Design and Performance Comparison of 3D Metal Printed Near Field Probe for K-Ka band

Frequency band requirements for satcom applications in certain cases overlap two conventional microwave frequency bands. Characterizing antennas using near field techniques over such bands require two separate probes resulting in substantial increase in measurement time. This work is motivated by providing solution to such requirements of overlapping bands (K and Ka-band) and wideband operation over an octave frequency from 17–33 GHz. We propose a new WR-38 band and present the design and development of WR-38 waveguide probe realized using 3D metal printing. Impact of higher order modes on operational bandwidth of waveguide, 3D metal printing surface roughness and fabrication tolerances is investigated. Fabricated probe is characterized using planar near field (PNF) and measured results are presented. Performance comparison is done by characterizing SGH-1800 (18-26.5 GHz) and SGH-2200 (22–33 GHz) with 3D printed WR-38 probe and commercial WR-42 and WR-34 probes.