Low profile Compact Printed Monopole Antenna for Satellite based AIS Application

In this paper, a simple, low profile compact printed monopole antenna has been proposed for satellite based automatic identification system (SB-AIS). The design consists of a printed monopole, which has been meandered to achieve optimum size reduction. The detailed investigation in terms of bending of the arms of monopole, width of the patch and dimensions of the ground plane on the resonance frequency and input impedance is presented. The antenna is matched to a typical 50 Ω coaxial line without any requirement of external matching structures. The prototype of the antenna is fabricated and tested at an operating frequency of 161 MHz for SB-AIS, with compact size of 44.5 . 17 cm2. The measured results show that the antenna has a bandwidth of 15 MHz (9.3 per cent), gain of 1.87 dBi and beam-width of 82° in the elevation and omnidirectional in azimuthal plane. The size reduction is 53.8 per cent as compared to a linear printed monopole antenna.