This article presents a novel circularly polarized (CP) open‐ended waveguide antenna array based on additive manufacturing technology. It is a one‐dimensional four‐element linear array and has a single piece configuration. Its main body is made of dielectric material and partial surfaces are coated by copper films through electroplating to form necessary metal components. Regarding to each element, it is based on a circular waveguide and employs an inbuilt linearly tapered double‐ridge structure to act as a polarizer. To design such a polarizer, different shaped ridges are analyzed and a design evolution is presented and discussed. Compared to the conventional designs, the proposed element and array can avoid structure partitioning during the processing, and effectively reduce the fabrication difficulty and complexity, meanwhile, attain light weights. To validate the design idea, two prototypes corresponding to the element and the array are fabricated and tested. Experimental results indicate that their axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW) are 22% (8.9–11.1 GHz) and 11.8% (9.6–10.8 GHz), and the gain are 6.6 ± 1.1 and 10.6 ± 0.6 dBic, respectively. The proposed element and array could be potentially applied for satellite and other CP communication systems.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.