Characteristics of a helical array antenna radiating circularly polarized conical beam

This paper presents the characteristics of a helical array antenna radiating circularly polarized conical beam. The structure of the antenna is simple and easy to fabricate. The radiation pattern of the antenna is calculated by combining the total fields radiated from each small helical antenna on the ground plane. The effect of the finite size ground plane is taken into account and compared with one considered in case of the ground plane is infinite extent. The radiation patterns for various parameters viz., the array radius and the number of elements are demonstrated. Guidelines for the antenna design to realize the desired directivity and elevation angle are illustrated. The experiment is under investigation.