Mirage Fighter Aircraft

Project Information

Year: 1991
Duration: 3 months
Customer: GES
Contact Person: Andre Fourie

Summary

Antenna simulation and optimisation using SuperNEC. Verification with
scale model measurements.

Project details

Photographs above are of the Mirage in flight and the copper scale models that were used to do measurements in the anechoic chamber. (Click on image to see a detailed photograph).

We simulated the performance of two antennas (118MHz - 420MHz) and obtained radiation patterns and coupling between the antennas. We also performed scale model measurements on a 10:1 copper scale model of the aircraft in an anechoic chamber to validate the SuperNEC results for three principle plane pattern cuts (azimuth, pitch and roll patterns). We analyzed the three dimensional radiation patterns of the aircraft using a program called ASEP (Antenna Systems Evaluation Package) which we developed ourselves. ASEP performs statistical propagation calculations based on the SuperNEC radiation patterns and the output is the Probability of Communications (POC) for a given flight profile, frequency, antenna position, transmit power and receiver sensitivity.

This gives the most useful indication of the suitability of the antenna and its position on the aircraft for a specific application (Air-to-ground communications for instance). SuperNEC models was about 10000 segments using 1 plane of symmetry

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