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3D printed utility dielectric core manufacturing process for antenna prototyping

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journal contribution
posted on 2018-05-01, 08:31 authored by John A. Brister, Robert EdwardsRobert Edwards
A prototyping method for dielectrically loaded antennas is presented. Dielectric loading has been used with horn antennas, feeds, and lenses. Dielectrics have also been used for coating antennas submerged in water and biological matter and have led to improvements in bandwidth and efficiency as well as antenna miniaturisation. The authors present a new technique to produce variable dielectrics with permittivity from 6 to 28 using two commonly available powders, titanium dioxide (used in foods) and magnesium silicate (used in talcum powder). An example spherical helical ball antenna is used to demonstrate the process. In this antenna, the mixed powders were encased in a 3D printed shell that achieved a reduction in diameter of the spherical antenna by a factor of 1.85. The technique aids rapid prototyping and optimisation using search algorithms.

History

School

  • Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering

Published in

IET Microwaves Antennas and Propagation

Citation

BRISTER, J.A. and EDWARDS, R.M., 2018. 3D printed utility dielectric core manufacturing process for antenna prototyping. IET Microwaves, Antennas and Propagation, 12 (10), pp.1633-1638.

Publisher

© The Institution of Engineering and Technology

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Acceptance date

2018-04-03

Publication date

2018

Notes

This paper is a postprint of a paper submitted to and accepted for publication in IET Microwaves Antennas and Propagation and is subject to Institution of Engineering and Technology Copyright. The copy of record is available at the IET Digital Library.

ISSN

1751-8725

eISSN

1751-8733

Language

  • en