An Ultralightweight Wideband Folded E-Shaped Patch Antenna Made From Aluminum Meshes for High-Power S-Band Applications

This work presents an ultralightweight wideband folded E-shaped patch antenna designed for compact, lightweight, and high-power applications, operating within 2.9–3.5 GHz. It is composed solely of a folded E-shaped patch and a ground plane, both made of aluminum mesh. No dielectric substrate is used in this design to minimize weight and prevent heat buildup, while a high-strength, heat-resistant spacer is employed to support the patch and the ground plane. Due to the miniaturization and metallic mesh design of the antenna, its weight is dramatically reduced by 90.34%, weighing less than 1 g. The wideband performance is achieved through two adjacent resonances excited by the E-shaped patch. For high-power analysis, the design employs electromagnetic (EM) heating methods to better simulate the real heating behavior. This fully meshed design exhibits sufficient power-handling performance of 3.4 MW and maintains the temperature at an acceptable 318.69 K under a 75-W continuous-wave (CW) input power. To verify feasibility, a prototype antenna is constructed using metal 3-D printing. The measured results align well with the simulation results. The prototype antenna achieves a gain of 6.4–7.4 dBi and a front-to-back ratio exceeding 12.1 dB within a 19.60% bandwidth (BW), fulfilling the desired requirements for potential high-power S-band applications.