Disposable/Survivable Antenna Technology

Application of high-power RF via an antenna placed directly near a hostile target offers the advantage of delivering maximum power and energy. Since this also puts the radiating antenna directly in harm's way, it calls for a highly-deployable antenna that is either low-cost and logistically-compact enough to be disposable (if destroyed) or sufficiently robust to survive serious fragmentation/blast. A relatively high-power (Pave > 1 kW), broadband VHF/UHF (200-800 MHz) antenna with moderate gain (~ 6-12 dB), which can stow compactly, is inexpensive, and is easy to deploy would expand the Army's options for using RF directed-energy weapons. Combining classic broadband geometries with new lightweight, flexible, and low-cost materials and fabrication techniques, we propose to develop a novel self-expanding and collapsible antenna which is highly-survivable against fragmentation/blast and rapidly field-replaceable. Prototypes will be designed with compactness, simplicity, manufacturability, portability, reliability, cost, and ease of use in mind. We will pursue a multi-pronged R&D attack, applying: (1) established algorithms to bound the key RF design parameters; (2) expert selection of appropriate materials; (3) numerical models to characterize and optimize electromagnetic and structural performance; and (4) experiments to confirm the feasibility of the proposed approach. _____________________________________________________________________________