Miniaturized Microenvironmental Sensor Package for Field Use

We propose the development of an ultrawideband 20-2000 MHz direction finding array for a Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) such as the Hunter and Shadow 200. An innovative, miniature broadband conformal aperture is proposed as the array element to minimizereal estate and increase the frequency coverage of the array. The antenna element has a possible bandwidth of greater than 100:1 and its operation has already been demonstrated. The proposed Phase II work plan focuses on the development of directionfinding arrays with particular emphasis on their design and operation down to 20MHz. Unique software toolsets will be employed for complete design and evaluation of the antenna array directly on the UAV installation. These simulations will be validatedwith measured data at higher frequencies to establish a baseline for the proposed design tools that incorporate element to element coupling as well as substructure coupling. At the lower HF/VHF frequencies, these simulations will be used to design thearray and establish reference AoA vs Phase curves that account for platform interactions and possible non-planar installations of the array. Designs that cover the entire band of interest are proposed accounting for the necessity of using multiple arrayconfigurations over the different bands.