An Additively Manufactured Deployable Broadband Metasurface Lens Antenna

This letter proposes a deployable broadband millimeter-wave metasurface lens antenna. The deployability is realized by way of the 3-D printed accordion origami structure between the source and the lens. Themetasurface lens is designed on the 3-D-printed origami with two 3-D-printed rectangular gratings and an inkjet-printed I-shaped pattern. The broad bandwidth is achieved with a high transmission efficiency while full 360 degrees phase coverage is obtained from the orthogonal polarization conversion characteristic of the unit cell. The performances of the proposed metasurface lens antenna are numerically and experimentally demonstrated. Its measured 10-dB impedance bandwidth is 24.034.9 GHz (38%) and 3 dB gain bandwidth is 25.0-33.5 GHz (30%). Moreover, its overall volume is reduced to 1/3 of its original size when folded for idle mode. Our simple additive manufacturing process can produce the additional advantages of lightweight and low cost.

Automated summary

This paper proposes a deployable broadband millimeter-wave metasurface lens antenna using a 3-D printed accordion origami structure. The metasurface lens is designed on the 3-D-printed origami with two 3-D-printed rectangular gratings and an inkjet-printed I-shaped pattern. The proposed antenna achieves broad bandwidth, high transmission efficiency, and complete 360 degrees phase coverage. Numerical and experimental results demonstrate its performance, including a 10-dB impedance bandwidth of 24.0-34.9 GHz (38%) and a 3 dB gain bandwidth of 25.0-33.5 GHz (30%). Additionally, the folded antenna has a reduced overall volume of 1/3 of its original size. The simple additive manufacturing process used also provides the advantages of lightweight and low cost.