3D Printed Antennas Metallized Using Conductive Paint at X-Band

This paper presents performance evaluation of 3D printed antennas that operate at X-band and metallized using simple and low cost methods. The proposed 3D printed antennas operate at 10 GHz and they are metallized using different low cost conductive paint. The first antenna is metallized using conductive copper paint, while the second and the third antennas are metallized using silver paint. The performance of the proposed antennas is evaluated and the measured results of the prototypes show a good agreement with the simulation results, especially in the case of the antennas that metallized using silver paint. Measured results show descent and high gain performance of the fabricated prototypes. In addition, results show that the proposed antennas have wide impedance bandwidth of more than 10%, with radiation in the boresight direction with low side lobe level performance.