Polarization Diversity on ESM Systems

Abstract

Abstract Polarization diversity antenna arrays are applied to electronic support measures (ESM) systems since the 1980s. However, even today modern systems are conceived with the employment of the traditional and inconvenient spiral antennas and there are no studies that evidences most of the benefits of this technique applied to them. This paper aims at showing not only the advantages on polarization matching issues, but also the benefits in gain, in simpler truncation effect problems and in costs and time spent on design and production. After a brief approach strictly applied to ESM of the main features of spiral antennas and bow-tie antennas compounding a polarization diversity array, equations of the power available from the last were developed from the concept of effective length. The results demonstrate that the array could provide a power 8.7 dB higher than a modern spiral would to an ESM system when it receives vertical or horizontal linearly polarized waves, which multiplies by 2.7 the range of the system, besides also presenting a better performance in case of circularly polarized incident waves. This work has contributed to propose a replacement to the very common use of spiral antennas on the upcoming ESM system projects. This study is recommended for the areas of Electronic Warfare, Electromagnetic Devices and Applications and Ultra-Wideband Antennas.

Keywords

• bow-tie antennas
• electronic support measures
• polarization diversity antenna array
• spiral antennas