Modelings, simulations, measurements and comparisons of monopole-type blade antennas

Two commercial blade antennas for aircraft applications are investigated. The computed results are compared with measurements performed in the ASU ElectroMagnetic Anechoic Chamber (EMAC). The antennas are modeled as mounted on a 13-inch diameter circular ground plane, which corresponds to that of the measurements. Two electromagnetic modeling codes are used in this project to model the antennas and predict their radiation and impedance characteristics: FEKO and WIPL-D Pro. A useful tool of WIPL-D Pro, referred to as WIPL-D Pro CAD, has proven to be convenient for modeling complex geometries. The classical wire monopole was also modeled using high-frequency methods, GO and GTD/UTD, mounted on both a rectangular and a circular ground plane. A good agreement between the patterns of this model and FEKO has been obtained. The final versions of the solvers used in this work are FEKO (Suit 6.2), WIPL-D Pro v11 and WIPL-D Pro CAD 2013. Features of the simulation solvers are presented and compared. Simulation results of FEKO and WIPL-D Pro have good agreements with the measurements for radiation and impedance characteristics. WIPL-D Pro has a much higher computational efficiency than FEKO.