Farsoon x Rhosoon
Farsoon’s laser powder bed fusion 3D printing technology is being used for the series production of vehicle-mounted antennas by Rhosoon Intelligent Technology.
The civil antenna and terminal solution provider has been using 3D printing for many years, applying the technology in its product planning and design verification processes.
Harnessing Farsoon’s 403P 3D printing platform, the company has developed 3D printing device that is said to be significantly smaller and lighter than conventional vehicle antenna systems. In the development of the printed antenna system the ‘Luneburg lens’ concept of design, which features a spherically symmetrical gradient-index design, has been implemented. This enables a ‘radically index refraction from the centre to the surface’ which allows for ‘good convergence and directional refraction’ of electromagnetic waves and is capable of relaying multiband signals.
Farsoon Rhosoon antenna
Farsoon’s 403P machine is able to produce Rhosoon’s Luneburg lens antennas in a single piece without support structures and does so with FS3300PA, a PA1212 material. The resulting product is said to exhibit stability, a dielectric constant performance and durability under high-temperature conditions.
Rhosoon has deployed Farsoon 3D printing technology throughout its entire workflow, producing antenna systems with the same method and material in which the design was prototyped in. The company is said to have enjoyed the technology’s capacity to print in fine detail resolution, as well as its ability to customise antenna designs to best suit each application’s needs. Harnessing 3D printing has also, the company says, reduced the time it takes to go from design to having products out on the market.
“Farsoon laser powder bed fusion technology has saves us so much investment cost that was required for production tools and moulds, especially when it comes to customised products and small batch production,” commented a Rhosoon spokesperson. “Take an antennas product with 80mm diameter for example, now we can achieve 48 high quality production pieces per day on a single Farsoon 403P machine – it is a perfect solution for economic small batch fabrication and spare parts.
“With the rapid development of the antennas and 3D printing technology, we envision a more compact communication device as small as a notebook, and with a true economy of cost to enable wide scale adoption of satellite-terrestrial communication integration in the near future.”
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