Hypersonic vehicles have limited antenna mounting real estate. The limited space on the available antenna real estate limits the number of antennas and other mounted capabilities that can be employed. Fortunately, many systems do not require the use of their antenna all the time. Some only need a small period of time during the flight, some only need periodic access, and some only after glide body separation. Hence, deployable, retractable, and releasable antennas present an additional approach for managing the antennas. There is also interest in applications for relatively high gain antennas with patterns directed perpendicular to the vehicle axis. Deployable antennas are a potential solution for enabling perpendicular oriented antennas. Current hypersonic antenna technologies are often engineered for specific flight regions and operate sub-optimally outside these regions. At the conclusion of this effort, IERUS will provide a design space for highly adaptable and modular deployable and/or conformal antennas which can operate in a variety of hypersonic environment conditions ranging from pre-glide to the terminal dive regions. IERUS begins the design process using a rigorous on-body analysis method to ensure that mission requirements are met in the field. The IERUS antenna design process includes full-scale vehicle modeling to assess on-body gain coverage, thus addressing relevant requirements as they become available based on customer feedback. These modeling approaches are combined with rapid prototyping and measurement facilities to achieve rapid design cycle spins reducing program risk.
Benefit: Hypersonic flight introduces many challenges from environmental to structural. The effort described here addresses this challenging paradigm though novel and specific design concepts, particularly the deployability of these systems. The ability to deploy efficient antenna systems during targeted moments of an engagement extends beyond the hypersonic flight regime and may be extended to additional use cases and markets.
Keywords: Enabling Technologies, Enabling Technologies, Hypersonics, deployable antennas, Retractable Antennas, RF Communications, alternative navigation
