Design and simulation of a four-arm hemispherical helix antenna realized through a stacked printed circuit board structure

Abstract

Electrically small antennas have received much research attention and antenna designs have been developed that approach the Chu lower bound. One such antenna design is the spherical helix antenna which can achieve Q values that are 1.5 times the Chu limit. The spherical helix antenna presents a complex geometry that is a design challenge to implement, especially for use in printed circuit board assemblies. A novel hemispherical antenna design is developed and simulated that utilizes stacks of two-layer printed circuit boards to create the 3D hemispherical structure. The advantages of this approach are: the realization of complex antenna geometries using cost efficient printed circuit board technology and the ability to change substrate material to provide dielectric loading of the antenna, while achieving comparable performance with wire based designs.