Tilted-Beam Switched Array Antenna for UAV Mounted Radar Applications with 360 degrees Coverage

Abstract

A highly efficient antenna array for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) mounted radar applications with a tilted-beam characteristic and a 360 degrees beam coverage is proposed in this paper. The proposed array antenna is configured by four planar super J-pole antennas with 2-dimensional ground reflectors. Each super J-pole antenna element provides a high directivity where the peak gain is tilted about 45 degrees facing toward the ground from the bottom of a UAV body. Thus, the air-to-ground communication difficulty due to the altitude difference between the UAV and ground targets can be effectively solved. Further, the four super J-pole elements with a switched operation can cover the whole 360 degrees areas around the UAV while high antenna gain is maintained. To verify the performance, the proposed structure was implemented at 5.9 GHz with an overall volume of 0.88 x 0.88 x 0.83 lambda(3)(o). The measured 10-dB impedance bandwidths for all four antenna elements were better than 27.2% and the isolation among the four antenna ports was also always better than 13 dB. The measured peak gain was better than 7.4 dBi and tilted at 45 degrees in the elevation angle. Lastly, the measured half power beam widths in elevation and azimuth planes were more than 60 degrees and 87 degrees, respectively.