Aircraft mounted dual blade antenna array
AssigneeEMS Technologies Canada, Ltd.
InventorPeter C. Strickland
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An aircraft mounted antenna system comprising a plurality of linear blade antenna arrays mounted on an upper portion of an aircraft fuselage. The blade arrays are symmetrically placed on the fuselage about a plane vertically bisecting the upper portion of the fuselage. The placement of the blade arrays is such that large scanning angle gain losses are minimized as the blade arrays on one side of the fuselage hand off the satellite tracking, acquisition, and communication to the blade arrays on the other side of the fuselage as the scanning angle increases.
Claims14
An antenna system comprising:
- two linear blade phased array assemblies fixedly mounted on the skin of the upper half of an aircraft fuselage wherein:
- the longitudinal axis of each blade array is parallel to the longitudinal axis of said fuselage;
- a plane containing the longitudinal axis of the fuselage and the longitudinal axis of a blade array is at an angle with a vertical plane containing the longitudinal axis of the fuselage, said blade arrays being mounted symmetrically on either side of said vertical plane;
- and
- each blade array is covered by an aerodynamically shaped radome fixedly mounted on the fuselage.
An antenna array system for communicating between an aircraft and an orbiting satellite comprising a plurality of antenna blade arrays longitudinally mounted in a fixed manner on an upper portion of an airframe such that there is symmetry between a right upper side of the airframe and a left upper side of the airframe.
A method of locating blade antenna arrays on an upper portion of an aircraft fuselage, the method comprising:
- i) providing a plurality of linear blade phased antenna arrays;
- ii) fixedly mounting an equal number of blade arrays on each side of the fuselage;
- iii) mounting an aerodynamically shaped radome above each array.
A method of improving the communication between an aircraft and an overhead satellite comprising:
- i) providing a plurality of linear blade phased antenna arrays;
- ii) symmetrically mounting in a fixed manner an equal number of blade arrays on each side of the aircraft fuselage;
- iii) mounting an aerodynamically shaped radome covering each blade array.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.