Fully-Metallic Additively Manufactured Monolithic Double-Ridged Waveguide Rotman Lens in the K/K_a-Band

Abstract

This paper reports on the design and experimental validation of a fully-metallic double-ridged waveguide 10 × 10 Rotman lens additively manufactured as a single part. The wide band operation of this quasi-optical beamformer enables us to cover the uplink and downlink frequencies allocated to satellite communications in the K/Ka-band, from 17.3 GHz to 30 GHz. The feeding port design was adjusted to enable vertical printing, thus minimizing the use of supporting structures. A prototype was manufactured and tested. The reported results indicate losses in the range of 0.5 dB in the lower-frequency band and 0.8 dB in the upper-frequency band, including the waveguide transitions added for test purposes. The measured reflection and coupling coefficients remain below −11.5 dB over the operating band. The standard deviation of the residual phase error across the array ports is below 5° in simulation and below 10° in measurements. Array factors synthesized using the scattering parameters confirm the good stability of the beamforming functionality over the wide frequency band analyzed. This monolithic design is a promising step toward more integrated antenna systems, such as a compact dual-stack configuration for planar array design.

Keywords

• fully-metallic antenna
• Rotman lens
• multiple beam antenna
• satellite communication
• additive manufacturing