Hollow Rectangular Waveguide-fed Holographic Beamforming Antenna Additively Manufactured (3D Printed) with Conductive Polymer

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel method for designing and rapidly prototyping holographic beamforming antennas using 3D printing with conductive polymers, enabling quick fabrication and testing of complex electromagnetic structures.

Contribution

The paper presents a new 3D printing approach for holographic beamforming antennas with conductive materials, combining design, fabrication, and experimental validation.

Findings

Successful fabrication of holographic antennas using 3D printing.

Effective beamforming performance confirmed through experiments.

Rapid prototyping capability demonstrated for complex electromagnetic structures.

Abstract

We present the design and fabrication of 3D printed holographic beamforming antennas. The antennas utilize additively manufactured hollow rectangular waveguides that feed radiating rectilinear slots inserted into the upper conducting wall. The lengths of the individual slots are altered to implement a holographic beamforming solution designed using a coupled dipole formalism. For rapid verification, the designed antennas are fabricated using a desktop dual-extrusion fused filament 3D printer. The body of each antenna and its inner conducting surface are respectively printed using polylactic acid and biodegradable conductive polyester composite material (i.e., Electrifi), which is later deposited with a layer of copper on its surface to improve surface conductivity and reduce surface roughness. The beamforming performance of the fabricated antennas is confirmed via experiments. The 3D printed metasurface antennas using the proposed fabrication technique illustrate emerging capabilities in the rapid prototyping of complex electromagnetic structures.