Gain Enhancement of Axial Mode Helical Antenna for UAV Applications

The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technology has seen substantial growth in the last two decades. Helical antennas play vital role in establishing reliable communication in UAV applications. In this paper, an axial mode helical antenna for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) applications is proposed. The antenna is simulated and the performance analysis is presented. The antenna with 3 turns and a pitch angle of 14° has attained significantly improved results. The antenna has a VSWR lower than 1.5. The return loss of -14.69 dB is observed with an enhancement of 33.5%, and a gain of 9.51 dB with 8% improvement is observed. Moreover, the improved results were achieved with the reduced size of the ground plane. The results satisfy the requirements in establishing the reliable communication in UAV applications.