Modern advances in sensor technology, digital electronics and radio frequency design have enabled the development of cheap, small, low-power sensory devices, integrating sensing, processing and communication capabilities. This work aims to present an overview of the benefits and of the most recent advances in antenna technologies, investigating the possibility of integrating enhanced solutions in a large distributed wireless sensor network for the environmental monitoring. The antenna in fact is the key element in order to fully integrate a wireless microsystemon a single chip. The integration requires a small antenna on a low-loss substratematerial compatible with the microelectronic devices. In fact, communication is usually the most energy intensive operation a node performs. Therefore, at each terminal the application of integrated and miniaturized antennas can have a significant impact, in terms of not only system performance but also cost, energy consumptions and terminal physical size. An integrated design technique of a microstrip antenna on a complex dielectric substrate is here presented. For small bit rate wireless networks, microstrip antennas are a good choice. The simplicity of realization, the low cost, the flexibility of use and the reduced dimensions make perfect for the on-chip integration. These objectives are instrumental in selecting elements that can conform to the geometry of the device. The optimization of the wireless device is also presented, to carefully adjust also parameters as the shape and dimensions of the antenna, in order to develop different layers of communication in the same device, thus endowing with multiband capabilities.

Date Published: 8 January 2007
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 6414, Smart Structures, Devices, and Systems III, 64140B (8 January 2007); doi: 10.1117/12.695804

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6414:
Smart Structures, Devices, and Systems III
Said F. Al-Sarawi, Editor(s)