Additively Manufactured Profiled Conical Horn Antenna With Dielectric Loading

Abstract

The world's first additively manufactured dielectric loaded profiled conical horn antenna is presented in this letter. With a smooth profiled flare and two loaded dielectric core materials, this horn offers symmetrical patterns, wideband gain, low sidelobe level, and low cross polarization. Additive manufacturing, including electroplating, has been employed to address the fabrication challenges. The measurement results show that the fabrication process produces a horn antenna with reduced mass and volume (<;200 g with three-dimensional-printed flange) and high antenna performance with realized gain 16-20 dBi, sidelobe level -22 to -19 dB across the frequency range from 9 to 15 GHz.