3D printing has revolutionized various industries by enabling the production of complex designs and shapes. Recently, the potential of new materials in 3D printing has led to an exponential increase in the technology’s applications. However, despite these advancements, the technology still faces significant challenges, including high costs, low printing speeds, limited part sizes, and strength. This paper critically reviews the recent trends in 3D printing technology, with a particular focus on the materials and their applications in the manufacturing industry. The paper highlights the need for further development of 3D printing technology to overcome its limitations. It also summarizes the research conducted by experts in this field, including their focuses, techniques, and limitations. By providing a comprehensive overview of the recent trends in 3D printing, this review aims to provide valuable insights into the technology’s prospects.

/pdf/advancements-and-limitations-in-3d-printing-materials-and-1n7cvhf4.pdf

Advancements and Limitations in 3D Printing Materials and Technologies: A Critical Review

With the advent of 5G and future trends for communication systems moving to millimeter wave (MMW) and higher frequencies, antennas will be required to have high gain, wide bandwidth, and low losses. 3D printing realizes structures by sequential stacking layer-by-layer, which enables the manufacturing of antennas with arbitrary shapes in a cheaper, faster, and flexible manner. This study provides a review of current state-of-the-art 3D printed antennas for different frequencies. First, an overview of 3D printing technology is presented. A huge number of 3D printed antennas, categorized by their material composition, have been described, including polymer, metallic, ceramic, composite material, and multi-material integrated antennas. Finally, the main challenges and prospects are discussed to provide insight into how 3D printing can be further progressed in antenna manufacturing. 

3D Printed Antennas for 5G Communication: Current Progress and Future Challenges

In this letter, we present an additively manufactured half-Gutman lens antenna operating at 30 GHz. The hemispherical lens allows for a compact beamformer while maintaining the wide scanning capabilities of Gutman lenses. This solution further enables to better integrate the feed system when compared to a more conventional half-Luneburg lens antenna design as the focal arc is moved inside the lens. The graded-index of the lens is implemented with a periodic structure arranged in a body-centred cubic (BCC) lattice. We demonstrate that the BCC structure provides attractive properties for the design of inhomogeneous dielectric lenses. Importantly, the BCC structure can be used to alleviate the manufacturing constrains compared to conventional periodic structures. The lens is fed by a dielectric-loaded square waveguide. The proposed antenna produces a directive beam with a simulated and measured peak gain of 26.2 and 25.3 dBi. The antenna can steer its beam in a 50$^\circ$ range in elevation with measured scan loss and sidelobe levels below 1 dB and $-$10 dB, which agree with the simulated values. The measured cross polarization discrimination is better than 20 dB. The proposed antenna is intended for the ground segment of the emerging low-Earth-orbit satellite communication applications.

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/ielx7/7727/4357943/09963726.pdf

Additively Manufactured Half-Gutman Lens Antenna for Mobile Satellite Communications

We designed an out-of-water radar water velocity and depth sensor, which is unique due to its low cost and low power consumption. The sensor is a first at a cost of less than USD 50, which is well suited to previously cost-prohibited high-resolution monitoring schemes. This use case is further supported by its out-of-water operation, which provides low-effort installations and longer maintenance-free intervals when compared with in-water sensors. The inclusion of both velocity and depth measurement capabilities allows the sensor to also be used as an all-in-one solution for flowrate measurement. We discuss the design of the sensor, which has been made freely available under open-hardware and open-source licenses. The design uses commonly available electronic components, and a 3D-printed casing makes the design easy to replicate and modify. Not before seen on a hydrology sensor, we include a 3D-printed radar lens in the casing, which boosts radar sensitivity by 21 dB. The velocity and depth-sensing performance were characterised in laboratory and in-field tests. The depth is accurate to within ±6% and ±7 mm and the uncertainty in the velocity measurements ranges from less than 30% to 36% in both laboratory and field conditions. Our sensor is demonstrated to be a feasible low-cost design which nears the uncertainty of current, yet more expensive, velocity sensors, especially when field performance is considered.

A Low-Cost Radar-Based IoT Sensor for Noncontact Measurements of Water Surface Velocity and Depth

Nowadays, it is imperative to continually explore and improve antenna manufacturing technologies to meet the growing demands of the market. By leveraging the benefits of numerical methods, researchers can push the boundaries of antenna engineering, creating novel and highly effective antenna designs. In this paper, two approaches to effectively model and design sparse wire grid antennas are proposed. Their main idea is to create an optimal wire structure that closely matches the current paths in the antenna while maintaining its integrity with minimal mass. In additions, this structure can be used in further simulations with less resources and controlled characteristic accuracy. A parabolic reflector antenna was used to explain the algorithms of the proposed approaches. Measured and calculated results for equivalent wire-grid structure of this antenna were used for verification. In order to evaluate the efficiency of the algorithms, their results were compared with those for other approaches proposed in earlier work. The proposed approaches showed better advantages than others, and the optimal one is revealed. Recommendations on their use with the future prospects are briefly summarized. 

Novel MoM-Based Approaches for Generating Wire-Grid Sparse Antenna Structures

The lenses with a gradient refractive index become the alternative to the traditional homogeneous dielectric lenses. It can be fabricated using additive manufacturing. Some of the types of the lens support the multibeam operation or beam scanning capability by placing several feed antennas to the focal surface. In comparison with the Luneburg lens, in which the feeds are placed on a spherical focal surface, the truncated Gutman lens allows to avoid conformal antenna placement and used the planar structure of the feed antennas. In this paper, the influence of the truncation on the Gutman lens performance for a multibeam application is considered based on full-wave electromagnetic simulation. The approaches for Gutman lens design using 3D printing are proposed.

Multibeam Truncated Gutman Lens based on Additive Manufacturing

In this paper, lenses with a gradient refractive index (GRIN) are considered. 3D printing can be used for providing the required gradient of refractive index. The advantages of 3D printing are simplicity and low cost of production. The scope of the paper is to design the GRIN lens with beam scanning capability with a low gain drop. Our work is focused on comparing two lenses: the Luneburg lens with a flat focal surface due to using transformation optics and the Gutman lens, which is a kind of Luneburg lens with a reduced focal distance. The performance of the lenses with several feeds providing beam scanning was compared by using electromagnetic simulations.

Cylindrical Graded Index Lenses with a Wide-angle Beam Scanning

Gradient index lens antennas find their application in modern wireless communication including radar systems, satellite communication, etc. They can ensure highly directional beamforming, support multibeam operations and beam steering capabilities within a wide angle of view. The development of 3D printing technologies enables the implementation of complex gradient refractive index distribution with high accuracy as well as obtaining a significant reduction in the production time and cost. This paper presents the state of the art in gradient refractive index lens antenna design using different types of additive manufacturing processes. It shows the applicability of 3D printing to a wide range of operational frequency bands from microwave to sub-THz and THz.

https://doi.org/10.1109/access.2023.3239782

A Review of 3D Printed Gradient Refractive Index Lens Antennas

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Multibeam Truncated Gutman Lens based on Additive Manufacturing

Cylindrical Graded Index Lenses with a Wide-angle Beam Scanning

A Review of 3D Printed Gradient Refractive Index Lens Antennas