Quadrifilar Conical Helix-Antenna and Its Radiation Characteristics Evaluation

This paper discusses the design of a quadrifilar conical helix-antenna (QCHA) intended to operate at the frequency of 2.4 GHz within the Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) band and the evaluation of its radiation characteristics. Such antenna type is well-suited for wireless communication systems working at ISM band due to its adaptability and unique characteristics. The proposed QCHA comprises four copper wires wound around each other and is fed using a microstrip feeding network deployed on an FR4 epoxy dielectric substrate. The four copper wires are conically-twisted three times to attain the desirable radiation characteristics. Parametric studies are performed through simulation during the design process, while the final design is compared to the bifilar conical helixantenna (BCHA). The results show that the QCHA, which is implemented using three helical turns of copper wires, yields the resonant frequency of 2.4 GHz with the working bandwidth of 30 MHz and gain (rE) of 4.88 dBi. Its performances are comparable to the ones of BHCA with some discrepancies in terms of working bandwidth and gain.