Polymer-based Additive Manufacturing of a Complex RF Front-End for New Space Applications

An innovative 3D-printed wideband monolithic passive array breadboard for space applications has been designed, manufactured, and tested with outstanding results in the K/Ka band. Among the main specifications of the antenna, it has double switchable circular polarization and represents a significant forty-seven percent of relative bandwidth in a single aperture, covering both the Tx and Rx bands. This achievement represents a viable strategy to manufacture satellite antennas using high-performance polymers via additive manufacturing (AM) and surface metallization techniques. The proposed approach for satellite on-board antenna arrays displays significant advantages with respect to traditional antennas in terms of low profile, weight, number of pieces, time-consuming assembly, and payload-reducing parts.