Design of Aircraft On-Glass Antennas Using a Coupled Feed Structure

Abstract

This communication proposes a glass-integrated antenna using a coupled feed structure for military FM radio communications on aircraft. The proposed antenna consists of a feed strip and two radiators, printed on the left-side window of the cockpit. The proposed antenna structure is optimized with the genetic algorithm in conjunction with the FEKO EM simulator. The optimized antenna is built and installed on a 1/10-sized KUH-Surion mock-up and antenna performance, such as reflection coefficient and bore-sight gain, is measured in a semi-anechoic chamber. The optimized antenna shows a half-power matching bandwidth of 28% at the center frequency of the military FM radio band and an average bore-sight gain of about -2.60 dBi. The results show that the proposed antenna is suitable for use as a military FM antenna for aircraft applications.