Realization of Three Dimensional Printed Multi Layer Wide Band Prototype

Abstract

The three dimensional printing method is currently on stage of rapid development to realize complex nature of structure in simpler and feasible ways. In this paper, we proposed a 3D printed wideband antenna structure with high performance to improve the characteristics properties of feed source by eliminating the use of expensive superstates. A 60 mm $\times60$ mm $\times22.5$ mm wideband structure was first fabricated from VERO CMYK material through Multijet 3D printing method where the bottom layer are copper painted so as to realize the higher permittivity layer. The proposed structure is maintained at 16 mm ( $0.64\lambda $ ) above the ground plate of 60 mm $\times60$ mm $\times $ 1 mm, which is feed by WR-75 waveguide. The proposed antenna is designed to have a wide operating bandwidth from 10 to 15 GHz, which cover Ku-band frequency range. Directivity enhancement is obtained over a large bandwidth by using high permittivity material for Layer 1 and lower permittivity material for Layer 2 and Layer 3. The resulting antenna prototype demonstrates a directivity bandwidth product (DBP) of 3012.79 and DBP per unit area (DBP/A) of 523.06, where directivity and gain are found to be higher than 15 dBi over the entire operating frequency band. The total area of the new antenna prototype is $2.4\lambda \times 2.4\lambda \times 0.9\lambda $ ( $4.16\lambda _{g} \times 4.16\lambda _{g} \times 1.56\lambda _{g}$ ), and overall electrical height is $1.54\lambda $ at the design frequency of 12 GHz. The proposed prototype weight 36 g and overall system have weight of 118 g, which is light in weight. The measured VSWR is less than 2, which signifies wideband characteristics of overall system.

Keywords

• Microwave communication
• radiation patterns
• three dimensional (3D) printing
• wide band