Introduction of internal matching circuit to increase the bandwidth of a metamaterial-inspired efficient electrically small antenna

The performance characteristics of a simplified electric, lumped-element based, meta-material -inspired, efficient, electrically small antenna have been determined numerically for a fixed reactive element value over a band of frequencies. These characteristics were used to define an internal matching network (in contrast to the usual non-Foster external matching networks) which would provide the appropriate reactance at the appropriate frequency that can substantially increase the instantaneous bandwidth of the antenna. Over 10% instantaneous fractional bandwidth for an system with ka 0.048 (i.e., a/lambda₀ 132) while maintaining a high overall efficiency has been demonstrated at VHF frequencies.