The Design Process for Monolithically Manufactured Millimeter-Wave Antenna Arrays Using Stereolithography 3D Printing

This paper presents a design flow enabling monolithic structures for milimeter-wave (mmW) applications utilizing cost-effective stereolithography (SLA). Particular emphasis is given to the design of complex shaped, phase-adjusted 3D waveguide interconnects that allow array elements to be arranged on any three-dimensional or two-dimensional grid. A horn antenna array at 61 GHz with 19 elements fed by a radial power divider is designed, manufactured, and validated. Simulations and measurements show excellent agreement.