3D-printed smart tiles could be the future of 5G+ technology
Summary
With the current techniques, you cant increase, decrease, or direct bandwidth, especially for very large areas," said Manos Tentzeris, Ken Byers Professor in Flexible Electronics in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Tentzeris says his teams modular application equipped with 5G+ capability has the potential for immediate, large-scale impact as the telecommunications industry continues to rapidly transition to standards for faster, higher capacity, and lower latency communications. Tile-based array architectures on rigid surfaces with single antenna elements have been researched before, but do not include the modularity, additive manufacturability, or flexible implementation of the Georgia Tech design. 5G+ is just the beginning While the tiling architecture has demonstrated the ability to greatly enhance 5G+ technologies, its combination of flexible and conformal capabilities has the potential to be applied in numerous different environments, the Georgia Tech team says. Internet of Things, virtual reality, as well as smart manufacturing/Industry 4.0 – a technology-driven approach that utilises internet-connected "intelligent" machinery to monitor and fully automate the production process – are additional areas of application the team is excited to explore.