An Attitude-Independent Liquid Dielectric Resonant Antenna

Abstract

In this letter, an attitude-independent liquid dielectric resonant antenna (DRA) is proposed. The design combines the technique of hemispherical DRA and the attractive features of liquid antennas (such as the gravity correlation fluidity and the transparency) to achieve attitude-independent characteristics. The great advantage of this design is to passively control the maximum beam pointing by using the gravity correlation of the liquid without using any active components. The simulations and measurements are compared to verify the rationality of the antenna performance. A prototype covering the 430 to 448 MHz band ( <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">S</i> <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">11</sub> <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$ &lt; $</tex-math></inline-formula> −10 dB) is fabricated, with considerable radiation efficiency ( <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$ &gt; $</tex-math></inline-formula> 70%) and a maximum gain of 4 dBi. The antenna has great potential in aviation applications.