Comparison of Additively Manufactured and Machined Antenna Array Performance at Ka-Band
Journal article, 2022

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a rapidly developing field, which potentially decreases the manufacturing costs and enables increasingly complex antenna shapes. Metal-based AM might be particularly useful for manufacturing antennas at millimeter-wave (mm-wave) range, because these antennas are physically small enough making AM cost efficient, and manufacturing accuracy could still suffice for good electrical performance. In this letter, two additively manufactured and identical machined fully metallic Ka-band Vivaldi antenna arrays are compared. The manufactured antenna arrays are compared using RF measurements to conclude the feasibility of AM for manufacturing antenna arrays at mm-wave frequencies. Comparison of the measured radiation patterns and realized gains of each of the antenna arrays between 26 and 40 GHz shows close to identical radiation patterns for all the arrays. A loss in realized gain of 0.5-1.5 dB is observed in the AM arrays when compared to the machined array due to the used materials and the surface roughness.

Additive manufacturing (AM)

flared-notch antenna

antenna array

Vivaldi antenna

phased array

millimeter wave (mm-wave)

tapered slot

fifth-generation (5G)

Author

Henri Kahkonen

Aalto University

Sebastian Proper

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science, Materials and manufacture

Juha Ala-Laurinaho

Aalto University

Ville Viikari

Aalto University

IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters

1536-1225 (ISSN) 15485757 (eISSN)

Vol. 21 1 9-13

Design and Material Performance for Lightweight in Powder Bed Metal Additive Manufacturing

VINNOVA (2018-00798), 2018-06-01 -- 2021-05-31.

Subject Categories

Production Engineering, Human Work Science and Ergonomics

Other Physics Topics

Signal Processing

DOI

10.1109/LAWP.2021.3113372

More information

Latest update

2/1/2022 8