A Mechanically Rotating Antenna Used in Direction-Finding Systems on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Ruyu Ma, Xiu Yin Zhang · 2022 International Conference on Microwave and Millimeter Wave Technology (ICMMT) · 2022
This paper presents a mechanically rotating antenna used in direction-finding (DF) systems on quadcopter unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). UAVs equipped with radio DF systems are widely used in communication, navigation and electronic warfare area among others. However, the DF systems usually require a pair of antennas or more, tending to make them bulky and heavy for smaller UAVs. To alleviate this issue, we propose a single-element DF antenna which can employ the rotating propellers of the UAV to steer its radiation pattern. Simulation and numerical experiment results demonstrate that this antenna can achieve direction of arrival estimation accuracy that is similar to conventional mechanically-rotating dipoles without putting additional moving parts on the UAV.