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MDA and Burloak to Make 3D Printed Space Satellite Parts

Family-owned metal manufacturing network Samuel, Son & Co. provides industrial products and related value-added services all across North America, and one of its most important company divisions is Burloak Technologies, which was responsible for establishing the first full advanced manufacturing and production additive manufacturing center in Canada back in 2014. This Canadian 3D printing leader was founded in Ontario in 2005, and offers design and engineering services for a variety of technologies, including additive manufacturing, high precision CNC machining, materials development, metrology, and post-processing, to companies in multiple sectors, including automotive, industrial, aerospace, and space. To that end, it recently announced a five year agreement with Canadian technology firm MDA, which provides innovative solutions to government and commercial space and defense markets.

These two companies are partnering up to 3D print components and parts for applications in satellite antennae that will be sent to outer space.

“Over the last two years we have worked closely with MDA’s Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue business to apply and evolve additive manufacturing to their product offerings. This collaboration has allowed us to optimize antenna designs in terms of size, mass and performance to create a new set of possibilities for the industry,” Colin Osborne, Samuel’s President and Chief Executive Officer, said in a press release.

Spacecraft Interface Bracket for an antenna

This collaboration seems to be a continuation of an existing partnership between the two companies. In the summer of 2019, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) awarded Burloak and MDA a two-year project under its Space Technology Development Program (STDP) for the purposes of using 3D printing to develop RF satellite communication sub-systems. As part of that project, Burloak, which is a member of GE Additive’s Manufacturing Partner Network, scaled up AM application to create more complex sub-system components, using flight-certified material processes for titanium and aluminum.

MDA, a Maxar company founded back in 1969, is well-known for its abilities in a wide array of applications, including communication satellite payloads, defense and maritime systems, geospatial imagery products and analytics, radar satellites and ground systems, space robotics and sensors, surveillance and intelligence systems, and antennas and subsystems. The last of these capabilities will obviously serve MDA well in its latest venture.

As of now, the two companies have successfully completed multiple combined efforts which have resulted in 3D printed parts being more readily accepted for use in the unforgiving conditions of outer space.

“With challenging technological needs, it’s important that we find the right partner to help us fully leverage the potential of additive manufacturing for space applications,” Mike Greenley, Chief Executive Officer of MDA, said. “We’re confident Burloak Technologies is the ideal supplier to continue supporting our efforts. This collaboration is a perfect example of partnerships that MDA develops under its LaunchPad program.”

(Image courtesy of MDA)

As part of this new agreement, MDA and Burloak will continue working together in order to improve upon the manufacturability and design of multiple antenna technologies through the use of additive manufacturing. We’ve seen that using 3D printing to fabricate components for satellite, and other types, of antenna can reduce the cost and mass of the parts, which is critically important for space communication applications. As a whole, the technology is transforming how we build complex space systems.

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London: 3D Printing the Double-Ridged Horn Antenna for Biomedical Monitoring

Researchers are looking into ways to optimize biomedical monitoring, with their results outlined in ‘A 3D Printed High-Dielectric Filled Elliptical Double-Ridged Horn Antenna for Biomedical Monitoring Applications.’ Seeking to make further impacts in the field of medical science, the team from Queen Mary University of London has 3D printed an innovative device for sensing applications with wireless technology—based on ultra-wideband devices initially created for short-range wireless communications.

The in-house measurement setup based on the open-ended coaxial probe technique, used for the characterization of the dielectric materials.

Created to work within UK Communications Industries (Ofcom) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulation of UWBs, the new device has been found to offer depth suitable for penetration in scanning skin, muscle, and fat, with signals able to sense layer thicknesses. Wide-band technologies are often used for short-range communication due to:

  • Low power
  • High data rates
  • Multipath immunity
  • Simultaneous ranging and communication

While this type of antenna is not new, the use of 3D printing is novel. The double-ridged horn has been a topic of research over the years for researchers because of the benefits, leading to a more effective answer to refining accuracy in biomedical scanning. And while 3D printing can offer greater affordability in many cases, here the research team was concerned about cost-prohibitive fabrication, so they compared materials, ultimately settling on in-house 3D printing with ABS.

The shape of the horn allows for better operation overall, and the high dielectric material allows for a miniaturized design that also reduces reflection and is both easy and affordable to make. With an extension, the scientists were able to expand on the antenna and prevent signal-overlapping issues.

Modeled extended EDRH antenna with the structural labels and the dimensions for the extended section.

“The optimal approach is to extend the outer aperture of the antenna, and to define, the antenna outer aperture length, so the scanning tissue area can be placed in the far-field region,” stated the researchers. “This has added more complexity to the fabrication and realization of the device with the increased cost, but on the other hand, it has made it more stable in its operation, and free of any destructive interference signals and noise.”

The team used the Stratasys Objet30 Prime 3D printer for creating their prototype, finishing it with clear Vero polyethylene, stating that hardware and materials not only offered high resolution, accuracy, and conductivity, but also affordability in fabrication.

Measurements were found to be accurate also, as they addressed concerns regarding individual and other influences like scanning areas and layer structure but concluded that there should be very little variance between ‘permittivity and thickness.’ If an impact on the results was noted, the researchers explained that added calibration measures could be taken with an open-ended probe, with software producing the results.

(a) 3D-printed EDRH antenna using the polyethylene material. (b) 3D-printed EDRH antenna, as conductive-painted and fed with a semi-ridged SMA connector. (c) 3D-printed EDRH antenna filled with the high-dielectric mixture.

“This design incorporates the extension for locating the antenna in the far-field region of the scanning area, for the plane-waves to penetrate more directly into the body. Moreover, the antenna can operate at the lower frequency band of WB to exhibit a better penetration depth and impedance matching using the mixture for the biomedical application, which monitoring very deep inside the body is the main objective of the system,” concluded the researchers at the end of their study.

3D printing has offered much greater expansion opportunities for scientists and engineers interested in creating better devices for sensing and monitoring, from automotive sensors to electrochemical sensing, and 3D printed models for better monitoring.

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[Source / Images: ‘A 3D Printed High-Dielectric Filled Elliptical Double-Ridged Horn Antenna for Biomedical Monitoring Applications’]

 

The post London: 3D Printing the Double-Ridged Horn Antenna for Biomedical Monitoring appeared first on 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing.

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US Air Force Awards nScrypt Research Company Contract for 3D Printed Conformal Phased Array Antenna Project

Florida-based nScrypt, which manufactures industrial systems for micro-dispensing and 3D printing, is already seeing its technology used for military applications with the US Army. But now the US Air Force has jumped on the nScrypt bandwagon as well. Sciperio, nScrypt’s research and development think tank, was awarded a second phase contract by the Air Force for its 3D printed conformal phased array antennas project.

Sciperio specializes in cross-disciplinary solutions, and developed technology that was commercialized by nScrypt under the Mesoscopic Integrated Conformal Electronics (MICE) program with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). In 2016, the research group developed the first fully 3D printed phased array antenna for the Air Force, and has continued attempting to conform these antennae to complex surfaces, which would allow advanced communication technology to be added directly into an aircraft or vehicle body.

A phased antenna array uses both constructive and destructive interference to individually control each element’s signal phase and precisely “aim” the signal, instead of radiating it out in multiple directions. This feature is critical in terms of military applications, as it makes communications more secure and less likely to be intercepted by the enemy.

“Directly printing active phased array antennas on curved surfaces will provide unique capabilities to the DoD (Department of Defense), but the ultimate goal is to do this at a fraction of the cost of traditionally manufactured arrays,” said Casey Perkowski, Sciperio’s Lead Developer on the project. “This will allow the DoD to use these antennas in a more ubiquitous manner and this will translate to commercial applications.”

Not only is this technology important for the military, but it’s also vital to nScrypt’s vision of fully 3D, non-planar next generation electronics that will either conform to, or be embedded in, an object’s structure. At present, PCBs are placed into boxes and connected with unwieldy wiring harnesses; nScrypt is working toward a future where the PCB, box, and harness will be depleted so electronics can be smaller, less expensive, more lightweight, and integrated directly into the structure.

nScrypt’s Direct Digital Manufacturing platform, called the Factory in a Tool (FiT), enables the company’s vision of integrated electronics. The FiT has multiple tool heads, including nScrypt’s nFD for Material Extrusion, the SmartPump for Micro-Dispensing, nMill for micro-milling, and nPnP for pick and place of electronic components, which are placed on a high-precision (1 micron accuracy) linear motion gantry. Multiple cameras allow for automated inspection and computer vision routines, while a point laser height sensor maps surfaces.

All of these features add up to allow for successful conformal printing, or micro-dispensing, onto objects. Because everything is combined in one platform, manufacturers of complex structural electronics can create them with the press of a button.

nScrypt and Sciperio bring an additional advantage to the table in their projects for the DoD: high-precision motion and micro-dispensing excels. Each dimension in RF electronics is critical, and if a line is off by even the smallest fraction, the circuit’s performance is ruined, and so is that of the device with which it’s being used.

But the previously mentioned SmartPump offers picolitre volumetric flow control, while the nFD extruder provides precision deposition and the motion platform has 0.5 micron repeatability. This means that nScrypt’s unique platform can produce both conductive and dielectric features to high tolerances…ensuring successful RF circuits for the DoD.

[Image: nScrypt]

The goal of the Air Force project that nScrypt and Sciperio are working on is to produce an 8 x 8 element array on an ellipsoidal surface. The University of South Florida is a subcontractor on the project, as it previously worked with Sciperio back in 2016 to develop the first fully 3D printed phased array antenna, and will once again support antenna design, simulation, and testing.

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