Innovative design enables robust wireless communication in balloon systems, highlighting flexibility and performance.
Small‐size, lightweight, low‐cost, relocatable, and conformal systems are increasingly demanded in future communications. As an indispensable component, flexible and stretchable antennas can offer low profile and integrated capabilities for flexible electronics on curved platforms, yet their practical deployment is often hindered by issues such as mechanical deformation and loss of materials, frequency shift, and degraded radiation performance. Here, a reliable design strategy is presented that transforms traditional solid metal antennas into stretchable mesh architectures, enabling excellent mechanical flexibility while maintaining stable electromagnetic (EM) performance. Two 1 × 4 arrays are fabricated and conformally integrated onto balloon surfaces, achieving directional radiation with measured gains of up to 7.69 dB and strong adaptability to spherical curvatures. By integrating these stretchable antenna arrays with wireless image transmission modules, a fully functional balloon‐based communication system (BCS) is developed, capable of autonomous deployment and long‐range wireless communication. Outdoor experiments verify robust communication with multiple ground targets, with a demonstrated transmission distance exceeding 100 meters. This work provides a promising pathway for the rapid deployment of temporary or emergency communication platforms in scenarios such as disaster relief and maritime missions. Furthermore, it opens new directions for lightweight, self‐powered communication systems in the emerging landscape of Internet of Everything (IOE).
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Li et al. (2025) studied this question.
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