Design and Characterization of an Open-Ended Cavity-Backed Quasi-Yagi Antenna

In the near future, lightweight racing bicycles will be equipped with a wireless camera. Such a wireless camera will communicate with the control vehicle via an aircraft flying at an altitude of up to seven kilometers. With the current antenna, a monopole, it is not possible to bridge the distance between the wireles camera and the airplane with sufficient signal strength. The new antenna design must achieve more gain over a specific opening angle, which places demands on the half-power beamwidth. Furthermore, the antenna must be dual-polarized, small and lightweight. It is shown that a quasi-Yagi antenna is a particularly suitable antenna. The final antenna design exhibits a half-power beamwidth of 77° in the E-plane and the H-plane and a gain of 7.5 dBi. The realized antenna weighs 33 grams.