Design of a compact and light weight wideband dual-polarized VHF-UHF array

The development of a wideband dual-polarized VHF-UHF array with a conical scan of ±45° is described in this paper. The array operates over a 4:1 frequency bandwidth. Compactness and lightweight requirements are the driving factors in the design. Only one other similar array has been reported in the literature and is by Lee et. al. (2000), which uses a bunny ear element. For much better cross-polarization isolation, the ridge element is preferred. It typically exhibits 20-25 dB cross-polar isolation in all planes within the scan region. Further, the form of the element is particularly suited to a lightweight but rigid implementation.