Antennas for Drone Applications Keith Snyder KI6BDR Foothill Amateur Radio Society Meeting 7-26-2024

Summary: Keith Snyder, KI6BDR, will talk about the different antennas used for drones in the commercial world and a little about antennas for drone mitigation. Various antennas are used to fly hobby drones such as the DJI series drones. Basic coverages are around 2.4 GHz, 5.8 GHz, 1200 MHz, and 1600 MHz. The antennas on the drone and in the controller must work together seamlessly. When contact is lost a drone will normally fly back using GPS to its original starting location. Improving this link can be done with higher gain antennas. But what if you want to reject a drone. Then you need drone killer antennas. We’ll look at these cases and explore the fun ways to detect and deflect drones. You either love them, or hate them. Keith’s drone of choice is his DJI Mini 2 which has 4k video and he’s flown using a Yagi-Uda antenna extender on his controller.
Here is a video taken from Keith’s drone in action at Waikiki Beach in beautiful Hawaii:
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About the speaker: Keith Snyder, KI6BDR, is a master power user of the FEKO numerical electromagnetics code for antenna modeling and analysis. He started using FEKO 23 years ago as user no. 8 in the U.S. and no. 1 at Northrop Grumman. Keith is an expert at reverse engineering antennas using photos and AutoCAD to import complex models into FEKO. Keith studied antennas under at The Ohio State University. He had the great fortune of having Professor John Kraus as his electromagnetics instructor. Keith’s aunt was Kraus’s secretary! Keith graduated from Ohio State in 1980 and picked up a Telecommunications Certificate from U.C. Berkeley. Keith has considerable antenna design experience having worked on a wide variety of antenna applications including: AM antenna matching at Harris Broadcast in Quincy, Illinois; reflector antennas using the NECREF code at GTE in Needham, Massachusetts; patch antenna arrays at Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colorado; radar antenna design at Aydin Radar in San Jose; broadband antennas at GTE in Mountain View; shaped reflector antennas at Space Systems Loral; Keith worked on modelling antennas on multiple aircraft for Northrop Grumman first in Sacramento, then San Jose and now in San Diego. His current position is with Northrop Grumman Space Systems Division’s Dulles, Virginia, location. He is working on the Gateway project which is a space station that will circle the moon as part of Project Artemis. In addition, he is working on a project to improve antenna links in the battlefield including drones and drone mitigation. Finally, Keith has been preparing for retirement and has picked up hobbies. Mainly photography (SpaceX launches with a 500mm lens) and flying his DJI Mini 2 drone (in Hawaii and beyond).