This paper presents a non-Foster matching circuit (NFC) for very low frequency (VLF) receive loop antennas. A 1 * 1 m VLF receive loop antenna was designed with a CMOS switch-based tunable inductor built into the NFC. The NFC can be applied to different VLF loop antennas by adjusting the number and inductance of the cells in the tunable inductor. A loop antenna was matched to the designed NFC with −10 dB 11 fractional bandwidth, marking a 383% improvement as well as enhanced transducer gain ( 21 ) compared to most bands in passive matching (over 15-30 kHz). The noise and received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the matching network were assessed to find that, with a low noise floor level (4 dB) receiver, the SNR of the passive loaded antenna performs better than the non-Foster loaded antenna in VLF.

Abstract-Non-Foster matching circuits are those that can function as negative capacitors or inductors, and can thus overcome the gain-bandwidth limitation of passive matching circuits for antennas. This paper presents a non-Foster matching circuit (NFC) for a very low frequency (VLF) receiver loop antenna. The bandwidth of the antenna was improved by 383%, and the average gain was improved in most bands compared to a passive matching circuit (over 15-30 kHz). In contrast to circuits reported in other publications, the signal to noise ratio (SNR) of the passive matching network performed better than the non-Foster matching network. To analyze this phenomenon, a noise model was developed for the simplified balanced NFC, and noise analysis was conducted between the non-Foster and passive matching networks, which indicates that the non-Foster matching circuits cannot provide a better SNR performance than the passive matching circuits under low noise figure level receiver conditions.

Abstract-A combined analysis method for determining the structural and electrical performance of very-low-frequency (VLF) T-type transmitting antennas with a complex structure is proposed. By using the finite element method for analyzing the antenna's structural performance and the moment method for determining the antenna's electrical performance, the structural entity model of the antenna is transformed into an electrical model by extracting the position and displacement information of the antenna curtain, thereby determining the electrical performance index of the transmitting antenna. An actual VLF T-type transmitting antenna is analyzed using this method. A comparison between the calculated results and measured data shows that this method is effective and feasible. In addition, by optimizing the sag of the antenna's curtain, it is demonstrated that the radiation efficiency of the transmitting antenna can be further improved using this method, and the radiation patterns of the initial state and optimized antenna stay almost the same. This method provides guidance for the synthesis design of other VLF transmitting antennas with complex structures.