Industry Days - Additive Manufacturing for RF/Microwave hardware

Low-Loss Metal Additive Manufactured Waveguides for Satellite Applications

16 Oct 2018, 14:00

30m

Newton 1&2 (ESA/ESTEC)

Speakers

Ms Diane Hoerni (SWISSto12)Mr Mathieu Billod (SWISSto12)Dr Tomislav Debogovic (SWISSto12)

Description

Upcoming satellite systems will consist of large satellite constellations with up to several hundred satellites in lower and medium Earth orbits (LEO and MEO), where each satellite will typically contain several hundreds of passive RF hardware parts such as waveguide harness, filters and antennas on board. System architectures and designs will also become increasingly complex in geometry, alongside with more stringent requirements on weight and compactness. In order to cope with the demand for shorter lead time of these systems and to keep the cost for the final user acceptable, it is expected that certain RF hardware parts will be replaced by their additive manufactured (AM) counterparts. In this presentation, the results achieved by SWISSto12 in metal Additive Manufacturing are presented. The technique used is Selective Laser Melting (SLM) followed by a proprietary surface treatment process that significantly improves the component’s insertion loss. This process consists of a treatment that reduces the effective surface roughness and porosity, followed by copper and silver plating for further effective conductivity improvement and passivation. Several examples of low-loss SLM waveguide components will be shown in the presentation, which will also include the manufacturing details and the qualification status of the AM hardware.

Why your contribution is relevant for the event?

During the past years, SWISSto12 has reported results of polymer-based AM of different types of microwave hardware. These products hold interesting characteristics such as state-of-the-art performance, monolithic geometries, light weight and competitive cost. Polymer-based hardware nowadays find their applications mainly in the ground and the aeronautical segment, being close to qualification for some space applications. In this presentation, however, we will present recently achieved results in AM of metal passive hardware. The technique used is SLM, and benefits from the company’s experience in the domain of surface engineering and metal plating, acquired during the development phase of the polymer-based AM. The metal-based AM technique reported in this presentations allows SWISSto12 to address space applications with the harshest environmental requirements.

Specifically, we will present different types hardware such as waveguide harness, filters, diplexers and OMTs, which have 3D-printed using Aluminum, Titanium or INVAR.

Attached it is possible to find measured results. The first figure shows the result of treating raw a SLM-AlSi10Mg 50 mm-long straight WR28 waveguide with this process, while the second figure shows the measured results of a Ku-band bandpass filter manufactured in INVAR.

Moreover and for the first time, we will present the qualification status of the metal AM technique, which will prove that the AM hardware is ready to be used in space applications.