Military - Antennas for UAVs, UGVs, Robots

4.7GHz > Link16 > UAV > Ultra Wideband
 
Unmanned Systems provide many operational functions including airborne surveillance, video transmission, border patrol and tactical systems. In all cases uninterrupted communication to the control centre is vital.

As the demand for Unmanned Systems increases, so does the need for a wider range of antennas for payloads, data communications systems, command and control. Competing performance and cost criteria are an important consideration when selecting an antenna. We have a range of standard cost-effective, entry-level COTS antennas that are already used in extreme environments.

As frequencies increase from L-band to Ku-band to provide wider bandwidths to enable higher data rates, the selection of the right antenna is critical to ensure system performance, battery-life and transmission range.

• High gain, collinear, vertically polarised omni antennas are installed in aerodynamic foil structure
• Common Data Link Ku-band omni antennas have circular polarisation and up to 4dBiC gain
• Spiral antennas for direction finding
• Directional antennas for communication between airborne towed target and the towing aircraft
• Radar cross-section enhancement and radar detection
• Pattern data is available for all antennas

Cranfield Aerospace and The Boeing Company X-48B update

Ground Control Centre Antennas:

We provide antennas for both ends of the link between control centre and remote vehicle. The ground based antenna usually provides the higher gain part of the link and can be a medium to high gain omni, medium gain sector or a high gain directional antenna. A directional antenna is likely to require a two-axis steering system which may be expensive to implement.  A less complex but compact multi-sector antenna array provides intermediate range coverage for communicating with a UV.  This type of arrangement can be used for quick deployment, tactical applications. 

New leaflet Unmanned Systems Antennas in PDF format: