Wideband Conformal Antenna

As Joint Counter Radio Frequency IED Electronic Warfare (JCREW) technology becomes increasingly prolific in military applications for ground forces, there is a corresponding requirement to develop antenna systems that accommodate present and foreseeable integration and performance challenges for these systems. With new ground vehicles, like the multiple different configurations of the MRAP, continually being adopted by military forces, these challenges are especially dynamic for vehicle platforms. That is, while existing antenna systems for JCREW applications have demonstrated the ability to provide acceptable performance on a wide variety of ground mobile platforms, each of these platforms has different impacts on – and experiences effects due to – the desired performance of these systems. In order to achieve more uniform performance and seamless integration for future JCREW systems, the primary focus of this effort is on conformal vehicle-mounted antennas, as they present the most significant technical challenges to meeting these goals. During the proposed effort, FIRST RF will investigate a variety of radiator and integration approaches, and provide demonstrations of the developed hardware at annual intervals.