Additive Manufacturing for RF Materials and Antennas

To reduce size, weight, power and cost (SWaP-c), military platforms have been evolving towards more integrated platforms that utilize all available space. For radiating systems, this will require exploring innovative design methods, materials and manufacturing approaches to realize cost-effective, customizable and conformal antennas. An attractive solution to this challenge is offered by additive manufacturing (AM). Recently commercial multi-material AM systems have been developed allowing users to print a wide range of commercial or custom materials without moving the part. This opens up the possibility of fabricating complete antenna systems using a single AM printer. However, a lack of suitable materials is hindering the applicability of this technology towards real-world applications. The objectives of this proposal are to develop high conductivity and high dielectric constant materials suitable for multimaterial AM systems. To this end, DeLUX Engineering will refine custom high conductivity formulations that exceed commercially available materials, optimize dielectrically loaded polymer composite materials to be used as filament feedstock for AM systems, in addition to ultra-highly loaded composite feedstock for our hopper-fed system. In Phase II, the hopper-fed system will be refined and integrated onto a commercial system AM platform and fabricate antenna structures in a fully automated process.