Fully-Metallic Additively Manufactured Monolithic Double-Ridged Waveguide Rotman Lens in the K/K_a-Band

This paper reports on the design and experimental validation of a fully-metallic double-ridged waveguide 10 × 10 Rotman lens additively manufactured as a single part. The wide band operation of this quasi-optical beamformer enables us to cover the uplink and downlink frequencies allocated to satellite communications in the K/K<inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msub><mrow></mrow><mi mathvariant="normal">a</mi></msub></semantics></math></inline-formula>-band, from 17.3 GHz to 30 GHz. The feeding port design was adjusted to enable vertical printing, thus minimizing the use of supporting structures. A prototype was manufactured and tested. The reported results indicate losses in the range of 0.5 dB in the lower-frequency band and 0.8 dB in the upper-frequency band, including the waveguide transitions added for test purposes. The measured reflection and coupling coefficients remain below −11.5 dB over the operating band. The standard deviation of the residual phase error across the array ports is below <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><mn>5</mn><mo>°</mo></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula> in simulation and below <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><mn>10</mn><mo>°</mo></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula> in measurements. Array factors synthesized using the scattering parameters confirm the good stability of the beamforming functionality over the wide frequency band analyzed. This monolithic design is a promising step toward more integrated antenna systems, such as a compact dual-stack configuration for planar array design.