Development of Novel Nano-Silver-Based Antenna for Green Agriculture

The designed antenna is a monopole Z-shaped antenna operating in an unlicensed band of 2.4 GHz fabricated using low cost inkjet printing technology. The proposed inkjet printing technology is eco-friendly since the material used here is an ordinary “paper” that is suitable for the green technology. The conducting patch of silver nanoparticle (AgNP) ink has very high conductivity 35,700,000 s/m and instant curing property which helps in fabrication process without UV curing or oven heating. The printer used also is the cheap home printer HP DJ 2130 rather than the expensive Brother and Epson printers used in previous works. The printed antenna will be helpful in conditions to ascertain its performance in green agriculture in the form of RF-ID sensors, soil pH value sensor, and moisture sensor. The proposed antenna attains the gain of 2.5 dBi at the ISM band of 2.4 GHz with optimal VSWR value between 1 and 2 over the desired frequency band. The directivity and radiation efficiency of the proposed antenna are 2 dBi and 80%, respectively. The overall cost of the proposed antenna is much lesser in the order of 10 times than the recent low cost design.