Title:  Additively Manufactured Shape-changing RF Devices Enabled by Origami-inspired Structures

Committee:

Dr. Manos Tentzeris, ECE, Chair, Advisor

Dr. Andrew Peterson, ECE

Dr. Gregory Durgin, ECE

Dr. Sungjoo Lim, Chung-Ang University

Dr. Suresh Sitaraman, ME

Abstract: The work to be presented in this defense explores the possibility of implementing origami-inspired shape-changing structures into RF designs to enable continuous performance tunability as well as deployability. The research not only experimented novel structures that have unique mechanical behaviours, but also developed automated additive manufacturing (AM) fabrication process that pushes the boundary of realizable frequency from Sub-6 GHz to mm-wave. High-performance origami-inspired reconfigurable frequency selective surfaces (FSSs) and reflectarray antennas are realized for the first time at mm-wave frequencies via AM techniques. The research also investigated the idea of combining mechanical tuning and active tuning methods in a hybrid manner to realize the first truly conformal beam-forming phased array antenna that can be applied onto any arbitrary surface and can be re-calibrated computer vision process.