Harris Corporation

Robert J Guinn, Jr

William Edward Clark

Ralph D DiStefano

Gilbert Reeves Perkins

James A Sanborn

Steven E Wilson

Charles W Kulisan

Joseph W Priester

A cast core process is used to fabricate a very small, precision wound helical antenna having readily repeatable configuration parameters for use in a high GHz multi-element (e.g., phased array) antenna. A dielectric core member is formed by shaping a solid mandrel having a precision helical groove. After a mold is formed around the mandrel and cured, the mandrel is extracted, so that it may be used to make additional identical molds. A dielectric mixture is injected into the mold's cavity, and cured. The mold is then removed, and antenna wire is tightly wound and bonded into the dielectric core's helical groove. The antenna wire-wrapped core is then mechanically and electrically attached to a baseplate laminate structure, that includes a tuning circuit, so that the antenna may be physically mounted to a support member and connected to an associated transmit&mdash;receive module.

Cast core fabrication of helically wound antenna

A method of making a thin, lightweight and flexible RF waffleline includes the production of a negative silicone casting from a relatively thick and rigid metal positive tooling plate having the identical matrix of the desired waffleline and product. The waffleline is formed by casting an epoxy resin on the silicone casting or nickel electroforming, following by metallization. The waffleline end products is either a very thin and flexible epoxy composite structure or a nickel electroform metallized with gold. Accordingly, a negative WMA image can now be cast, as opposed to expensive machining or forming, with relatively simple and inexpensive techniques in fabricating the process tooling.

Lightweight, flexible waffleline interconnect structure and methods of

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Melbourne, FL, United States of America

Robert J Guinn, Jr