Design of 3D-Printed Air-Like Structural Supports for Meanderline Polarizers at L-Band

A design approach and demonstration of a 3D-printed lattice structure as a low permittivity foam spacer replacement in meanderline polarizers (MLP) are discussed. Reduced complexity model that relies on the extracted parameters from the lattice structure calculated using the Nicolson-Ross-Weir (NRW) method as frequency-dependent material characteristics is developed and showed to accurately represents the physics in the infinite array environment. Effective parameters of fabricated 3D-printed air-like supports are extracted using NRW method and compared to simulation through multiple iterations to compensate for systematic errors introduced by the utilized 3D printer. Simulated results integrating such a 3D-printed structure with a meanderline polarizer and planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA) unit-cell for a tightly-coupled array (TCA) at GPS L1, L2, and L5 bands are presented as well.