volume | PIER Journals

Abstract

Traffic alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) is an airborne system which is designed to provide the service as a last defense equipment for avoiding mid-air collisions between the aircraft. In such airborne systems, where low aerodynamic drag is urgently required, the end-fire antenna is suitable to be used. An effort to develop such an antenna, using microstrip elements, is described in this paper. Here, a Multi-Feed Microstrip Antenna is presented which radiates in the end-fire direction. The proposed antenna is designed in such a way that it can radiate the whole 360° surveillance region of the aircraft. To encapsulate the antenna inside an enclosure, an aerodynamically shaped Radome is also designed and presented in this paper. For designing this antenna model and its Radome, CST Microwave Studio is used here as the EM tool. The performance and other antenna characteristics have been explored from the simulation results followed by the antenna fabrication and measurement. Quite good agreement is achieved between the simulated and measured results. Much better performance characteristics make this proposed antenna a good candidate for this application.

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Prof. Debajit De

Dr. Prasanna Kumar Sahu