SEMA: 6G Sustainable and Energy-Efficient Metallic AM Antennas and Microwave Components

ABOUT THE PROJECT

The new generation of communications (6G) is promising to provide more data and shorter delays. Given that the frequency bands used in 4G/5G are tremendously crowded, new frequency bands are considered, especially in the millimetre-band regime. For example, one of the bands under consideration is the E-bands above 70 GHz. The ever-expanding list of countries opening for E-band deployments shows that another 20 countries have allowed usage of E-band since 2021. Today, the global E-band map covers most of the world´s countries and inhabitants. This very much aligns with global 5G RAN preparations and deployment3. When the frequency increases, the path loss also increases. Furthermore, the active components are less efficient, so it is crucial that the antennas and microwave components are more efficient. To make our antennas more efficient, the use of fully metallic components is essential.

In SEMA, we propose investigating the use of metallic 3D printing for the new generation of 6G hardware. The project will conduct an evaluation of the applicability of the LPBF-AM technique to the manufacture of 6G lightweight advanced fully metallic antenna and microwave components. These components will be more efficient, since it does not make use of lossy (especially in the millimetre-band regime) dielectric materials. In addition, the production will be more sustainable since we avoid the use of plastic, and there is no waste of the metals with AM.

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