Polymer-Based 3-D Printed Ku-Band Steerable Phased-Array Antenna Subsystem

IEEE Access

Diyar F. Alyasiri¹  Stepan Lucyszyn¹  Sang-Hee Shin¹  Mario D'Auria¹  William J. Otter¹  Connor W. Myant²  Nick M. Ridler³  Zhengrong Tian³  Daniel Stokes³ 

[1] Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College London, London, U.K.;Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London, London, U.K.;Electromagnetic and Electrochemical Technologies Department, National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, U.K.;

关键词: Additive manufacturing;    3-D printing;    Polyjet;    fused deposition modeling (FDM);    ABS;    PLA;   

DOI  :  10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2932431

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

This paper introduces the first fully 3-D printed tunable microwave subsystem, consisting of 26 circuit elements. Here, a polymer-based 3-D printed Ku-band 4-element steerable phased-array antenna with fully integrated beam-forming network is demonstrated. Polyjet was adopted for fabricating the main body of the subsystem, as it is capable of producing a geometrically complex structure with high resolution over a large volume. Low-cost fused deposition modeling was chosen to manufacture the dielectric inserts and brackets for the phase shifters. The measured radiation pattern revealed that the phased-array antenna subsystem has total beam steering angles of 54° and 52° at 15 GHz and 17 GHz, respectively. Excellent input return loss behavior was observed across the optimum operational frequency range of 15 to 17 GHz, with a worst-case measured return loss of 12.9 dB. This work clearly shows the potential of using 3-D printing technologies for manufacturing fully integrated subsystems with complex geometric features.

【 授权许可】

Unknown