Reduced Size Meander Line-based 433MHz Printed Dipole Antenna for UAV Telemetry Application

This paper presents the design and implementation of a reduced size meander line-based 433 MHz printed dipole antenna for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) telemetry application. The size of the antenna is miniaturized as compact as possible to be fit and installable in the winglet of a fixed-wing UAV. To achieve a compact size, the proposed antenna is designed by involving a meander line structure. The antenna is deployed on a 1.6 mm thick flame retardant (FR) 4 epoxy dielectric substrate with the length of 232.5 mm and the width of 16.4 mm. Prior realization and measurement, the design is performed through a simulation software to obtain optimum antenna parameters including reflection coefficient (S11), voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR), gain, and radiation pattern. The simulation result shows that the proposed antenna has the minimum S11 value of -16.78 dB which corresponds to the VSWR value of 1.33, the gain of 1.79 dBi, and the operational frequency range of 414 MHz to 444 MHz. Meanwhile from the measurement result, the realized antenna has the minimum S11 value of -9.53 dB which corresponds to the VSWR value of 2.002, the gain of 0.795 dBi, and the operational frequency range of 400 MHz to 432 MHz. Moreover, in comparison to the basic printed dipole antenna, the proposed antenna could achieve a reduction in size by 18.71%.