Exploiting 3D printed substrate for microfluidic SIW sensor

Abstract

This paper exploits the possibility of the 3D printing for microwave sensor purposes. Because of the complex shapes allowed by this emerging technology, a fully-custom microfluidic sensor can be embedded directly during the substrate preparation. By this way, a simple approach in sensor design can be achieved together with a reduction of the manufacturing time, costs and overall complexity of the sensor. 3D printed microwave devices are very attractive for the future generation of Wireless Sensor Networks and of the Internet of Things. The proposed microfluidic sensor exploits the substrate integrated waveguide technology to keep high the quality factor and to merge the requirements of planar integration of further blocks. The aim of this sensor is a real time characterization of fluids across the lower UWB frequency band. The design, a first prototype and measurements are shown to exhibit the potentiality of this technique.