Conformal monopolar antenna for UAV applications

A conformal monopolar antenna for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is proposed. To establish monopole-like radiation characteristics with a low-profile on the fuselage of a UAV, a higher-order mode circular patch antenna (HMCPA) was proposed. For practical installation on the UAV, the HMCPA was embedded into a round recess within the UAV fuselage. The proposed HMCPA had a height of only 0.042 λ
₀
(18 mm) at 700 MHz. To verify the practicability and performance of the antenna, characteristics of the proposed HMCPA were compared with those of a λ
₀
/4 monopole via simulation. Additionally, antenna performance was analyzed when attached to a full scale UAV model. The proposed HMCPA featured monopole-like radiation characteristics with a low-profile at 700 MHz.