3D printed multilayer mm-wave dielectric rod antenna with enhanced gain

A multilayer dielectric rod antenna (DRA) design is proposed for mm-wave applications. The multilayer DRA is formed by a medium permittivity dielectric rod core encased by a low permittivity cladding to increase the peak gain. The antenna is fabricated using fused deposition modeling (FDM) of two thermoplastics; a ceramic composite material for the core and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) for the cladding. The antenna performance is measured from 30 to 40 GHz and the results are validated using numerical simulations. The peak gain of the multilayer antenna is over 22 dBi for the entire frequency range. The effect of the cladding on the antenna performance is to increase the gain by 3-8.5 dB, with a reduction in the half power beamwidth of 22 degrees at the center frequency. The multilayer DRA design offers high gain performance, scalability to other frequency ranges and low-cost fabrication.