Advanced Metamaterial (MTM) Rapidly Reconfigurable Common Aperture Antenna

The proliferation of antennas for communications, radar, and ESM roles on the modern military platform places greater demand for available surface area. A basic problem arises from the situation that as additional antennas are incorporated into platforms, there is an increasing issue with parasitic coupling and electromagnetic interference (EMI) between radiating and receiving structures. During the Phase II activity, Spectra Research will demonstrate its advanced computational tools and design methodologies for optimizing performance for ultra broadband antennas to alleviate many of these issues. The Spectra Research suite of EM tools allows for the exploitation of the advantages associated with custom materials such as metamaterials, electronic bandgap (EBG) structures, and artificial dielectrics/magnetics. The primary objective of this program will be to develop a reduced footprint, 30-3000 MHz antenna. In addition we will demonstrate antenna constructs incorporating advanced materials to reduce EMI, coupling, and antenna size while increasing radiation efficiency in a common aperture structure. For this Phase II program, Spectra Research will leverage its recent accomplishments in advanced antenna designs in the application of fragmented aperture and fragmented volume technologies. The work will exploit the research team’s FDTD algorithms and broad experience in advanced materials.