High Power - High Efficiency Bandwidth Antennas Through FSK Direct Antenna Modulation (DAM)

Electrically small antennas are a class of antennas where the electrical size of the antenna is significantly smaller than the wavelength of the frequency of operation. Often, such antennas are utilized on platforms where the physical real estate is significantly limited. Such antennas are inherently narrowband in impedance matching, but are also highly inefficient in radiation. To overcome these limitations, a using Direct Antenna Modulation (DAM) is utilized where the antenna is directly modulated at its peak energy moments through the use of a high-speed GaN transistor switch. Previous iterations were unable to attain high power transmission due to the coupling between the RF signal and the switching signal needed to directly modulate the antenna. In this work, we propose a symmetrical topology of DAM which allows high efficiency bandwidth transmission at high power, handling up to 42 dBm of RF power.