Wideband antenna arrays for small platforms

In this report we summarize work performed in the project M-Gate. The aim of the work reported is to develop compact and wide-band antenna arrays for small platforms and/or small mobile units. Simulation results are presented for three circular antenna arrays consisting of 2×22 antenna elements placed in front of a cylindrical reflector. The antenna elements that have been studied are bicone, semi-bicone and bowtie elements. The presented results show that antenna arrays consisting of the three types of antenna elements have nearly identical performance in terms of realized gain. The choice of antenna element can therefore be made from manufacturing aspects. Since the bowtie element can be manufactured using PCB (Printed Circuit Board) technology, we chose the bowtie element for further studies. Simulations have been performed for a faceted antenna array consisting of 2×22 bowtie elements. Comparison with the corresponding circular antenna array shows that the two antenna arrays have similar performance. The bandwidths for the circular and faceted antenna arrays are at least 6-15 GHz A planar antenna array consisting of 4×4 bowtie elements have been manufactured and experimentally evaluated by measuring the S-parameters (couplings). The agreement between simulation results for an element in an infinite array and the centrally situated elements in the experimental antenna array is good.