Miniaturization of ESPAR Antenna Using Low-Cost 3D Printing Process

In this paper, the miniaturized electronically steerable parasitic array radiator (ESPAR) antenna is presented. The size reduction was obtained by embedding its active and passive elements in polylactic acid (PLA) plastic material commonly used in low-cost 3D printing. The influence of 3D printing process imperfections on the ESPAR antenna design is investigated and a simple yet effective method to compensate them has been proposed. An antenna prototype was fabricated and measured, which showed that the experimental and simulated results are in good agreement. Realized antenna is characterized by 5.6 dBi peak gain and reflection coefficient of -17.6 dB. Base radius reduction of 23% and occupied area reduction of 40% were achieved.