Millimeter-Wave 3-D-Printed Antenna Array Based on Gap-Waveguide Technology and Split E-Plane Waveguide

A multilayer aperture antenna array in millimeter-wave band is presented in this article. The antenna array is based on glide-symmetric holey gap-waveguide technology combined with E-plane insertion gaps for a low-cost and low-loss design. The radiating part of the antenna array is formed by an array of sixteen aperture antennas, grouped in four sets of 2x2 antenna subarrays in E-plane configuration. The 2x2 subarrays are fed by a one-to-four corporate feeding network in E-plane with holey gap-waveguide technology. The antenna array has been manufactured with high precision stereolithography (SLA) and subsequent metal plating. This design procedure yields a low-cost and low-weight manufacturing process for functional prototypes. The complete array has been manufactured and measured, comparing its performance with the simulation results. Measurements show an input reflection coefficient below -10 dB which ranges from 68 GHz to 74 GHz. The measured radiation patterns suit adequately the defined ones in the design stage. Moreover, gain above 19 dBi in the entire operating frequency band is achieved with a 74.1% mean antenna efficiency.