Enhancement of Feed Source through Three Dimensional Printing

The three-dimensional printed wideband prototype (WBP) was proposed, which is able to enhance the horn feed source by generating a more uniform phase distribution that is obtained after correcting aperture phase values. The noted phase variation obtained without the WBP was 163.65∘ for the horn source only, which was decreased to 19.68∘, obtained after the placement of the WBP at a λ/2 distance above the feed horn aperture. The corrected phase value was observed at 6.25 mm (0.25λ) above the top face of the WBP. The use of a five-layer cubic structure is able to generate the proposed WBP with dimensions of 105 mm × 105 mm × 37.5 mm (4.2λ× 4.2λ× 1.5λ), which can improve directivity and gain by 2.5 dB throughout the operating frequency range with a lower side lobe level. The overall dimension of the 3D printed horn was 98.5 mm × 75.6 mm × 192.6 mm (3.94λ× 3.02λ× 7.71λ), where the 100 % infill value was maintained. The horn was painted with a double layer of copper throughout its surface. In a design frequency of 12 GHz, the computed directivity, gain, side lobe level in H- and E- planes were 20.5 dB, 20.5 dB, -26.5 dB, and -12.4 dB with only a 3D printed horn case and, with the proposed prototype placed above this feed source, these values improved to 22.1 dB, 21.9 dB, -15.5 dB, and -17.5 dB, respectively. The realized WBP was 294 g and the overall system was 448 g in weight, which signifies a light weight condition. The measured return loss values were less than 2, which supports that the WBP has matching behavior over the operating frequency range.