Additive Manufacturing for 5G Antennas: How Technologies and Materials Impact on Design

Additive Manufacturing (AM) has recently proved its feasibility for the fabrication of compact electronic and telecommunication components with high level of customization. Compared to conventional manufacturing technologies, AM exhibits the dramatic capability of rapid prototyping parts and devices fast and at reasonable costs. In order to have a clear view about the way AM is developing into recent and future telecommunication contexts, the present work will show the most recent antenna design for 5G communications, highlighting the use of AM solutions for the antenna fabrication. To this aim, 3D-shaped dielectric resonator antennas (DRAs) were designed and fabricated, pointing out the role played on the DRA performance by the chosen fabrication technique. Two AM technologies are investigated in terms of usable materials, surface quality and dimensional accuracy of the produced device. Relevant results concerning the effects induced by fused deposition modelling (FDM) and stereolithography (SLA) on the scattering parameter S
₁₁
and gain of 3D-DRA designs are illustrated and discussed.