A Textile High Impedance Surface Designed for High Yield Manufacturing

Abstract

A textile high impedance surface (HIS) with low production time and broad surface wave suppression bandwidth is designed, modeled as an isotropic and anisotropic structure, fabricated and measured. Textile HIS are well suited to mitigating surface wave propagation across conformal parts on an aircraft due to their flexibility, high strength and low weight, and they have previously been produced using computerized flat-bed knitting. However, fabricating the large surface areas of material required in practical timescales has been a challenge, particularly when complex techniques such as integrated vias are utilized. Here, through co-design of electromagnetic performance and efficient weft knitting production methodologies, a high-yield method to produce a petal-like design is presented and characterized. Production times are reduced by a factor of 20 compared with previous designs. Anisotropic electromagnetic performance is measured and modeled in the weft knitted HIS. The fabricated design is able to suppress surface wave transmission by more than 10dB in the band between 9 and 15~GHz.