Impact behavior and radiation performance of a structurally integrated antenna array conformed around cylindrical bodies

In this paper, one structurally integrated composite antenna array conformed around cylindrical structures has been designed and fabricated. The experimental results show that the radiation pattern is strongly dependent on the cylinder curvature, while the array also exhibits high side-lobes and wider beamwidth. The results of impact test indicate that the value of the contact force decreases significantly and nonlinearly as the curvature increases due to the reduced density of curved honeycomb. These results suggest that the radius of curvature is an important structural parameter of conformal composite antennas.