Project 23: FeedHorn Antenna Design and Testing

For more than 60 years, Fleet Readiness Center East, at Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point, N.C., has played an integral role in our national defense. The facility's In-Service Support Center provides multi-disciplinary, engineering services in both design and maintenance. Our workforce has earned a reputation of excellence, providing worldwide support for Navy and Marine Corps aviation.

Fleet Readiness Center East has provided maintenance, repair, and overhaul support to virtually every weapons platform the Marine Corps has flown – from the inverted gull-winged F4U Corsair of World War II fame, to the Corps newest aircraft, the F-35B Lightning II. It is one of eight fleet readiness centers operated by the United States Navy. It is also the Department of Defense Vertical Lift Center of Excellence. FRC East has a workforce of about 3,800 civilian, military, and contractor personnel. It is North Carolina's largest industrial employer east of Interstate 95.

NAVAIR is an active participant in capstone projects for a variety of schools and uses said projects as a means for recruiting high-achieving engineers.

Project Background and Need:

The scope of this project is the additive manufacturing (AM) design of a Feed-horn Radio Frequency (RF) Antenna. This design will serve as an alternative design to the current feed-horn antenna mounted on Consolidated Automated Support System (CASS) Family of Testers (FoT). This feed-horn antenna is currently used to provide the stimulus signal for a functionality self-test of the Radiation Hazard Monitor (RHM) probe available to test station operators to detect hazardous radiation leaks from RF aircraft components tested on CASS Testers.

Problem Description/requirements (List of high-level functionality you expect to see in the end product):

New design needs to fit into the existing feed-horn antenna holding bracket. Dimensions and specifications will be provided by the FST technical contacts.
The antenna’s interface to the CASS Test Station should be via Subminiature Version A (SMA) connector. Detailed connector specifications will be provided by FST technical contacts.
Electrical performance and functionality should match that of the existing feed-horn antenna.
Additional specific related requirements may be communicated to the project team directly by FST sponsors.

Team must deliver the following products:

A complete Technical Data (TD) package that includes the new RF feed-horn antenna design (Math Model), Additive Manufacturing (AM) specific drawings and instructions, AM material list and specifications, and report on electrical performance data from simulation.
A complete software simulation demonstrating the new feed-horn antenna design performance.
A prototype AM manufactured part, with general test results for CASS Family system (optional depending on AM printing capability for design).

Required Skills / Desired Competencies (in order of importance):

RF circuit development and analysis
Antenna design and analysis
Hands-on measurement and analysis
Additive manufacturing techniques

Will the students be required to sign any of the following before they start with the project? NDA / CDA / IP assignment / IP protection form

Students and presentation viewers must be US Citizens.

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