What is it about?
This paper describes the concept and design of a low-cost super broadband dipole antenna with a passive matching network. The proposed dipole antenna is designed in three steps. First, a simple planar dipole antenna with 6 different loads and a balanced to unbalanced (Balun) transformer is designed by the genetic algorithm (GA) optimization. The positions and values of the loads are optimized symmetrically to have a stable radiation pattern and VSWR. In order to further improve the frequency response of the designed antenna the printed wire scheme of the dipole antenna is optimized in the next step. Finally, a high pass LC network is added to the antenna feed point to improve the antenna VSWR at low frequencies. This low-cost printed structure is placed into a ruggedized cylindrical radome for the sake of outdoor operation. The final dipole antenna has a length of 1.7-meter and can operate over 30-1200 MHz with VSWR less than 3. An industrial prototype of the proposed antenna is fabricated and measured. A good agreement between measurement and simulation results is observed.
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Why is it important?
1.The antenna loads and matching network is implemented with PCB Technology Therefore, a low-cost antenna is proposed. 2.The proposed antenna is fixed in a cylindrical radome with a novel technique, therefore; unlike the previous works, the antenna loads do not deteriorate the mechanical tolerance of the wire antenna. 3.Most of the previously loaded wire antenna was designed with monopole configuration while in this paper a broadband dipole antenna is designed. 4.The proposed antenna can cover 30-1200 MHz with VSWR less than 3. This bandwidth is wider than all of the previously reported wire antenna. 5. Different matching networks can be simply implemented with the proposed antenna and the effect of different matching networks on the performance of the proposed antenna is studied in the paper.
Perspectives
In this work by employing PCB technology and a cylindrical dielectric radome, a low-cost loaded dipole antenna is designed and fabricated. The matching network is simply integrated at the antenna feed point and a super broadband dipole antenna is achieved.
mohammad bod
Amirkabir University of Technology
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Design of a Low-Cost Broadband Loaded Dipole Antenna for VHF/UHF Frequency Range, IET Microwaves Antennas & Propagation, May 2019, the Institution of Engineering and Technology (the IET),
DOI: 10.1049/iet-map.2018.5753.
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