An electrically-small, 3-D cube antenna fabricated with additive manufacturing

This paper presents the design of an electrically small, 3-D cube antenna that is fabricated using laser-based layer-by-layer stereolithography processing (SLA). The antenna consists of a balun and a half-wave dipole with meandered-line portions, all of which are patterned on the surface of a cube. The antenna operational frequency is 2.45 GHz and its measured 10 dB return loss bandwidth is 3.75%. Ka of the proposed design is 0.73 and its measured gain is -0.5 dBi. The gain is decreased by 2.5 dB compared with a previous prototype made with printed circuit board (PCB) technology using a commercial microwave substrate. However, the SLA fabrication approach significantly improves the manufacturing repeatability.