Abstract
SINTEF S218AbstractManufacturing of feed horns and waveguide components by plastic injection molding and metallization are considered to be key technologies to make low cost ground terminals feasible. NERA and SINTEF are involved in an ESA project where these technologies are considered for the manufacturing of a DVB-RCS terminal at 20/30 GHz. A complete front-end-unit including feed horn, polarizer, OMT, filters and transitions between each component have been designed, and are now in the manufacturing stages. The project has involved issues like choice of polymer, choice of metallization process, choice of assembly method and molding compatibility issues to fulfill the electrical and mechanical specifications for each component and the assembled unit. For the feed horn, a smooth-walled design is preferred over the more traditional corrugated wall design, as the smooth-wall design is better suited for the molding and metallization process. Conclusions at this stage of the project are that plastic injection molding and metallization fabrication technologies are able to give tuning free component designs, with polymer grades that make 10 um mechanical tolerances possible and with suitable and stable metallization processes available.
