Waveguide Manufacturing Technologies for Next-Generation Millimeter-Wave Antennas

Autor: Lucas Polo-López, Pablo Sanchez-Olivares, Eduardo García-Marín, Jorge A. Ruiz-Cruz, Juan Córcoles, José L. Masa-Campos, José R. Montejo-Garai, Jesús M. Rebollar
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: Micromachines, Vol 12, Iss 12, p 1565 (2021)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2072-666X
DOI: 10.3390/mi12121565
Popis: Some recent waveguide-based antennas are presented in this paper, designed for the next generation of communication systems operating at the millimeter-wave band. The presented prototypes have been conceived to be manufactured using different state-of-the-art techniques, involving subtractive and additive approaches. All the designs have used the latest developments in the field of manufacturing to guarantee the required accuracy for operation at millimeter-wave frequencies, where tolerances are extremely tight. Different designs will be presented, including a monopulse antenna combining a comparator network, a mode converter, and a spline profile horn; a tunable phase shifter that is integrated into an array to implement reconfigurability of the main lobe direction; and a conformal array antenna. These prototypes were manufactured by diverse approaches taking into account the waveguide configuration, combining parts with high-precision milling, electrical discharge machining, direct metal laser sintering, or stereolithography with spray metallization, showing very competitive performances at the millimeter-wave band till 40 GHz.
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