Conference Paper

High-permittivity dielectric (HPD) materials (εr > 10) play a key role in advanced antenna designs. Recent developments in low-cost 3D-printable HPD enable the realization of non-conventional geometries, broadening their potential applications. This work demonstrates the use of such materials in transmit-array (TA) design. TAs are typically realized using stacked PCBs or conventional 3D-printed dielectrics (εr < 3); while dielectrics provide higher bandwidth than PCB counterpart, their aperture efficiency is limited by the higher lens thickness. By employing 3D-printed HPD, we can achieve broadband performance with a lens thickness comparable to PCB-based designs, while retaining the versatility of additive manufacturing. We focus on the design of TAs for mechanical beam-steering antennas in the Ka-band. Simple homogenization techniques used for lower-permittivity materials are insufficient for HPD. We then presented the design of an HPD TA with a diameter of 14 λ₀ and a height of 0.4 λ₀, fabricated using low-cost fused deposition modeling (FDM). When illuminated by a standard horn (F/D=0.5), it achieves 27.4 dBi gain, elevation scanning up to 45° via horizontal in-plane feed displacement with a 2 dB scan loss, and a 1-dB gain bandwidth of 16.3%.