Abstract:
Possessing the advantages of high gain, wide bandwidth, conformal and small volume, the small evolved wire antenna shows a extensive application prospect in the field of aerospace. Electromagnetic property test for the prototype of evolved antenna is an effective method to evaluate the rationality of its structural design. But the complex space geometry structure of the evolved antenna can seriously affect the manufacturing quality and efficiency of the evolved antenna prototype. According to the requirements of performance evaluation for the evolved antenna prototype during the structure designing process of small evolved wire antenna, the rapid prototyping technologies were studied to make small evolved wire antenna. Then two wire antenna prototypes were tested in feed voltage characteristics, which had been made by two methods such as metal rapid prototyping and non-metallic rapid prototyping combined with surface chemical copper plating. The results show that the feed voltage characteristic of small evolved wire antenna prototypes made by both kinds of rapid prototyping technologies can meet the requirement of design verification. It is completely feasible to rapidly fabricate the small evolved antenna prototype with complex space geometry structure by rapid prototyping method and evaluate its performance quickly.