Browsing by Author "Mirotznik, Mark S."
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Item An Empirical Loss Model for an Additively Manufactured Luneburg Lens Antenna(The Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society Journal, 2022-11-14) LaRocca, Brian F.; Mirotznik, Mark S.This research applies Effective Medium Theory and 3D Finite Element Analysis to model the transmissive loss through a waveguide fed additively manufactured Luneburg lens. New results are presented that provide rational function approximations for accurately modeling the aperture, beam, and radiation loss factors of the antenna. It introduces a normalized loss tangent and shows that the loss factors are dependent on the product of this parameter and the lens radius. Applying the constraint that the main beam of the radiation pattern contains 50% of accepted power, a maximum useful radius is tabulated for common polymers used in additive manufacturing.Item Design and Additive Manufacture of Multi-Tapered Coaxial Baluns(IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology, 2022-11-16) McParland, Kyle P.; Mirotznik, Mark S.In this article, a new design method is introduced for wideband transitions from an unbalanced coaxial feed to a balanced two wire port. The device expands upon the traditional tapered coaxial balun by allowing for variations of both the inner and outer conductor radii in addition to the slot width. This multi-tapered approach provides additional design freedoms useful for realizing a wide range of impedance ratios, satisfying fixed geometrical constraints, and reducing transmission losses. A multimaterial additive manufacturing (AM) approach is described for fabricating the balun’s complex 3-D geometry. Experimental validation was conducted within the Ku -band for printed back-to-back baluns and an integrated antenna feed that combined a printed connector, a multi-tapered coaxial balun, and a spiral antenna. Simulated and measured results showed good performance over the frequency band of interest.Item Multi-axis Manufacture of Conformal Metasurface Antennas(IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, 2023-06-09) Gupta, Ellen; Bonner, Colin; Lazarus, Nathan; Mirotznik, Mark S.; Nicholson, Kelvin J.A conformal metasurface antenna exhibiting a pencil beam radiation pattern at 10.0 GHz has been designed using the Voronoi partition approach, and fabricated on the Kahu Uninhabited Aerial System (UAS) fuselage. Two manufacturing methods are presented and compared. The first approach utilized a 3-axis Trotec fiber laser to etch the flattened metasurface geometry in copper foil. The etched pattern was then ‘stretched’ over the UAS geometry. The second approach utilized a 6-axis nScrypt (retrofitted with an IDS aerosol jetting tool) to conformally print the metasurface pattern directly on the UAS fuselage. An electroless copper plating step was then utilized to improve the radiofrequency (RF) conductivity of the printed silver. Both manufacturing methods yielded functional metasurface antennas with equivalent performance at the operating frequency. However, the first method is limited to geometries that can be ‘flattened’ with acceptable tolerances, whereas the second approach is amenable to all practical geometries. This demonstration of two manufacturing techniques is a critical step forward in the cost-effective deployment of truly conformal metasurface antennas on realistic geometries.