Conformal Antenna for Soldier C4I

A need exists for wide-band, high data rate communications capabilities for the soldier in the field. A wireless LAN solution that does not require directional antenna pointing for the soldier on the move is desired. Conformal antenna embedded in the soldier ensemble can solve the problem and also provide a relay capability for soldier paging and reporting. In this SBIR (Small Business Innovative Research) Phase I program, research will be conducted toward the design of an antenna for individual paging and limited messaging capability without resorting to high jammable satellite transmission. The proposed baseline design approach will be a "smart" spiral-mode microstrip (SMM) antenna with adaptive pattern-switching. The smart antenna will maintain suitable antenna gain for a moving individual with varying skeletal attitudes. The SMM antenna is the only antenna that is conformable, low-profile, wideband, and also has pattern-diversity capability which enables the antenna to have switchable patterns. Photonic and MMIC technologies will be used in the design to adaptively switch the antenna patterns to main isotropic (true omnidirectional) coverage.