For telecommunication bandwidths, 5G+ is the fastest growing and the only segment for significant investment growth opportunity in the wireless network infrastructure market, according to latest estimations by Gartner Inc.
Currently, technologies for 5G+ bandwidth depend on large antenna arrays that are typically heavy and are available in only limited bulky sizes, which makes them difficult to transport and are expensive to customize.
In a new development, researchers from College of Engineering, Georgia Tech have developed a novel and flexible solution for the challenge. The additively fabricated tile-based approach of the researchers can construct on-demand arrays of 5G+enabled smart skins that are massively scalable, and with the potential to enable intelligence on almost any surface or object.
The findings of the study recently published in Scientific Reports explains the approach, which is easier to customise and scale than current practices, and at the same time does not display performance degradation whenever scaled or flexed to very large number of tiles.
Typically, for telecommunication bandwidths, smaller wireless network systems working together are very large in number, but are not scalable. Using currently available techniques, the increase, decrease, or directing bandwidth especially for very large areas is not possible. The strength to use and scale up the novel tile-based approach makes this possible for 5G+ bandwidths.
The additive manufacturing application equipped with 5G+ capability has the potential for an immediate, and large-scale impact. This will align as the telecommunication industry continues to undergo rapid transition for faster, lower latency, and higher capacity communications.
Using the new approach from Georgia Tech, flexible and additively fabricated tiles are put together on a single, flexible underlying layer. This enables tile arrays to be joined to a multitude of surfaces.