International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) - Volume4Issue4- April 2013

Design of open ended Quadfilar helical antenna for 2.4 GHz

Vaibhav M Jotania#1,Ved Vyas Dwivedi*2, Jitendra P Chaudhari#3
#

Communication System Engineering, Charusat University At & Po:Changa-388421, Dist-Anand,India

AbstractThere are two types of helical antenna (Monofilar Helical Antenna and Multifilar Helical Antenna). In this paper, the design of open ended quadfilar helical antenna(QHA) is proposed. Antenna model is designed at the centre frequency of 2.4 Ghz. Details of antenna design parameters and simulation results are presented along with Radiation Pattern, Axial Ratio and gain. Keywords Quadfilar helical antenna(QHA), Axial Ratio.

I. INTRODUCTION Helical antenn can be design as a monofilar helical antenna or multifilar helical antenna.It is having two radiation modes.In normal mode helix, the direction of radation is normal to the axis of helix and in axial mode helix, the direction of radiation is in the axis of helix.In multifilar helical antenna more number of wires are wound. In quadfilar helical antenna four wires are there and they are fed in phase quardature. II. GEOMETRY OF HELICAL ANTENNA The geometry of a conventional helix is shown in Fig. 1(a).The parameters that describe a helix are summarized below. D = diameter of helix S = spacing between turns N = number of turns C = circumference of helix = D A = total axial length = NS = pitch angle the relationships between S ,C, and the length of wire per turn, L , are obtained as below and shown in Fig. 1(b): S =L sin = C tan L = (S 2 + C 2 )1 / 2 = (S 2 + 2 D 2 )1/2 III. OVERVIEW OF QUADFILAR HELICAL ANTENNA The quadrifilar helical antenna (QHA), also known as the Kilgus coil, is mostly used for telemetry, tracking and command (TT&C) satellite systems due to its simplicity, small size, wide circularly polarized beam and insensitivity to nearby metal objects. The QHA consists of four helical wires equally spaced circumferentially and fed from the top or the bottom. The open ended QHA generally uses the length of each wire of /4 or 3 /4 while the shortcircuited QHA uses /2 or length of each wire. The open -circuit quadrifilar helix antenna (O-C QHA), sometimes referred to as a volute antenna, consists of four helical windings oriented 90 with

Fig 1. (a) Geometry of helix (b) Unrolled turn of Helix

small size, wide circularly polarized beam and insensitivity to nearby metal objects. The QHA consists of four helical wires equally spaced circumferentially and fed from the top or the bottom. The open ended QHA generally uses the length of each wire of /4 or 3 /4 while the shortcircuited QHA uses /2 or length of each wire. The open -circuit quadrifilar helix antenna (O-C QHA), sometimes referred to as a volute antenna, consists of four helical windings oriented 90 with respect to one another, with each winding unterminated (opencircuited) at the ends away from the feed point. Typical applications of the antenna include satellite, ground station, GPS, etc. The Geometry of quadfilar helical antenna is shown in fig. 2. The paprameters that describe quadfilar helical antennas are Hh : Height of helix ,D : Diameter of helix, Hf : Height of feed and N: number of turns. The elements of the O-C QHA are excited in quadrature with the relative phasing sequence 0, 90, 180 and 270. Top view is shown in fig. 2 in which Rg is radius of ground plane and Rh is Radius of feed. The elements of the O-C QHA are excited in quadrature with the relative phasing. Top view is shown in fig. 3 in which Rg is radius of ground plane and Rh is Radius of feed.

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International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) - Volume4Issue4- April 2013

Fig 2. Geometry of QHA

Fig 4.Design of QHA

Fig 3.Top view of QHA

IV. GEOMETRY OF HELICAL ANTENNA DESIGN AND SIMULATION RESULTS OF OPEN ENDED QHA We have designed QHA with parameters which are shown in Table 1. Fig. 4 shows that QHA is designed along z-axis at the centre frequency of 2.4Ghz . Rh Rg Hh Hf D 8.66 17.33 71.75 1.33 666.7 mm mm mm mm m The results are generated using CST microwave studio.In design, we used four waveguide ports for excitations. Fig. 5 shows the return loss of antenna at the centre frequency of 2.4 Ghz for the respective ports. Fig. 6 shows the Voltage Standing wave ratio(VSWR).From the graph of VSWR it is clear that value of VSWR is between 1 to 1.1 for all four ports. Directivity of QHA is 2.2dBi at the 2.4Ghz as shown in fig. 7. Fig 8, fig. 9,fig. 10 and fig. 11 shows the axial ratio at the centre frequency 2.4Ghz at port 1,port 2, port 3 and port 4 respectively. Fig. 12 shows the 3D radiation pattern of QHA. N 1.08

Fig 5.Return loss

Fig 6.VSWR at the centre frequency

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International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) - Volume4Issue4- April 2013
depends on diameter of helix, axial length of helix and number of turns of helix.

Fig 7.Directivity of QHA Fig 10.Axial Ratio at port 3

Fig 8.Axial Ratio at port 1 Fig 11.Axial Ratio at port 4

Fig 9.Axial Ratio at port 2

V. CONCLUSION The frequency may be decreased by increasing the height or increasing the radius of the QHA, which effectively increases the length of the helical elements. It may be design as a RHCP (Right hand circularly polarized ) or LHCP (Left hand circularly polarized ). The Directivity, gain axial ratio are

Fig 12. Radiation pattern of QHA

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International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) - Volume4Issue4- April 2013
ACKNOWLEDGMENT The author is thankful to Dr. Ved Vyas Dwivedi and Prof. J.P.Chaudhari for giving full support and motivation during research work. REFERENCES
[1] [2] [3] C.C. Kilgus, Multielement, fractional turn helices, IEEE Transactions on Antenna and Propagation, July 1968, pp. 499 500. C.C. Kilgus, Resonant quadrifilar helix, IEEE Transactions on Antenna and Propagation, May 1969, pp 349 351. C.C. Kilgus, Resonant quadrifilar helix design, Technical Feature, Microwave Journal, December 1970, pp. 49 54. C.C. Kilgus, Sha ped-conical radiation pattern performance of the backfire quadrifilar helix, IEEE Transactions on Antenna and Propagation, May 1975, pp. 392 397.

[4]

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