Radiation Shielding Effectiveness of Additively Manufactured Antenna-on-Package for Space Environments

Abstract

The interest in space exploration by the private sector has been growing rapidly in recent years, along with business models to profit from long-duration space activities. Additive manufacturing in-space (ISM) plays an essential role in long-term space exploration mission sustainability based on on-demand production and recycling of materials. One important issue for electronics in space is their interaction of charged particles which affects the materials’ mechanical properties when exposed to the radiation environment of space. This paper reports the effectiveness of radiation shielding 3D-printed ABS and carbon fiber filled nylon composite for short-time exposure. Since carbon fiber filled nylon composite has better shielding effectiveness, a two-layer coupled-fed 3D-printed microstrip antenna is presented for antenna-on-package applications, where the antenna can be used as a radiation shielding element. The fabricated antenna resonates at 5.88 GHz, exhibiting a 10 dB return-loss bandwidth of 5.5 %. A low-cost radiation shielding effectiveness measurement technique is presented, along with the results for ABS and carbon fiber filled nylon composite.