Additive manufacturing of 3D substrate integrated waveguide components

Abstract

The implementation of fully three-dimensional (3D) substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) components by using an additive manufacturing technique is demonstrated for the first time. In particular, a 3D printing process based on the t-glase filament has been adopted. 3D printing allows for the manufacturing of very complex shapes in a few hours, thus leading to a one-day prototyping time for microwave components. To characterise the electromagnetic properties of the 3D printed material, a microstrip lines technique has been adopted. To fully demonstrate the potential of the proposed fabrication process, a SIW cavity resonator and a 3D SIW interconnect with four E-plane bends have been fabricated and tested.Introduction: The development of the next generation of wireless sensor networks towards the Internet of things (IoT) paradigm [1] demands RF and microwave components with special features in terms of flexibility, light weight and environmental compliance. The deployment of the large number of wireless systems expected for IoT applications requires a suitable manufacturing process and an efficient integration technology.Several innovative manufacturing techniques are currently being developed with the aim of reducing the implementation cost and the prototyping time. Among the emerging techniques, additive manufacturing based on three-dimensional (3D) printing is particularly suited to realise complex and fully 3D devices [2]. Commercially available 3D printers allow high resolutions together with a fast and reliable printing process. Commonly available printing materials can be dropped off by the fused deposition modelling (FDM) approach [3], and comprise acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, polylactic acid, and other flexible and/or eco-friendly materials. On the contrary, bulky metals can only be printed with the laser sintering process that is definitely more expensive and adopted only in very specific fields.Among the integration technologies, the substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) has been widely adopted in the last decade for the implementation of active and passive components and antennas, as well as for the integration of complete systems at microwave and mm-wave frequencies [4]. A variety of SIW components and antennas have been already implemented on non-standard materials for wearable and eco-friendly applications, including paper [5], textiles [6], and plastic [7].This Letter presents the implementation of SIW components by using a 3D printing manufacturing process, based on a recently proposed material called t-glase. After the description of the 3D printing process, the electromagnetic characterisation of the material is presented. The fabrication of SIW components and the implementation of a 3D interconnect with four E-plane 90°bends are reported to demonstrate the potential of the 3D printing fabrication process.

A New 4 × 4 Rectangular Waveguide Short-Slot Coupler in 3D Printed Technology at Ku-Band

“…Additive manufacturing [16,17] using plastic was used for the prototype implementation. Since the 3D printed waveguide components were manufactured from plastic, they must be metalized using either copper [16,17] or silver [18]. A 3D printer was used with Polylactic Acid (PLA biopolymer) material.…”

Microwave Components Realized by Additive Manufacturing Techniques

“…Another significant advantage of the AM is the possibility to manufacture arbitrarily shaped components, which can hardly be fabricated by conventional techniques. An example is shown in [2], where an SIW structure forming a bridge was realized by 3D printing with no need of any support material.…”

Substrate-Independent Microwave Components in Substrate Integrated Waveguide Technology for High-Performance Smart Surfaces

“…Therefore, small changes in the 3D-printing process, such as extrusion speed and temperature, infill pattern and percentage, do not affect performance of such components. Hence, by implementing Layer II by means of a standard 3D-printing technique, its main advantages [27] are exploited, being the ability to implement arbitrarily shaped planar SIW structures with arbitrary thickness in a cost-effective manner, while avoiding its disadvantages, being a performance that strongly depends on material and process parameters, by inserting well-defined air-filled regions [27].…”