Design and realization of multilayered cylindrical dielectric lens antenna using 3D printing technology

Abstract

Herein, design and realization of a novel, low cost, small size, high gain, 3D printed multilayered cylindrical dielectric lens antenna (MLCDLA) is presented at 10 GHz. In the first stage, MLCDLA is designed suitable the 3D printed technology in CST 3D EM simulation environment. Then gain, return loss, and radiation pattern of the design are investigated in the X-band frequencies in the same 3D simulated environment. In the second stage, the designed lens is fabricated by the 3D printed technology in dimensions of 30 x 30 x 52.5 mm(3) using acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, with epsilon(r)=2.5. In the final stage, performance characteristics of the proposed LCDLA are measured using 10 GHz rectangular waveguide as feeding unit and are compared with the simulated results and counterpart designs in literature. The prototyped MLCDLA is achieved 14 dBi measured gain at 10 GHz. It can be concluded that the proposed 3D printing method not only enables a high performance MLCDLA design but also provides its fast, low cost, and effective prototyping process which can be used for other microwave devices.