A novel low-profile wideband UHF antenna

In this paper, an ultra high frequency (UHF) low-profile antenna is proposed; it is based on the disc one antenna but with addition of a back cavity, a short-circuiting structure and a two-plate top structure in order to achieve both low-profile and wideband. It is simulated and prototyped. The test results show that the antenna has an omni-directional radiation pattern in the horizontal plane, is of low-profile, has a height of less than 0.1λ_max, and is wideband with an impedance bandwidth of 65% from 430 MHz to 845 MHz for VSWR < 2.5 and an impedance bandwidth of 43% from 440 MHz to 680 MHz for VSWR < 2.0. The proposed antenna can be easily flush-mounted on a planar surface and therefore has great potential for uses on aircrafts and high-speed trains due to its conformal capability.