Antenna Design for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

ABSTRACT: Martix Research proposes to develop a new SATCOM antenna for the Wideband Gapfiller link for use aboard the Predator class UAV. The proposed antenna is a dual-band, full-duplex, mechanically scanned, array antenna that has very low loss and is much more compact than the reflector antenna that is typically used for airborne SATCOM. The typical SATCOM reflector antenna must be oversized in order to compensate for poor efficiency due to spill-over losses and feed blockage in order acheive the required gain and data rate. BENEFIT: The proposed SATCOM array antenna will acheive the same gain and data rate as a much larger reflector antenna. The new smaller array antenna will allow for replacement of the oversized SATCOM radome currently used on Perditor class UAVs with a smaller, more streamlined radome with much less aerodynamic drag. Lower drag translates directly into better fuel economy and longer flight endurance.