System Integrated Manufacturing of Conformal Arrays (1000-034)

SI2 Technologies, Inc. (SI2) proposes an innovative approach to the design and manufacture of conformal arrays for air vehicles. Our approach is to integrate the antenna with the aircraft structure to maximize electronic and structural performance while minimizing the system weight and volume. This approach is economically and technically possible through the application of SI2’s novel System Integrated Manufacturing (SIM) technology, which combines the design, materials, and manufacturing approaches. A key component of SI2’s SIM technology is a family of processes known as Direct Write (DW). DW is capable of manufacturing electronics, such as antennas, at low temperature on conformal (doubly curved) surfaces without the need for expensive vacuum, plating and etching processes. The Phase I program successfully demonstrated that the SIM approach can be used to design and manufacture high quality conformal arrays on structural dielectrics. The Phase II program will expand upon the Phase I results by manufacturing a conformal array with beam steering capabilities.