Miniaturized annular ring slot antenna for small/mini UAV applications

Abstract

A miniaturized annular ring slot antenna is presented. The antenna consists of an annular ring slot structure and a novel folded matching structure. The annular ring slot structure is printed on a substrate and shorted concentrically with a set of conductive vias. The additional matching structure is a ring cavity attached to the back of the annular ring slot structure. Firstly, the diameter of the proposed antenna is reduced by using the folded matching structure comparing with traditional annular ring slot antennas. Secondly, the impedance matching of the proposed antenna is achieved by optimizing the size of the matching structure. A prototype of the proposed antenna with a height of 3.048mm (0.03λ) and a radius of 47.2mm (0.4λ) is designed, fabricated and measured. The antenna resonates at 2.67GHz and has a monopole-like radiation pattern, which shows that the antenna is suitable for the applications of taking off, landing, and long distance communications for a small or mini UAV.