Design and modeling of a highly compact negative index floral shape metamaterial for flight navigation applications

The collision avoidance system (CAS) is a mandatory monitoring apparatus equipped in all aircraft to safeguard flight safety. The CAS scans the predefined regions in a systematic manner for a certain length of time to detect any approaching aircraft that could potentially pose a threat. Thus, CAS requires a focused multi-element radiator which can encompass the complete azimuth region. Recent years have seen a growing emphasis on enhancing the efficiency of CAS antennas because of several constraints, such as low gain (3.6 dB), larger dimensions, substantial side-lobe amplitude (- 7 dB), and challenges with beam adaptation. The current research strives to enhance the gain of a CAS antenna by incorporating the basic idea of metamaterials (MTMs). Therefore, a compact floral-shaped double negative (DNG) MTM design is proposed. The CAS antenna routes the signal throughout the complete azimuth region, so the designed MTM must be proficient to withstand its DNG characteristics for different incident angles. Hence, the proposed design is tested at various incident angles spanning between to along the azimuth region, at a deviation. The results indicate that the proposed structure retains its DNG behavior in the desired frequency range, regardless of the incident angles. The computed effective medium ratio of the structure is 13.47 at the CAS central frequency (1.06 GHz), highlighting its compactness and efficacy. Furthermore, to analyze the function of the structure on the antenna, the unit-element (UE) is expanded to a 5 × 4 array and deployed as an additional layer on the radiator at a predetermined distance. The addition of MTM to the radiator outperformed the conventional radiator by enhancing the antenna gain, by 2.6 dB, respectively. Additionally, to confirm the experimental findings, the UE and array designs are fabricated, and the fabrication results align closely with the simulation results.