volume | PIER Journals

Abstract

This letter presents a compact electromagnetic vector antenna (EMVA) operating across the 3–30 MHz high-frequency (HF) band and capable of simultaneously sensing all six Cartesian components of the electromagnetic field. The design integrates three orthogonal dipoles and three orthogonal loops co-located at a common phase center (CPC), enabling full vector-field reconstruction for polarization analysis and direction finding. A transformer-assisted broadband passive matching network ensures impedance compatibility across the HF band, with measured insertion loss and inter-port isolation appropriate for electrically small HF elements. Field experiments using an ionospheric sounding configuration validate the antenna's effectiveness, achieving RMS direction-of-arrival errors of 10.02° (azimuth) and 8.42° (elevation) for O-mode signals, and 14.77°/26.09° for X-mode signals, respectively. These results demonstrate the suitability of the proposed CPC EMVA for compact, polarization-diverse sensing in mobile and space-constrained HF platforms.

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Mr. Wei Qiao

Professor Chen Zhou

Dr. Mingjie Lv

Dr. Qiong Tang