An Additively Manufactured CPW-back-fed Wideband Circularly-Polarized Radix Metasurface Patch Antenna for X-Band Space Applications

As the space industry focuses more on low-cost small satellite platforms than large spacecraft, it is essential to develop antenna solutions compatible with small form factors such as the one-unit standards. Furthermore, additive manufacturing enables high-performance ad-hoc fabrication of space antennas with greater degrees of freedom in the geometry. A circularly polarized metasurface patch antenna is designed, manufactured, and tested for wideband X- Band applications. The co-planar waveguide (CPW)-back-fed metasurface patch antenna in this work is additively manufactured using digital light processing (DLP) and micro-dispending process for the Rogers RadixTM and Novacentrix HPS-FG57B conductive paste, respectively. The metasurface is comprised of truncated patches with engineered sizes and relative placement for wideband and polarization control purposes. The antenna shows a measured - 10dB impedance bandwidth of 63% and a simulated 3dB axial ratio (AR) and peak gain of 12% and 7.7 dBi, respectively.