Efficient Small Antennas

The development of small, highly efficient antennas is critical for improving Warfighter communications capabilities. In this Phase II project Pharad will design, develop and demonstrate an electrically small UHF (225 – 400 MHz) antenna and RF front-end assembly based on the novel concepts created and investigated in Phase I for realizing highly efficient electrically small antennas. One of the major tasks in this effort is to apply tunable Slow Wave Engineering concepts to a circularly polarized radiator and create switched receiver and transmitter circuits that incorporate Non-Foster circuits. During this Phase II project we will undertake extensive theoretical and experimental investigations into the new electrically small, efficient UHF integrated antenna front-end, including modeling and optimization of the electromagnetic and RF circuit performance. As part of our Phase II effort we will also develop fully packaged assemblies of the proposed efficient electrically small UHF antenna and RF front-end technologies. During all stages of the proposed Phase II effort we will use full-wave electromagnetic simulation tools, RF circuit simulators and our test and measurement facilities to measure the performance of the developed structures and RF circuits, as well as the fully packaged prototype compact UHF antenna RF front-end circuit assembly.