Equivalent 3D Printed Perforated X-Band Horn Antenna Sparsed Wire-Grid Structures Using OCGA

The investigation of weight reduction in waveguide antennas is a relevant and important task, particularly for wideband applications. The optimal current grid approximation (OCGA) and its modifications offer promising approaches to achieve this objective while maintaining the electrical properties and mechanical fabricability of the antenna structures. By applying OCGA to a wire-grid antenna, it is possible to generate a sparse structure that operates equivalently to the original antenna while controlling the accuracy of its characteristics. In this paper, the application of OCGA and its modifications is demonstrated using a horn antenna as an example, which was previously investigated in another study. The characteristics of the antenna structures obtained after applying these approaches are compared to both measured results obtained for different 3D printed models and results obtained using another numerical method for a perforated model. The comparison demonstrates the effectiveness of OCGA in creating antenna structures with reduced mass compared to other techniques. Furthermore, the OCGA structures can be used in subsequent modeling, replacing the original antenna model, thus leading to computational cost savings. Overall, the paper highlights the potential of OCGA and its modifications and validate their suitability for practical applications, offering both weight reduction and computational efficiency advantages compared to other approaches.