• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.50 no.9
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• pp.46-51
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• 2013

In this paper, the optimum placement and shape of UHF antenna on the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) are analyzed by using the electromagnetic (EM) simulation on the various locations. The FEKO was used for the EM-simulation. In order to reduce the complexity of simulation and minimize the runtime and memory usage, the composite aircraft structure is simplified as the PEC model excluding the radome structure. The simulation was performed on the wing and ventral fin of UAV, and the antenna shape used the monopole, dipole, and bent monopole antennas. When the monopole antenna is mounted under the wing, two antennas need to be mounted under the right and left wings, and those antennas have to be switched as the direction of UAV wing to the line of sight (LOS) data-link (DL) ground antenna. In the case of mounting under the ventral fin, one antenna can be used regardless of the direction of UAV wing to the LOS DL ground antenna. Also, the antenna gain is improved by the blockage reduction. The antenna gain is further improved by using the bent monopole antenna. The optimum solution of UHF antenna placement and shape on UAV is to mount the bent monopole antenna under the ventral fin.