Evaluation and Characterization of 3-D Printed Pyramid Horn Antennas Utilizing Different Deposition Techniques for Conductive Material

This paper evaluates different metal deposition approaches for a two-staged additive manufacturing (AM) process for 3-D horn antennas, divided into the deposition of plastic and conductive material. The demonstrated fabrication workflow allows for antennas of low cost and low weight and, therefore, demonstrates the vast benefit of AM. The comparison of a commercially available cast aluminum horn to the fabricated prototypes reveals a deviation of up to 3 dB in terms of transmission losses in copolarization over a distance of 1.85 m. Cross-polarization measurements are presented revealing a larger variation among the different metallization approaches. The results shown in this paper demonstrate a successful application of AM in radio frequency engineering. Moreover, one of the presented approaches makes use of only 3-D printing systems and is, therefore, potentially suitable for totally automated manufacturing.