본 논문에서는 항공기 안테나로 사용되는 VHF-UHF 대역(500 MHz∼3 GHz)용 블레이드 안테나를 설계하였다. 설계된 안테나의 형상은 기존에 보고된 연구의 고유전율의 유전체 사용 및 사각형 형상의 확장 그라운드 삽입과 달리 n차 다항 식의 차수 변화에 따라 변화하는 곡률을 가지는 방사부와 확장 그라운드의 형상을 최적화하였다. 최적화된 형상을 바탕 으로 안테나의 성능을 평가하기 위해 VHF-UHF 대역(500 MHz～3 GHz)에서의 정합 성능과 이득 성능을 측정하였다. 성능 평가 결과, VHF-UHF(500 MHz～3 GHz) 전 대역 정합 성능이 -6 dB 이하의 성능을 나타냄을 확인하였으며, 이득 성능 또한 VHF-UHF 전 대역에서 -5 dBi 이상의 성능을 나타내었다. AbstractIn this paper, we designed a blade antenna for VHF-UHF band(500 MHz～3 GHz) to be used as aircraft antennas. Unlike previously reported researches that use high-dielectric materials and insert rectangular extended grounds, the antenna structure was designed by optimizing the curvature of both a radiator and an extended ground whose shape is varied by changing the exponent of an n-th polynomial. Based on the optimized structure, we measured impedance matching and gain performances to evaluate the antenna in the VHF-UHF band(500 MHz～3 GHz). As a result, we confirmed that the antenna shows matching characteristics of less than -6 dB and has average gains of greater than -5 dBi in the entire VHF-UHF band.

In this paper, we propose a performance evaluation process of aircraft blade antennas. The process consists of various sub-processes that should be considered for a stable communication link with the base station. The process begins with the settlement of the ground shape and size to evaluate the impedance matching characteristics of a stand-alone antenna. Next, the main communications area of the antenna is determined by considering a flight scenario, and then the minimum gain requirements of the antenna are derived in the operating frequency band. Finally, the proposed evaluation process is applied for a commercial aircraft blade antenna. The results demonstrate that the proposed process is suitable to be adopted for the evaluation of aircraft blade antennas.