Narrow-wall confined slotted waveguide structural antennas for small multi-rotor UAV

In preparation for a cross-discipline study of slotted waveguide antennas to be used as the load-bearing rods connecting the motor units to the central hub of a multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle, past work on carbon fiber reinforced plastic slotted waveguide is reviewed, and a novel narrow wall slot design is presented. The new slot is a distorted Z-shape which fits entirely within the narrow wall, and consequently does not require cutting of the corners of the rectangular tube which would significantly weaken the structure. The Z-slot was used in a 10-slot 15dBi antenna for 10 GHz, which was shown to have comparable gain and return loss performance to a conventional narrow wall slotted waveguide antenna.