Additive Manufacturing Techniques for 5G IoT Antennas and Sensors

This paper demonstrates the use of additive manufacturing techniques through two examples of 5G internet of things (IoT) soil humidity sensors. A combination of inkjet-printing and 3D printing is used for the implementation of sub-1GHz planar antenna that can be used with an RFID reader for soil humidity sensing. A second 3.5 GHz dipole antenna loaded with humidity sensitive PEDOT:PSS is mainly 3D printed using a resin 3D printer. The implemented prototypes are presented, and their performance and potential improvements are discussed.