Application of novel integrated dielectric and conductive ink 3D printing technique for fabrication of conical spiral antennas

This paper presents a novel integrated 3D printing technique to print complicated and difficult to fabricate electromagnetic (EM) structures. To demonstrate this technique two separate two-arm conical spiral antennas were fabricated by printing the dielectric cones and the spiral arms using conductive ink simultaneously in an integrated process. A modified conical antenna has been designed with a tapered shape to reduce the profile size of the antenna and improve the radiation pattern and return loss of the antenna compare to a conventional cone.