A Class of All Metal Cavity-Backed Slot Array with Direct Metal Laser Sintering

In this paper, a class of all-metal cavity-backed slot array employing multiple layers, corporate-feed waveguide network, and coaxial-to-ridged waveguide transition is proposed. The frequency band flexibility of this class of array with a fixed aperture is demonstrated using the direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) technique. Given a fixed aperture, the nominal design operating at 15 GHz with a fractional bandwidth of around 10% can be easily modified to shift the operating frequency from 10.25 to 19.8 GHz. For verification, two designs operating at 10.25-11.8 and 16.9-19.8 GHz, respectively, are described and fabricated using the DMLS technique in AlSi₁₀Mg. The measured results agree well with the simulated ones, which validated the design procedures and proved the reliability of using the DMLS technique to fabricate this class of antenna.