Development of a conductive polymer, composite, direction-finding antenna

Traditionally, antennas have been fabricated from metals because of the required high electrical conductivity. Now, polymer materials with sufficiently high electrical conductivities have been developed and are commercially available. Inherent advantages of replacing metals with composites which utilize these polymers, include reduced radar cross sections (RCS), excellent corrosion resistance, and the ability to tailor specific electromagnetic properties. The application of conductive-polymer composites to direction-finding (DF) antennas is described. The normalized radar reflectivity is shown as a function of frequency for three different conductivity values of materials. A four-element crossed-dipole Adcock composite DF antenna assembly was designed, fabricated, and tested.