Title

Dielectrically loaded biconical antennas

Date of Completion

January 1995

Keywords

Engineering, Electronics and Electrical|Physics, Electricity and Magnetism

Degree

Ph.D.

Abstract

Biconical antennas are of great interest to those who deal with broadband applications including the transmission/reception of pulses. In particular, wide-angle conical antennas are an attractive choice in many applications including Electronic Support Measures (ESM) and the measurements of transient surface currents and charge densities on aircraft.^ Dielectric loading in the interior region of a conical antenna can be used to reduce the size of the antenna especially at low frequencies and/or for structural strength. Therefore, having an analytical solution for the input impedance and the frequency response is very helpful in optimizing the design and understanding the behavior of the antenna. From the quasi-analytical solution for the input impedance and the electric field of a wide-angle conical antenna, it can be seen that the dielectric loading in the antenna region improves the input impedance at low frequencies, but increases the number of resonance points and the magnitude of these peaks.^ When an inhomogeneous dielectric load is used, the magnitude of the resonance peaks is decreased (depending on the way the load is distributed), improving the input impedance of the antenna significantly.^ Introducing a dielectric load in the interior region of an electrically short receiving cone makes the antenna behave as an electrically longer antenna. However, this is not true for the case for electrical1y long antennas. For the case of pulse transmission, the dielectric load affects only the amplitude. Of course, if the dielectric fills the whole space, both transmitting and receiving antennas behave as electrically longer antennas. ^

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