Design and Performance Improvement of Ku-Band Data Link System for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)

Abstract

Nowadays, a rapid growth of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) technologies appeared to accomplish several military and civilian multitude applications. These applications require a development of data link system for immediate data exchange between a Ground Station (GS) and the UAV. This thesis aims to develop a full RF transceiver based on Components Off-The-Shelves (COTS) and demonstrating the system using a multi-beam capability phased array antenna for point-to-point and point-to-multipoint. In addition, it aims to study, design, and improve an innovative and low cost phased array antenna at Ku-band for Data Link applications. A data link system is developed using High-IF transceiver architecture, Airborne Data Terminal (ADT) antenna configuration, and a Rotman lens beamformer. The design prototype of the RF transceiver is tested and measured with horn antennas in a multi-functional faraday cage built with absorbers for Line Of Sight (LOS) measurements. Antenna front-end measurements are performed using phased array antenna with 8x4 elements integrated with Rotman lens for point-to-point and point-to-multipoint communication. A successful transmission of a spectrum waveform is observed at the receiver but with a low gain, which encouraged towards improving the data link system. An antenna array of 8x4 elements is designed in ANSYS HFSS in both polarizations (linear and circular) at 15 GHz. The design procedure is exposed starting from single patch antenna. The simulations showed good results with an antenna array of 20 dB gain optimized at 15 GHz with a bandwidth of 3 GHz.

Date of Award	May 2020
Original language	American English