An antenna cladding is for fastening fuselage fittings protruding from an outer skin of the aircraft. The antenna cladding has a carrier for fastening antenna modules thereto; a radome fuselage cladding fastened to the carrier for contact on the outer skin; and a radome cover, which forms a continuous cover and lining for electromagnetic radiation in a predetermined wavelength range with the radome fuselage cladding. The carrier is a fiber composite adapter plate made of fiber having recesses with inserts, which have connection fittings for connection to the fuselage fittings. The connection fittings are arranged between upper and lower faces of the adapter plate and are designed such that the connection fittings do not protrude beyond the upper side of the adapter plate and the fuselage fittings do not protrude into the adapter plate when connected to the connection fittings, but do not project beyond the upper side thereof.

A thermal protection system includes: an outer skin; a thermally insulating material under the outer skin; and a high temperature radio frequency (RF) aperture. The RF aperture includes a plurality of waveguides separated from each other and extending through the outer skin and the thermally insulating material.

A vehicle includes a body providing structural support and defining a fuselage perimeter and including a plurality of bands, a plurality of antennas integrated into the plurality of bands, and a transceiver operatively connected to each of the plurality of antennas. The transceiver is configured to power selected sub-sets of the plurality of antennas to generate a directional antenna beam.

An antenna is provided from a dielectric wedge waveguide having an AMC wall feed structure 15 coupled thereto through a transition which matches the impedance of the AMC feed structure to dielectric wedge so as to ensure efficient transmission of RF signals between the AMC wall feed structure and the dielectric wedge. In some embodiments, the antenna may be implemented as a flush mounted or conformal antenna on an outer surface of a supporting platform.

An inverted F antenna for use in a projectile includes a ground plane and a radiating element oriented orthogonal to the ground plane and centered on the ground plane. The radiating element includes a ground stub trace having a relatively thick width, a meandering trace with a vertical orientation and a relatively high ground clearance and a feed trace having a tapered head.

An aircraft communications system may include a RF-transparent enclosure, a plasma antenna element and a controller. The RF-transparent enclosure may be disposed substantially conformal with a portion of the aircraft. The plasma antenna element may be housed within the RF-transparent enclosure. The controller may be operably coupled to the plasma antenna element to provide control of operation of the plasma antenna element. The plasma antenna element may include one or more RF-conductive plasma devices that are selectively ionized to a plasma state under control of the controller.

A method, apparatus and system for extended wireless communication include an airborne platform including at least one antenna to pick up and radiate wireless signals, a platform controller to control the altitude and attitude of the airborne platform, and a communication payload. In an embodiment, the communication payload includes at least two transponders to establish wireless links and a controller having a processor and a memory coupled to the processor. In some embodiments, the memory has stored therein instructions executable by the processor to cause the airborne communication system to elevate the airborne platform to an altitude at which wireless connectivity is able to be established with a first wireless network, establish a first wireless link to the first wireless network, establish a second wireless link, and relay data between the first wireless link and the second wireless link.

An aircraft includes a fuselage, wings coupled to the fuselage, and a transceiver. The aircraft further includes a plurality of planar phased array antennas coupled to the transceiver and fixedly attached to the fuselage or to at least one of the wings. The plurality of planar phased array antennas include a first planar phased array antenna having a first normal vector and a second planar phased array antenna having a second normal vector. The first normal vector is not parallel to the second normal vector.

A fixed beam ramp electromagnetic band gap (EBG) antenna including a radiating element and an electromagnetic band gap (EBG) structure both disposed within a ramped cavity. The cavity is designed with the ramp leading to the EBG structure disposed about a base of the cavity. The radiating element can be disposed above the EBG structure and the EBG structure may have a plurality of unit cells. The EBG structure can be provided both, horizontally on the floor of the cavity and vertically along a back wall of the cavity. The use of both horizontal and vertical EBG structures combined with the ramped cavity increases the bandwidth and enhances the beam steering of the antenna system.

An antenna array being attachable to a surface is provided. Said antenna array comprises at least two antennas, and a magnetic material and/or an alloy with ferro-magnetic properties for magnetically attaching at least one further antenna.