Design and manufacturing of a 3-D conformal slotted waveguide antenna array in Ku-band based on Direct Metal Laser Sintering

One of the growing trend in antennas is to address multifunctional systems, providing direct space saving and cost reduction. A consideration for future generation antennas is to replace the classical planar geometry with new functionalities. Three-dimensional (3-D) / conformal antennas offer significant advantages for such system. However, traditional manufacturing processes limit their realization. Additive Manufacturing have been identified as very promising solutions to overcome the dimensional challenge that 3-D components represent. These technologies enable the manufacturing of complex and conformal structures and goes beyond the conventional subtractive manufacturing techniques. In this contribution we propose to evaluate the manufacturing capacities of the Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS). For this purpose, we need an easy-to-test antenna structure containing pertinent features representative of all complication we can run into when designing a complex antenna, including phased array antenna. We propose a conformal slotted waveguide antenna arrays (SWAA) operating in Ku band. The electrical performances of the device have been compared between simulation with ANSYS® HFSS™ software and measurements. Despite a mismatch in the reflection parameter, good results are obtained in gain. They enable us to envision promising future achievements and a better mastering of the global set of parameters.