3Dプリンターを利用した樹脂アンテナの製作と性能評価

Abstract

By applying a 3D printer, which has rapidly been attracting attention in the last few years, we fabricated a small-aperture horn antenna, such as a pyramidal horn, ridged pyramidal horn, and corrugated conical horn, and present the results of the measured radiation characteristics. These antennas were designed by means of the aperture field method or numerical solution, and the dimension data were input to the 3D printer and fabricated by laminating resin. Next, these resin surfaces were coated with conductive paint, and the input impedance and radiation pattern were measured, after which the results were compared with the theoretical calculations. We confirmed that there is no problem in the reflection characteristic by applying conductive paint on the same flat resin board and measuring the reflectivity of the conductive paint that is attached to the open side of a waveguide. The electrical performance of these resin antennas that were fabricated by a 3D printer had almost no problem in comparison with the conventionally produced antennas, and we could show that estimating small antennas using a 3D printer can be performed cheaply and in a short amount of time.