Miniature Ultra-Wideband Antenna on Novel Substrates

Submarines require a suite of antennas for communications, navigation, and identification of Friend or Foe (IFF). As compared to surface ship antennas, submarine antennas are unique in design, shape, materials, and performance due to space and weight limitations often in extreme environmental conditions. Under this effort, we propose a new class of more capable communication and data reception apertures as well as surveillance components to address the network-centric requirements envisioned for future Navy combat operations. Particular emphasis is given on the design of a single untrawideband aperture that covers most of the communciation needs. A novel miniature broadband antenna is proposed that incorporates newly designed materials and metallization shapes. Various high contrast inhomogeneous dielectrics are proposed along with a new class of magnetic photonic crystals whose potential for antenna miniaturization and field control has been previously demonstrated. Formal design optimization methods will be employed as part of the design process to achieve an optimal design (including impedance matching, gain and return loss) subject to the proposed objectives and availability of ceramic materials and crystals from off-the-shelf. Full wave analysis and preliminary measurement will be performed for verification of the design.