Efficiency of electrically small UHF/VHF resonator antennas with matching network

The fundamental properties of electrically small cavity resonant UHF/VHF antennas are investigated using analytic and full-wave finite element modelling. The design trade-off's between radiation efficiency, impedance bandwidth and gain are established by analysis and measurements. It is demonstrated that non-radiating portions of the antenna structure such as the matching network and ground plane must be taken into account since they too may contribute to the antenna performance.