Abstract

Replacement of protruding antennas by integrated alternatives will reduce the energy consumption and NO_x and CO₂ emissions of an aircraft. This paper proposes and integrated VHF cavity backed slot antenna that is suitable to replace blade antennas. To reduce the size of the cavity a parallel plate resonator is used. The slot is integrated into a fibre metal laminate fuselage panel. A bookleafing principle is used to reinforce the panel at the position of the slot, making sure the material quality is not reduced. Measurement results of a demonstrator antenna show the feasibility of the proposed antenna. Moreover, the paper discusses several electromagnetic and structural design trade-offs for this integrated antenna.

Abstract

A substantial contribution to reduce the aerodynamic drag and consequent CO₂ and NO_x emissions is to integrate communication antennas in the aircraft structure. This paper presents a GLARE fuselage panel design for an integrated VHF slot antenna and discusses the results of a mechanical experimental campaign on a structural element level, in quasi-static tensile conditions. The tested specimens showed small variability in terms of stiffness and strength (typical for GLARE), little dependence on the ambient conditions, damage presence, and layup configurations and good agreement with early numerical simulations. In addition, stiffness and strength predictions, based on empirically found design values seem to correlate well with the found test values