Design of a structure integrated antenna for a small unmanned aerial vehicle

Integration of antennas into ground, air or water vehicles is a critical task due to the increasing number of RF and microwave systems used for communication, radar or ESM. Structural aspects such as mechanical or thermal stability, aerodynamics or outer appearance are of great importance. The performance of the system may not be affected by the influence of the platform or by electromagnetic interaction between different systems. The present paper describes the design of a distributed antenna array with large field of view (LFoV) for a communication system in C-Band to be installed on a UAV. The paper includes the design of the antennas and presents simulation as well as experimental results of a demonstrator system.