Design of microwave waveguide devices for space and ground application implemented by additive manufacturing

This paper presents the application of the low cost additive manufacturing technique named fused filament fabrication (FFF) to implement waveguide devices. In addition to the reduced price, it also has the added benefit of rapid prototyping, allowing the designer to modify the geometry swiftly. Otherwise this kind of manufacture opens the way to experiment with shapes until now unachievable by traditional subtractive techniques. In order to demonstrate its feasibility, the experimental results of three filters with low-pass, high-pass, and band-pass responses respectively, designed in Ku band with usual specifications in satellite communication systems have been designed, printed, metallized and measured. In the conclusion, the advantages and limitations are highlighted, with special attention dedicated to the metallization process, since it is the bottleneck of the process.