Multi-axis Manufacture of Conformal Metasurface Antennas

Abstract

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.