Latest generation of active antennas designs are demanding low thermal gradients and low volume (specially for LEO designs). Additive manufacturing introduces high flexibility to fulfil these main requirements, the 2-phase thermal component can be directly manufactured in the system to refrigerate, improving the thermal behavior and increasing the level of integration in the system. A trade-off for an active antenna thermal control is presented based on the vapor chamber concept, introducing the different thermal and mechanical analyses. A review in the manufacturing processes required to introduce the additive manufacturing processes to standard materials are considered as well, presenting different designs and coupons to validate future works in the development of this flat vapour chamber design.
Pedro Argente Hernández (Sun,) studied this question.