Design of a Flexible Thermally-Drawn Photonics Receive Linear Dipole Phased Array Antenna at UHF

The design and development of a flexible thermally-drawn UHF linear dipole receive phased array is described. The required DC bias for the array low noise amplifiers (LNAs) and other components is provided by a pair of electrically conducting wires in close proximity (3.4 mm) to the wire dipoles. To improve the input impedance match, the presence of the nearby power bus requires an offset feed design for the dipoles. Linear array simulations and reactive impedance matching at UHF (420 to 450 MHz) are described. Good performance is observed, with VSWR<3:1 for scan angles up to +/−25° from broadside when using infinite array unit cell analysis. Small array performance is also discussed, with a more limited scan range due to edge effects.