Date of Award

2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Committee Chair

Maria Pour

Committee Member

Laurie Joiner

Committee Member

Tony Gatlin

Subject(s)

Dipole antennas--Design and construction, Energy harvesting

Abstract

In this thesis, a new dual-band antenna is presented for use in space-based passive energy harvesting. This antenna is based on elliptical dipole antennas, which are often used for their ultra-wideband (UWB) properties. The inner metallization is removed, leaving an outline antenna and room for a second set of antenna arms. This will in turn result in an interleaved structure to tune each set of dipole arms to two different frequencies. Due to the close proximity of the dipole arms there exists strong mutual coupling, which is lessened by adding decoupling elements to the design. The proposed antenna is supported by a partial ground plane to improve the front-to-back ratio of the radiation patterns. Different design iterations are full-wave analyzed in which the ground plane is extended with an exponential taper and additional parasitic elements are added to improve antenna performance. Sweeps are then carried out to show the effects of the eccentricity of the outer ellipse and the effects of the curvature of the extended ground plane. An additional method of reducing the board size is presented as well. Finally, the dual-band elliptical outline design was fabricated and measured and the results found to be in good agreement with simulation. This antenna design provides good impedance matching, peak gain, and radiation pattern for both of the bands of interest.

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