Aperture-Coupled Microstrip Antenna Integrated with a PET-G Dielectric Lens

A novel dielectric lens antenna is proposed, integrating an aperture-coupled suspended microstrip patch radiating element with a 3D-printed dielectric lens fabricated with the use of Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) process. A polyethylene terephthalate glycol-modified (PET-G) filament has been utilized due to its good electric and mechanical properties. This allows the material to serve not only as a dielectric for realization of lens, but also as a supporting structure for integration of a radiating element and as a separator providing appropriate distance between the two laminate layers of aperture-coupled patch. The proposed concept has been experimentally verified on an example of the developed antenna operating at 10 GHz and featuring the increase of the realized gain by as much as 11.5 dB.