This program will address antenna design characteristics which can reduce the size of HF antennas for the small maritime craft while providing increased instantaneous bandwidth to provide higher data rates with higher reliability. We will apply our extensive HF experience in wideband HF ground/airborne antenna development coupled with previous efforts in conformal antennas on unique platforms to a suite of appropriately phased combinations of antennas such as monopoles, dipoles, and loops in conjunction with the clever use of new metamaterials to achieve a successful solution. A lightweight low center of mass prototype design will be developed to provide an instantaneous bandwidth over the entire 1.5-35 MHz HF frequency band. The ionospheric propagation performance of our prototype antenna design will be provided using ionospheric propagation software which will simulate various paths over various ranges and frequencies. A commercialization strategy is provided demonstrating how the resulting antenna design can be used in government and commercial systems applications.
Benefit: The antenna designed in this study will provide a low cost, light weight communication capability for government and commercial users.
Keywords: lossy matching, lossy matching, ionospheric propagation, Instantaneous Bandwidth, HF antenna, switching antenna tuners, meta materials, Maritime
