Drexel’s new spray on antennas can connect everything to the internet

Read the article online: https://www.fanaticalfuturist.com/2018/10//drexels-new-spray-on-antennas-can-connect-everything-to-the-internet

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF: Tomorrow’s world will be increasingly connected, and connecting old legacy devices and things has been difficult, but it’s about to get much easier.

Engineers are good at making minuscule antennas. Nowadays, we can cram antennas into our smartphones or smartwatches without much trouble. But from the perspective of those devices, the antennas inside them are still bulky and take up too much space.

Now, researchers at Drexel University, in Philadelphia, have developed a thin, lightweight, and flexible spray on 2D antenna solution that can be sprayed onto everyday objects, whether they’re wearable devices or Internet of Things products, legacy buildings and other city infrastructure, or even cows if you so fancied, that can be used to connect them to the rest of the world in a way that was unimaginable just a few years ago. They published their work in Science Advances.

The transparent Titanium Carbide antenna is also a good option for any device in which you don’t want to actually see the antenna, says Asia Sarycheva, a Ph.D. student in Drexel’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, who conducted the research.

“With smart windows, for example, you have to have transparent circuits to send signals. Or solar cells – you need everything [to be] transparent.”