A 3-D Printed Spherical Antenna With Bandwidth Enhancement Under Operation of Dual Resonance

Abstract

In this paper, a three-dimensional (3-D) printed spherical antenna with bandwidth enhancement under the operation of TM 101 and TM 211 modes is presented. The antenna is started from a metallized spherical cavity with a rectangular feed waveguide. Then, some slots are suitably introduced on its sidewall. With the help of these introduced slots, two resonant modes (TM 101 and TM 211) can be excited simultaneously and merged with each other, resulting in a wideband radiation characteristic with two resonances. An antenna prototype operating at X and Ku bands is designed and implemented as proof of concept. The antenna is additively manufactured by incorporating polymer-based stereolithography and electroless copper plating techniques. Measured results show that the antenna not only owns a wide impedance bandwidth of 40.9% from 9.77 to 14.81 GHz, but also maintains stable radiation patterns over the operating band. Besides, the measured average gain is as high as 10.1 dBi. As the measured results are in good agreement with the simulated ones, a simple and effective design of 3-D printed wideband spherical antenna with high radiation performances is verified. INDEX TERMS Spherical antenna, 3-D printed, waveguide-fed, wideband antenna.

3D-Printed Graphene-Based Bow-Tie Microstrip Antenna Design and Analysis for Ultra-Wideband Applications

“…There are two widely used 3D-printing techniques [53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61]: polymer/dielectric and all-metal. As the working frequency band enters the millimeter/microwave range, the printed parts' quality for the resulting antenna is of great importance.…”

A novel 3D printed curved monopole microstrip antenna design for biomedical applications

“…Substrate materials with a low thickness value are widely preferred as they provide improved performance, enhanced bandwidth, and less restricting structures for radiation areas. Various techniques are utilized to manufacture MAs, including wet-etching, inkjet printing, screen printing, and threedimensional (3D) printing [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. 3D printing has a promising potential in antenna manufacturing as it allows faster, more convenient, and less expensive manufacturing than the conventional tech techniques, known as additive manufacturing [10,11].…”

“…Thus, by using techniques not achievable in traditional manufacturing, 3D printing enables the production of more lightweight antennas for desired applications. Zhu et al [2] aimed to enhance the bandwidth of an antenna under dual resonance by simultaneously exciting the TM101 and TM211 modes. Although manufacturing the antenna [2] using conventional methods is complicated and expensive, it can be easily produced for the desired purposes using 3D printing technology.…”

“…Zhu et al [2] aimed to enhance the bandwidth of an antenna under dual resonance by simultaneously exciting the TM101 and TM211 modes. Although manufacturing the antenna [2] using conventional methods is complicated and expensive, it can be easily produced for the desired purposes using 3D printing technology. Gu et al [3] proposed a resonance gap-based design and production of an all-metal D-band antenna in the millimeter waveband.…”

A Wideband Slotted Spherical Waveguide Antenna Based on Multi-Mode Concept

“…Analogous to the design of wideband filters [14,15], an effective method using the multi-mode concept was proposed [16]. To further demonstrate this method, a new wideband SWA is presented in this paper.…”