Sandpit: Rapidly Deployable Printed Antenna

Techniques will be developed that allow metal structures to be printed on cloth in such a way that they can be used to improve the performance of body-worn antennas. The first step will be to develop and characterise the fabrication method and use it to make a deployable antenna consisting of metal structures printed in cloth. The idea is that a soldier can use this light, foldable fabric sheet to provide increased communication range.In taking this first step we will also be validating the electromagnetic design process which can then be used to tackle the more complex problem of using printed metal structures to enhance the performance of body worn antennas. The approach will be to attempt to guide the fields around the body and in this way prevent the high levels of absorption that are generally seen. Metalisation will be printed onto the fabric of clothing in such a way as to acheive this goal. The resulting solution will be resiliant to damage and the uncertain location of other objects close to the body.

This project sets out to solve a clear, bounded problem i.e. the current poor performance of body worn antennas. That poor performance has a direct and quantifiable impact on the power consumption of the communication equipment that the soldier carries. Any improvement that we can make here therefore has an immediate impact on the energy efficiency of the communication system and this then gives rise to increased battery life or smaller batteries. The techniques that we hope to develop in this project also carry the possibility of changing the way in which communication is seen in the context of the dismounted soldier. Light, rapidly deployable 'printed' antenna solutions could take away the need for cumbersome medium range tactical systems because the soldier can, when needed, make a long link using relatively low power transmissions. Such techniques could be used routinely or in emergency situations and might reduce the number of 'spare' batteries that need to be carried to absolutely guarantee communication. The possibility of employing similar methods to create a satellite link has also not been overlooked (although we do not specifically address this). The novel approach to printing structures on clothing to enhance body worn antennas has a longer term impact that is not so straightforward to delineate precisely. Probably we will be able to show that an array of printed structures can significantly improve the radiation efficiency of the antenna by guiding the fields around the body, thus preventing them being absorbed by the body. If this is the case, simple modifications to soldiers clothing that would go unnoticed by the user could make a significant contribution to efficiency. The key attractions of the method (when compared to conventional printed antennas) is that there is no electrical connection to the communication equipment and, being a distributed array, it is resilient to damage and obscuration by other equipment.