This work presents, for the first time, an in-situ self-aligned fluidic-integrated microwave sensor for characterizing NaCl contents in NaCl-aqueous solution based on a 16-GHz bandpass combline cavity resonator. The discrimination of the NaCl concentration is achievable by determining amplitude differences and resonant frequency translations between the incident and reflected microwave signals at the input terminal of the cavity resonator based on the capacitive loading effects of the comb structure inside the cavity introduced by the NaCl solution under test. Twelve NaCl-aqueous liquid mixture samples with different NaCl concentrations ranging from 0% to 20% (0 - 200 mg/mL), which are generally exploited in most industrial and biomedical applications, were prepared and encapsulated inside a Teflon tube performing as a fluidic channel. The Teflon tube is subsequently inserted into the cavity resonator through two small holes, fabricated through the sidewalls of the cavity, which can be used to automatically align the fluidic subsystem inside the combline resonator considerably easing the sensor setup. Based on at least five repeated measurements, the NaCl sensor can discriminate the NaCl content of as low as 1% with the measurement accuracy of higher than 96% and the maximum standard deviation of only 0.0578. There are several significant advantages achieved by the novel NaCl sensors, e.g. high accuracy, traceability and repeatability; ease of sensor setup and integration to actual industrial and biomedical systems enabling in-situ and real-time measurements; noninvasive and noncontaminative liquid solution characterization as well as superior sensor reusability due to a complete physical separation between the fluidic and microwave subsystems.

This paper presents a 3D-printed hemispherical lens integrated with a planar ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna. The flower-shaped stub slot UWB antenna is made of 0.8-mm FR-4. The operating frequency of the UWB covers 3.10 GHz - 11.6 GHz with a nominal gain at zero degrees of 1.74 dBi. To enhance the UWB antenna’s high-gain radiation, a 3D-printed additive hemispherical lens is designed and fabricated from acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). The electrical properties, i.e., relative permittivity and loss tangent, of ABS are 2.66, and 0.003, respectively. Four different lens radii (8 mm, 10 mm, 12 mm, and 14 mm) are chosen to investigate the gain of the antenna. In all four cases, the 3D-printed lens is fixed in place in front of the UWB antenna with an optimum gap of 3 mm chosen to reduce the wave reflection between the lens and source antenna. Based on the measurement results, the reflection coefficient, S11, of four conditions still covers the UWB frequency range. The nominal gain at zero-degree values for lens radii of 8 mm, 10 mm, 12 mm, and 14 mm are 3.43 dBi, 4.22 dBi, 4.73 dBi, and 5.18 dBi, respectively. The proposed additive 3D-printed dielectric lens antenna also offers many advantages, i.e., ease of design and assembly, low-cost fabrication, and size reduction for high-gain antennas. Furthermore, the high-gain antenna provides a narrow half power beamwidth, which can be implemented to increase the resolution of the imaging system.

This paper presents a state-of-the-art planar microwave sensor designed for highly precise alcohol characterization in aqueous solutions, with a primary focus on its application in COVID-19 disinfectants. Modified from the Jerusalem patch, the sensor operates at 5.58 GHz, achieving a unique balance between heightened sensitivity and cost-effectiveness. A tailor-made 3D-printed case minimizes errors, securely housing the sensor and feeding tube. The sensor effectively discriminates between ethanol and methanol, revealing a notable 16 MHz frequency gap. In COVID-19 applications, it maintains alcohol percentages at 65–75%, with 1% increments. The paper outlines a mathematical model extracting concentrations with the maximum error of only smaller than 1.81%, affirming the sensor’s precision. Beyond technical prowess, the sensor’s non-destructive nature, real-time monitoring applicability, and freedom from life-cycle limitations mark it as an innovative tool for checking the percentage of alcohol and types of alcohol before using it to kill the virus, contributing significantly to global efforts on disinfectant measurements with noninvasive nature and high precision. This modified Jerusalem sensor stands as a transformative solution, offering unprecedented advantages in design, operational capacity, and broader support for virus-killing applications.

This paper presents a novel mechanically beam-steered antenna system for 10 GHz applications, enabled by multi-material 3D-printing technology. The proposed design eliminates the need for complex electronic circuitry by integrating a mechanically rotatable, 3D-printed hemispherical lens with a conventional rectangular patch antenna. The system comprises three main components: a 10-GHz patch antenna, a precision-fabricated hemispherical dielectric lens produced via stereolithography (SLA), and a structurally robust rotation assembly fabricated using fused deposition modeling (FDM). The mechanical rotation of the lens enables discrete beam-steering from −45° to +45° in 5° steps. Experimental results demonstrate a gain improvement from 6.21 dBi (standalone patch) to 10.47 dBi with the integrated lens, with minimal degradation across steering angles (down to 9.59 dBi). Simulations and measurements show strong agreement, with the complete system achieving 94% accuracy in beam direction. This work confirms the feasibility of integrating additive manufacturing with passive beam-steering structures to deliver a low-cost, scalable, and high-performance alternative to electronically scanned arrays. Moreover, the design is readily adaptable for motorized actuation and closed-loop control via embedded systems, enabling future development of real-time, programmable beam-steering platforms.

This study proposes a high-isolation four-port wideband MIMO antenna array designed for sub-6 GHz 5G, IoT, and radar applications. The array is fabricated on a polycarbonate substrate with overall dimensions of 500 × 500 mm² (ε_r = 2.8, h = 1 mm). Four orthogonally arranged modified circular patches with triangular ground planes and optimized inter-element spacing (D₁ = 90 mm) are employed in the antenna’s design to achieve an impedance bandwidth of 0.7–7.0 GHz (Fractional Bandwidth (FBW) > 163.63%) with |S_ii| < −10 dB across all ports. The measurement results indicate that the inter-port isolation is better than 15 dB (worst-case) across the 0.7–7 GHz band, exceeding 25 dB over 63.5% of the bandwidth (with a peak of approximately 50 dB); the envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) is ultra-low (<0.008); the total active reflection coefficient (TARC) is less than −10 dB for primary multi-port excitations; the mean effective gain (MEG) is balanced (≈−3 dB); and the group delay is consistent (~0.5 ns). With a maximum realized gain of 10 dBi, the antenna exhibits omnidirectional radiation patterns, showing a significant correlation between the simulation (CST Microwave Studio) and measurement results. The proposed antenna is particularly well-suited for use in high-throughput sub-6 GHz 5G base stations and wideband wireless systems, offering superior port isolation through multi-mode resonance without the need for metamaterials and outperforming existing four-port designs.

This work presents an S₂₁-based 2.4 GHz microwave sensing system with a 3D-printed dielectric lens for automatic passenger counting in aircraft applications. The proposed system employs a pair of microwave antennas forming a transmission sensing link across the passenger pathway, where the presence of a passenger perturbs the transmitted microwave signal and produces a detectable variation in the transmission coefficient, S₂₁. A hemispherical dielectric lens fabricated from acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) is integrated with each antenna to improve the directional radiation characteristics of the sensing link. The measurements show that the lens increases the average realized gain from 2.26 to 4.02 dBi while maintaining operation at 2.4 GHz. The sensing system is integrated with a NanoVNA and a MATLAB-based processing platform for sequential S₂₁ acquisition, human-event discrimination, automatic counting, and automatic display updating. Experimental responses obtained from humans and representative non-human materials, including plywood, plastic, and steel, demonstrate distinguishable S₂₁ characteristics under the investigated conditions and provide the basis for an experimentally derived human-response detection window. The complete system was experimentally evaluated in an actual Airbus A320 aircraft using 30 participants over five repeated counting trials. The system achieved a mean counting accuracy of 90.67%. These results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed microwave sensing approach for aircraft passenger-counting applications.