Modified half bowtie antenna for direction finding

Abstract

A half bowtie antenna was designed to facilitate the application of direction finding in FM Radio Frequency (88–108 MHz) and UHF television reception (500–600 MHz). A slot augmenting was applied at the middle of the antenna to make a better performance on return loss of both bandwidths. Antenna size minimizing was applied to make it easier to manufacture and lower on the budget. Antenna characteristics were analyzed by simulation. Then, four antennas were manufactured and measured. The measured results showed that the proposed antenna had an impedance bandwidth from 88–108 MHz and 500–600 MHz with return loss smaller than −10 dB. The antenna achieves a compact size which is 17.6% smaller than its theory size. Furthermore, signal receiving from the transmitting artificial antenna experiment demonstrates that the antenna can be well suitable for determining the Direction of Arrival (DoA).