A Novel Rigid-Flex Aperture Coupled Patch Antenna Array

This paper presents the integration of a flex liquid crystal polymer (LCP) and rigid 3D printed structures to form a bendable antenna array. Photolithography is used to pattern the line features of a power divider on LCP and 3D printing is utilized to fabricate patches that are directly attached to the LCP substrate. Individual patch antennas are aperture- coupled to the power divider through a slot in the ground plane. A single element rigid-flex patch was measured to have a maximum gain of 7.5 dBi and a 2×2 array design shows a gain of 10.8 dBi at 15.2 GHz. The rigid-flex structure allows for conformal mounting and an array with a +90-degree bend is demonstrated that shows a 200-degree 3 dB beamwidth. Simulated and measured results are presented, and a close match was achieved.