A Novel 60-cm Nonsherical 3-D Printed Voxelized Lens Antenna: Design, Fabrication and Measurement

In this paper, we present a novel 60cm 3D printed, shaped, engineered material, inhomogeneous dielectric lens antenna. Common commercial 3D printers do not have a print bed large enough to directly print the 60cm diameter lens, and thus the lens must be printed in parts and fused together afterward. The presented design was printed in octants and fused together through printed alignment points to obtain the final fabricated product. To the authors knowledge, this lens is the largest 3D printed lens to date. The lens is designed using a novel synthesis tool based on a Geometrical Optics and Particle Swarm Optimization combination. The design is then voxelized for 3D printing fabrication. A unique cylindrical cell geometry is used to allow printing via Fused Deposition Modeling method and thus in a space qualified material. The lens is 3D printed and measured for pattern performance. The measured results agree well with simulations.