Evaluation of a New Process for the Additive Manufacturing of Metal Antennas

This paper presents a new process for additive manufacturing of purely metallic antennas based on Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), with a filament composed by a mix between rounded shape copper powders with particle size in the range from 20 to 80 μm embedded in a polymeric matrix, to accomplish the desired antenna shape, followed by a post-processing involving de-binding to remove the base polymer and a further sintering process for obtaining a purely metallic component. This new process is validated by means of a prototype antenna consisting on a modified tri-band cactus monopole that is manufactured and measured demonstrating results in accordance with standard and alternative additive manufacturing techniques reported in literature.