3D Printed Wideband Circularly Polarized Pyramidal Horn Antenna

This paper proposes a novel three dimensions (3D) printed wideband pyramidal horn antenna equipped with binomial slot polarizer to generate a circular wave polarization. The antenna which is designed to work at X-band frequency of 9.6 GHz is intended to have high gain and directivity, as well as to have good impedance matching implementable for the next generation of X-band circularly polarized (CP) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) based microsatellite. A microstrip line is applied to feed the antenna in order to make the construction inside of antenna more compact. The structure of antenna is realized by a 3D printer machine using 1.75 mm filament polylactid acid (PLA) material and its inner surfaces are coated by copper conductive paint. The characterization results show that the fabricated pyramidal horn antenna has wideband characteristic response with the axial ratio less than 3 dB of 6.25%, the impedance bandwidth less than -10 dB of 28.75%, and the gain up to 8.7 dBiC at the frequency of 9.6 GHz.