High frequency characterisation of wood‐fill PLA for antenna additive manufacturing application

High‐frequency characterisation of the wood‐fill filament for three‐dimensional (3D) printing technology and its feasibility in small‐size antenna manufacturing based on additive manufacturing (AM) technology is focused. A Keysight 85070E high performance dielectric probe was utilised to characterise the wood‐fill material for a wide frequency range. The real and imaginary parts of the complex permittivity for the various 3D printed samples were measured from 20 MHz to 20 GHz, and the corresponding loss tangent was calculated accordingly. A dipole antenna embedded on the wood‐fill 3D printed substrate was designed, simulated, and fabricated at the centre frequency of 2.4 GHz. Three different conductive materials were utilised for the conductor part of the antenna.