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Design of 3D Printed Horn Antennas for Millimeter-Wave Applications in the 18-26.5 GHz Band

Heleno, S. ; Carvalho, S. ; Reis, J. R. ; Duarte, L. ; Fernandes, T. ; Caldeirinha, R. F. S.

Design of 3D Printed Horn Antennas for Millimeter-Wave Applications in the 18-26.5 GHz Band, Proc INOV.AM International Conference, Braga, Portugal, Vol. , pp. - , November, 2024.

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Abstract
This paper presents the design of a high-gain, wideband planar horn antenna array fed by a multilayer full-corporate air-filled waveguide network with stable response across K-band (18–26.5 GHz). The primary goals are to showcase the feasibility of 3D printing in the fabrication process of complex structures and to conduct a comprehensive performance analysis for validation purposes. The overall configuration of the proposed planar horn antenna array, featuring 8x8 waveguide-fed small-aperture horn antennas, is depicted in Figure 1. A multilayer full-corporate air-filled waveguide feed network structure, detailed in [12], incorporating X-Junctions and Y-Junctions 1-to-4 in-phase waveguide power dividers has been implemented. Vertical short rectangular waveguide sections were utilized to interconnect adjacent layers of the feed network. The design incorporates small-aperture waveguide-fed horn antennas as radiating elements, coupled directly to the outputs of the Y-junction power dividers. A waveguide tapering section was implemented at the input port of the feed network to match the waveguide dimensions of the structure with standard WR-42 specifications.