Development of the C-Band Directional Antenna

Army Ground Vehicles are equipped with various antennas that span over a large frequency range of operation. Many of these antennas often encounter physical obstructions from other equipment on the platform. A typical omnidirectional antenna for example, would have difficulty maintaining its performance due to unwanted blockage from these obstructions. In order to overcome the issues of overcrowding and degraded performance, the distributed directional systems can be employed around the platform to match or exceed the performance of existing systems. This paper describes a low profile and low cost C-Band directional antenna that would alleviate the physical obstructions and high financial costs of current antenna systems. Development using low cost materials and a combination of traditional as well as innovative antenna element design yield a highly effective and compact directional antenna.