SBIR-STTR Award

A proprietary technique for dramatically increasing the bandwidths of dipole antennas will be investigated. It involves active impedance loading on the dipole elements or arms themselves. (Previous techniques utilized either passive loads along the dipole's arms or active loads at its terminals.) it can also be used to minimize or maximize the scattering crossection of the antenna or its gain. The loads that maximize bandwidth, gain and scattering crossection are almost identical. Thus all three can be 'optimized' simultaneously. Phase i will be devoted to verifying the approach for a specific off-the-shelf antenna, analytically and experimentally. A discrete component bersion of the reactance that maximizes the bandwidth will be synthesized based on measurements of the antenna characteristics and then used to verigy wideband performance. Practical circuit solutions for various applications will be investigated (form, fit and electrical design, approach and cost). Extension of the theory to other antennas will be investigated, including dipole-derived antennas, e.g. Folded or sleeve dipoles, dipole arrays, etc. Potential applications will also be examined. Finally, since active impedances will have resistive components, the effect on antenna gain (versus directivity) of the resulting lossy patches along the dipole will have to be determined