MICROSTRIP PATCH ANTENNA FOR AIRCRAFT SURVEILLANCE BROADCAST APPLICATION

Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) is a technology that uses satellite signals for the real time tracking of the aircraft.The transponder in the aircraft is continuously transmitting its location and other status of it to the satellites.This information is broadcasted to other aircrafts and ground station control rooms with ADS-B receivers which are within the diameter of 300 Kms.In this paper, a microstrip patch antenna designed using ANSYS-HFSS to operate at the frequency of 1.03-1.09GHz for ADS-B application is dealt with.The performance metrics such as radiation pattern, return loss, gain and Voltage Standing Wave Ratio (VSWR) are evaluated and found to be satisfactory.Microstrip patch of dimension 65 85mm is built on the FR-4 substrate whose area is 127 120 mm 2 with a height of 1.6mm.Radiation pattern of the designed antenna is observed to be omnidirectional with the gain of 3dB.The performance of the antenna is compared for various substrate materials and the obtained results are discussed.