybrid Electronics (FHE) is becoming important. Emerging systems requiring FHE include wearables, energy harvesting devices, sensory networks, and ECG monitors to name a few. Designing these systems requires accounting for different flexible actions such as stretching, bending and twisting, etc. which requires models of different components that capture the behavior under these actions. This work focuses on characterizing the bending of microstrip transmission lines as it relates to printed electronics. In this work, both the mechanical and electrical aspects are captured specifically for aerosol jet printed transmission lines using finite element modeling and correlated with measurements. The challenges in such multiphysics modeling and measurements are discussed that includes the effect of bending on printed microstrip transmission lines.