On-Ground UWB Antenna Mounted on External Wind Turbine Blade Surface for Deflection Tracking

In this paper, a low-profile UWB antenna is proposed which is mountable on the external surface of the blade. The antenna covers the UWB band of 3.1-4.9 GHz with the endfire radiation pattern. Different locations of the antenna on the external surface are investigated. Trailing edge location is a good alternative to the leading edge when placing the UWB antenna externally. Full-blade measurements are carried out to study the UWB pulse quality. It is found that in the applications, the root antenna over the downwind surface and the external tip antenna on the trailing edge should be utilized in order to realize high-quality UWB pluses in different deflections and satisfy the application requirement of air dynamics.