Biomimetic Antenna Arrays Based on the Directional Hearing Mechanism of the Parasitoid Fly Ormia Ochracea

Abstract

We present a thorough examination of two-element antenna arrays that mimic the sense of directional hearing of the parasitoid fly Ormia Ochracea and examine the design tradeoffs of such arrays. Recently, it was demonstrated that these antenna arrays demonstrate enhanced sensitivity to the direction of incidence of an electromagnetic wave, compared to regular arrays occupying the same aperture. This, however, comes at the expense of sacrificing the available power at the outputs of such arrays. In this paper, we present a model for these two-element biomimetic antenna arrays (BMAAs) that takes the mutual coupling effects into account. Using this model, we examine the tradeoffs that exist between the phase enhancement, which can be achieved from these arrays, and their output power levels. We demonstrate that for any given desired phase enhancement factor, an optimum BMAA design exists that maximizes the output power level of the array. We also show that strong mutual coupling between the two antennas can be exploited to enhance the output power of the array. A method for designing practical two-element BMAAs is also presented along with simulation and measurement results of a fabricated prototype.