MINERVA SYSTEMS & TECHNOLOGIES LLC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: The objective of this proposal is to design and develop UHF Satellite communications (SATC

Description

The objective of this proposal is to design and develop UHF Satellite communications (SATCOM) circular polarized antennas using advanced metamaterials to achieve high gain performance with smaller dimensions (i.e., size and weight). The metamaterials we propose belong to a class of magneto-dielectric materials. The advantages and disadvantages of dielectric loading applied to electromagnetic devices such as antennas using high permittivity materials are well known. Often overlooked, however, is the same effect using a material with magnetic properties. This is mainly due to the fact that most natural magnetic materials exhibit large losses that make them virtually unusable at high frequencies (>1 GHz) or are relatively heavy at low frequencies. Recently, composite magneto-dielectric substrates, called Metaferrites (MF), have been engineered as a possible way to address this need for magnetic materials that are usable beyond 1 GHz or are light weight, especially for low frequency applications, such as VHF and UHF antennas. We explore a new design technique for creating thin planar, matched magneto-dielectric metamaterial slabs for the metaferries. The technique is based on using Genetic Algorithm (GA) to optimize the metasurfaces comprised of periodic array of electrically small unit cells and backed by a perfectly conducting ground plane.