Conical annular patch antenna for dual band operation on airborne vehicles

Abstract

An annular patch antenna operating in both TM 04 and TM 05 modes and conformed to a conical surface is proposed for airborne applications. Dual-slot loading is done to obtain a high gain linearly polarized broadside radiation pattern in both the modes of operation by introduction of additional equivalent magnetic currents. Cavity model analysis of a conical annular patch antenna is carried out and is further extended to obtain the multiport network modeling (MNM) of the dual-slot loaded conical annular patch antenna. Additional control over directivity and side lobe level can be achieved by variation in ratio of slot lengths. The effect of curvature on the antenna performance is studied using MNM. The antenna produces a gain of 9.26 and 8.83 dBi in X-band frequencies of 9.838 and 10.323 GHz respectively.