Anita Pascawati, Muh Fakhri, Mirza Zulfikar Rahmat, Idris Eko Putro, Rahmat Alfi Duhri, Sonny Dwi Harsono, Herma Yudhi Irwanto, Yuyu Wahyu, Budi Sulistya, Arief Rufiyanto, Muhammad Reza Kahar Aziz
This paper proposes a conformal microstrip antenna for rocket application. Note that the antenna of a rocket requires good S11-parameter values of the desired radio frequency range, an omnidirectional radiation pattern, as well as heat resistance. Therefore, we propose a conformal microstrip antenna which is mounted wrapped around the rocket cylinder to achieve an omnidirectional radiation pattern and operates at the center frequency of 2.44 GHz. The rectangular patch array is chosen with 8 × 1 elements to conform the cylinder circumference. Additionally, the antenna is made of substrate RT/duroid 5880, which has quite flexible material with a low dielectric constant. Furthermore, we design the antenna and then evaluate it in the computer simulation. After that, we fabricate and measure the antenna to obtain performance analysis in comparison with simulation results. Moreover, the measurement results show that the conformal microstrip antenna has an S11 value of −24.512 dB at the center frequency of 2.445 GHz with a bandwidth of 48 MHz, and also a nearly omnidirectional radiation pattern with a maximum gain of 18.07 dB. Besides, based on the simulation analysis, the antenna can withstand heat up to a temperature of about 71.8 ◦C during the flight test. Finally, we obtain that the measurement results have good agreement with the simulation results. © 2023 American Institute of Physics Inc.. All rights reserved.
Research Center for Rocket Technology, Research Organization for Aeronautics and Space, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Rumpin, Bogor, 16350, Indonesia; Research Center for Telecommunication, Research Organization for Electronics and Informatics, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Bandung, Indonesia; Research Center for Electronics, Research Organization for Electronics and Informatics, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Tangerang, Indonesia; Center for Intelligent Geolocation and Wireless Communications (iGlowcom), Electrical Engineering, Institut Teknologi Sumatera (ITERA), Lampung Selatan, Indonesia