Design and Development of a Near Isotropic Printed Arc Antenna for Direction of Arrival (DoA) Applications

Hafiz T Ali,Muhammad Amin,Abdur Rahman Maud,Mohammad Yusuf,Moazam Maqsood,Saifullah Amin

doi:10.3390/electronics10070797

Hafiz T Ali, Muhammad Amin + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics10070797

Copy DOI

Journal: Electronics	Publication Date: Mar 27, 2021
Citations: 4	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Taif University, Institute of Space Technology

Abstract

This research presents an easy to fabricate isotropic printed arc antenna element to be used for direction of arrival (DoA) arrays. The proposed antenna exhibits a total gain variation of 0.5 dB over the entire sphere for 40 MHz impedance bandwidth at 1 GHz, which is the best design isotropy reported in literature so far. In addition, the isotropic bandwidth of the antenna for total gain variation of ≤3 dB is 225 MHz with 86% efficiency. The isotropic wire antenna is first designed and simulated in Numerical Electromagnetic code (NEC). An equivalent printed antenna is then simulated in CST, where single (short circuited) stub is integrated with the antenna for input matching and the results of NEC simulations are verified. The planar antenna is then manufactured using FR4 substrate for measurements. Good agreement between the measured and simulated results is observed, however the total gain variation is increased to 2 dB for the fabricated antenna. This is because of the unavoidable field scattering from the antenna substrate, the feed cables, and the antenna testing platform.

Highlights

Isotropic antennas are capable of transmitting or receiving uniform power in all three dimensions
Isotropic antennas are ideal elements in arrays that are designed for direction of arrival (DoA) estimation [7]
Any gain variation in beam pattern of individual antenna element can cause a bias in DoA estimation when multiple signal sources are present [8]

Summary

Introduction

Isotropic antennas are capable of transmitting or receiving uniform power in all three dimensions. Such antennas are useful in applications where the relative position of the receive and the transmit antennas is uncertain or keeps changing. Isotropic antennas are ideal elements in arrays that are designed for direction of arrival (DoA) estimation [7]. This is because using antennas with nulls in beam pattern can result in an array that is blind to signal sources in the direction of null. Any gain variation in beam pattern of individual antenna element can cause a bias in DoA estimation when multiple signal sources are present [8]

Methods

Results

Conclusion