Design of a Slotted Waveguide Antenna Based on TE20 Mode in Ku-Band Suitable for Direct Metal Laser Sintering

This paper describes the design of a novel Ku-band slotted waveguide antenna (SWA), taking into consideration the advantages and drawbacks of using a 3D direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) process. Indeed, the DMLS process makes it possible to produce a SWA with 64 radiating slots and its feeding ne...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inElectronics (Basel) Vol. 11; no. 13; p. 2079
Main Authors Chairi, Youssef, Abedrrabba, Sarra, Allanic, Rozenn, Amiaud, Anne-Charlotte, El Oualkadi, Ahmed, Quendo, Cédric, Merlet, Thomas, Reklaoui, Kamal, Le Gouguec, Thierry
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 02.07.2022
MDPI
Subjects
Antenna arrays
Antennas
Arrays
Converters
Design
Electromagnetism
Electronics
Engineering Sciences
Laser sintering
Manufacturing
Micro and nanotechnologies
Microelectronics
Propagation
Reflectance
Resonant frequencies
Sidelobes
Superhigh frequencies
Waveguide antennas
mode converter
feeding network
direct metal laser sintering
antenna arrays
3D printing
slotted waveguide antenna
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Summary:This paper describes the design of a novel Ku-band slotted waveguide antenna (SWA), taking into consideration the advantages and drawbacks of using a 3D direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) process. Indeed, the DMLS process makes it possible to produce a SWA with 64 radiating slots and its feeding network in a single and monolithic process. However, considering the lack of accuracy of the process, the whole design must be completely thought out and planned to avoid sensitive dimensions. Coupling irises inside such structures are elements of major sensitivity in this regard, so the radiating waveguides in the present work were designed to be TE20 ones, avoiding this kind of iris. Thus, a TE10 to TE20 converter was designed to be implemented in the overall power supply structure of an antenna array made up of four linear SWAs with 16 slots each. Both the elementary 16-slot SWA and the complete SWA with the feeding network were manufactured using DMLS. At a resonant frequency of 15 GHz, the measured realized gain is 22.26 dB with sidelobe levels below 10.1 dB. The measured reflection coefficient is lower than −12.6 dB at the center frequency. These measured performances confirm the proof of concept.
ISSN:2079-9292
2079-9292
DOI:10.3390/electronics11132079