QUESTION:  What are my options for military spec broadband antenna concept 
incorporating new and innovative materials that could be suitable for the 
applications described below.  Answer should include an evaluation of the RF 
integrity of the proposed materials in terms of fatigue, creasing, 
launderability etc. 
 

QUESTION BACKGROUND:  Recently available materials indicate the potential for 
producing lightweight, rugged printable antennas on a variety of substrates.    
The objective is to evaluate the merits of materials for antennas and 
transmission lines and to develop and demonstrate new antenna concepts based on 
these materials.  For instance, one possible application would be to develop a 
directional broadband fabric based soldier worn antenna that would be capable 
of being used for lower probability of intercept/lower probability of detection 
communications where communications between two specific nodes are required.  
Antennas should belightweight, broadband and can be rapidly deployed in the 
field either as stand alone units or applied to a variety of surfaces such as 
glass, fabric and rigid or flexible plastic.

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Request for Question Clarification by drdavid-ga on 19 Apr 2002 15:12 PDT

As written, this sounds like a request for a proposal for a sustantial research 
project that should cost far more than $50. Google Answers can help search for 
publically available information related to the topic, but may not be able to 
provide the sort of "evaluation" of materials you are requesting if it hasn't 
already been done and published. Can you rephrase your question in a way that 
it is clearly just a search for information? If you genuinely want a research 
project, perhaps your question should instead be something like "Can you find 
an organization which could condust this research study for me?".

Hello,
  Though it seemed you are looking for a 'professional design' which can 
hardly be answered here, there is indeed a cheap way of making light weight, 
broadband and easily deployed antennas as you demand. In fact it consists of 
using tall pringles cans as antennas.  This technique is largely used by 
broadband wireless 802.11b hackers, and is thouroughly explained in the 
following article:

"Antenna on the Cheap (er, Chip)" by Rob Flickenger (Jul, 5, 2001)
O'Reilly Network
<http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/weblog/view/wlg/448>

Hope it helped! :)

--Toksuri

Search Terms used:
-Pringles Can antenna

Hi

This url will give you a source of testing:

http://www.esi-group.com/products/pamcem/overview.html

The US Army has a project developing a printable antenna, url below:

http://dtica.dtic.mil/sttr/darpa.html  see DARPA ST021-001

Also, see         SBIR A02-107 at:

http://www.dodsbir.net/Topics/Default.asp

by putting in the word "antenna" in the "Search for" box.

Typically broadband antennas are quite large, you may find microstrip
antennas of interest; see:

http://www.ee.fit.edu/electrical/asl_page/journal/report17/report17.htm

and

http://www.ee.fit.edu/electrical/asl_page/journal/report18/report18.htm

and

http://www.ee.fit.edu/electrical/asl_page/journal.htm





DARPA ST021-001 

SBIR   A02-107

Here's another document 

://www.google.ca/search?q=cache:pQXULyjJmYAC:www.starlab.org/fan/pdf/IBM_PVC_SPECIAL_ISSUE_PAPER.PDF+2.4ghz+broadband+antenna+radiation+body+health&hl=en&ie=UTF8

To research this more you need to look at patch antennas. There have
been many papers written on broadband antenna design but as a starter
I recommend the book: Antenna Design by C. Balinis (look in Amazon,
its listed there). This would be a good text to start you off and get
you the background you need.