Design and Analysis of 2x2 Blade MIMO Antenna for UAV Communication

Communication has a vital role in an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) mission. High data rate and reliability are important in UAV-based communication. Multiple input and multiple output (MIMO) communication increases data rate for a reliability or increases reliability for a given data rate. A novel two-antenna blade array with reduced mutual coupling between two input ports for UAV application is proposed for IEEE 802.11 b/g/n and 802.16 Wi-MAX standards. This antenna can be used in MIMO configuration. The proposed antenna consists of one vertical monopole and a horizontal dipole with port-to-port separation of nearly 0.6λ0. The antenna elements are printed on a FR-4 substrate. The operating band of the design is from 2.2 to 2.5GHz. Without the use of any isolation enhancement techniques, using pattern and polarization diversities, the MIMO antenna achieves high gain and good isolation. The proposed MIMO antenna is investigated by simulation and measurements.

I. Introduction

An Unmanned Airborne System (UAS) mainly has two basic types of communication links, namely control and non payload communication link (CNPC-link) and data-link. CNPC links are related to safe operation of UAVs. Highly reliable, low-latency and secure two-way communications, usually with low data requirement, are needed in CNPC link. Data-link is to support mission-related communications. UAV-based ubiquitous coverage, UAV-based relaying and UAV-based information dissemination and data collection fall under data link. The data link usually operates in HF, VHF, UHF, L, S, C and K band of frequencies, and the choice is based on application. High Data rate and high reliability are required in data link and high reliability is required in CNPC link.