Conformal curved slotted patch antenna

An antenna 110, or a method of manufacturing an antenna, comprises a dielectric layer 212 with first and second curved surfaces 816, 818 where the first curved surface 818 of the dielectric layer 212 is positioned over the outer curved surface of a body 810 and an antenna layer 214 is positioned over the second surface 816 of the dielectric layer 212 and is arranged to conform to this surface. The said body 810 may be formed of electrically conductive material and could be a hinged driveshaft cover for a helicopter tail boom. A rectangular or bow-tie shaped slot 216 may be arranged to extend along the majority of the length of the antenna layer and may be centre fed at points 830 on either side of the slot 216 via a current balancing structure 860 such as a microstrip balun. The dielectric layer 212 may be made of thermoplastic, syntactic foam or polymer foam approximately 10 — 50 mm thick. The antenna 110 may provide vertical and horizontal polarization signals in different respective frequency bands. The antenna may include a protective outer layer which includes a low dielectric loss quartz fibre composite material 820 and/or a lightning strike applique covering 825.