Design of Cladded Dielectric Rod Antennas

Abstract

A dielectric rod antenna is designed in Kuband using established principles for designing maximum gain surface wave antennas in free space as in [1]. The design principles are modified to their most general form and applied to the design of three dielectric rod antennas embedded in a dielectric cladding of different dielectric constant: ∊r = 1.0 (free space ”cladding”), ∊r = 1.6 (3D printed ABS with 50% in-fill), and ∊r = 2.6 (3D printed ABS with 100% in-fill). The antennas are simulated and measured to determine agreement between them and thereby validate the design procedure.