3D Printed Corrugated Plate Antennas With High Aperture Efficiency and High Gain at X-Band and Ka-Band

Shaker Alkaraki,Clive G Parini,Edouard Gayets,Yue Gao,Samuel Stremsdoerfer

doi:10.1109/access.2020.2972101

Shaker Alkaraki, Clive G Parini + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1109/access.2020.2972101

Copy DOI

Abstract

A design criterion for a compact 3D printed high gain corrugated plate antenns that has high aperture efficiency and wide bandwidth is presented in this paper. The proposed design criterion is validated numerically and experimentally by fabricating 3D printed and Aluminium prototypes for X-band and Ka-band applications. The proposed antenna structure consists of two layers, where the electromagnetic energy (EM) is launched into a cavity that exists between both layers and the EM energy is coupled to the surface of the second layer. The second layer is the radiating structure which consists of three slots surrounded by a rectangular cavity and periodic corrugations that significantly improve the gain of the antennas. The 3D printed prototypes of the proposed antennas are fabricated and tested to validate the proposed design criterion, and their performance is compared to the Aluminium metallic counterparts. Using 3D printing technology, to fabricate the proposed antennas offer low cost and low weight alternatives to the Aluminium metallic prototypes. The measured results of the fabricated prototypes show high gain, high aperture efficiency, low side lobe level, and low cross polarization performance over a wide bandwidth.

Highlights

Corrugated plate antennas have been widely investigated to deliver high gain performance at microwave frequencies, millimeter-wave and THz bands
One of the other advantages of the corrugated plate antennas that they have very high radiation efficiency, due to two main facts: the first is that the structures are typically fed using ultra reliable and efficient waveguide technology and the second is that the antenna structure consists of only metal, where the radiation efficiency of the antenna is boosted once the reflection coefficient is matched as the conduction losses of most metals such as Aluminum are very low
A design criterion for high gain 3D printed corrugated plate antennas with high aperture efficiency is demonstrated in the paper

Summary

Introduction

Corrugated plate antennas have been widely investigated to deliver high gain performance at microwave frequencies, millimeter-wave and THz bands. One of the main advantages of these corrugated plate antennas is their ability of providing high gain performance, while keeping compact and low profile size. They found their way to be deployed for various applications at microwave frequencies [5], [6], [12], millimeter-wave and THz applications [2], [16], satellite communication [11], [12], and automotive radar. The main drawbacks of the SC and BE corrugated plate antennas that are their high cost of fabrication, low aperture efficiency and their narrow bandwidth

Methods

Results

Conclusion