3D Printed Corrugated Plate Antennas With High Aperture Efficiency and High Gain at X-Band and Ka-Band

A design criterion for a compact 3D printed high gain corrugated plate antenns that has high aperture efficiency and wide bandwidth is presented in this paper. The proposed design criterion is validated numerically and experimentally by fabricating 3D printed and Aluminium prototypes for X-band and Ka-band applications. The proposed antenna structure consists of two layers, where the electromagnetic energy (EM) is launched into a cavity that exists between both layers and the EM energy is coupled to the surface of the second layer. The second layer is the radiating structure which consists of three slots surrounded by a rectangular cavity and periodic corrugations that significantly improve the gain of the antennas. The 3D printed prototypes of the proposed antennas are fabricated and tested to validate the proposed design criterion, and their performance is compared to the Aluminium metallic counterparts. Using 3D printing technology, to fabricate the proposed antennas offer low cost and low weight alternatives to the Aluminium metallic prototypes. The measured results of the fabricated prototypes show high gain, high aperture efficiency, low side lobe level, and low cross polarization performance over a wide bandwidth.