Development and analysis of a stripline Archimedean snail antenna for disk-shaped unmanned aerial vehicle applications

This paper presents an analysis of stripline Archimedean snail antenna on its impedance properties and radiation mechanism. The Archimedean snail antenna has similar structure to the spiral one but with asymmetric spiral turns. Power can be transmitted from stripline mode to spiral radiating mode because of impedance matching between the two transmission line structures, i.e. stripline and parallel elevated slotlines. The radiation occurs due to differential-to-common mode transition of parallel elevated slotline. A novel design process can then be developed by impedance matching for the stripline Archimedean snail antenna. It is a completely planar layered antenna providing a platform for integration of circuit elements easily inside the antenna structure without additional need of wideband balun and matching circuit designs. The snail type antenna has better performance than the spiral one. This work also provides an overview on the development of an aerodynamically- functional broadband antenna-based design in which the proposed stripline Archimedean snail antenna performs entirely or as part of the chassis in a disk-shaped flying-wing unpiloted aerial vehicle. The antenna performance and aerodynamic operation are discussed. \ 2014 Taylor & Francis.