Industry Days - Additive Manufacturing for RF/Microwave hardware

Additive Manufacturing of Waveguide Microwave Filters (CNR-IEIIT)

22 Nov 2016, 10:30

25m

NA052 -Erasmus Conference Room (ESA/ESTEC)

Speaker

Dr Oscar Antonio Peverini (CNR-IEIIT)

Description

This presentation will focus on the development of waveguide microwave filters through two different additive manufacturing (AM) techniques: selective laser melting (SLM) and stereo-lithography (SLA). A robust architecture of Ku/K-band passband filters compatible with AM mechanical tolerances will be described. This architecture has been implemented into two different electromagnetic/mechanical designs: - A fifth-order layout with vertical stubs. - A sixth-order layout with stubs tilted so as to enable the alignment of the filter along the laser direction during the manufacturing process. Several prototypes have been built in aluminum, titanium and steel through SLM. The impact and the need of further metalization (silver-plating) has been investigated. The same architectures have been built through a SLA process combined with a copper coating. A trade-off-analysis among the two AM processes and the different materials will be reported.

JUSTIFICATION FOR THE CONSIDERATION

The activity and the results to be presented originate from the joint efforts of two complementary research groups:

• the IEIIT unit of the National Research Council of Italy with expertise in the development of microwave devices and antennas;
• the CSF@PoliTo unit with expertise in material science and mechanical engineering with a focus on AM.

The collaboration between this two research units guarantees a multidisciplinary approach to the problem, covering all the aspects in the specific area of AM for RF devices (from the technology to the application). In particular, this approach makes feasible to merge the electromagnetic and the mechanical design activities, thus leading to RF architectures that are oriented to additive manufacturing.
As a result, the measured performance of the filters developed through AM meet specification typically set in space-borne applications.