Particle swarm optimized, 3-d-printed, wideband, compact hemispherical antenna

A three-dimensional (3-D)-printed, wideband, compact hemispherical-shaped antenna is presented. It consists of a driven strip monopole and several parallel near-field resonant parasitic (NFRP) strips that reside on the surfaces of a hemispherical shell. The monopole strip lies on the interior surface; the NFRP strips lie on the exterior one. This arrangement facilitates the requisite stable near-field capacitive coupling between them over a wide frequency range. The particle swarm optimization algorithm is used to define the lengths and locations of these NFRP strips to achieve its optimized operational bandwidth around 700 MHz given its compact size. The hemispherical shell was 3-D printed with acrylonitrile butadiene styrene resin; the strips were applied to it with silver paste. This prototype was tested. The measured results, in agreement with their simulated values, demonstrate that it achieves a 17.97% -10 dB fractional impedance bandwidth over which stable realized gain values, near 3.5 dBi, are attained. With its low-cost fabrication and attractive performance characteristics, this 3-D printed antenna is suitable for indoor multipath wireless communication systems.