New Log Periodic Dipole Array Antenna for 162 MHz AIS Receiver

The omnidirectional antenna currently used by the Automatic Identification System (AIS) receiver has a gain of 5 dB to receive signals from ships at sea that are in certain positions or directions. Certainly, this is very inefficient since omnidirectional antennas were designed to receive signals from all directions. While the use of a traditional directional antenna, having a greater gain than that of the omnidirectional antenna of about 7 dB, was designed to receive signals from only one direction. Based on the limitations of omnidirectional and traditional directional antennas mentioned above, the authors have designed a New Log Periodic Dipole Antenna (LPDA) to receive signals from two opposite directions. Based on the simulation of the proposed antenna using a 4NEC2 software package, the antenna has a gain value between the values of omnidirectional and traditional directional antennas, which is 5.3 dB. In addition, the proposed antenna also has a larger reception range than that of the desired range. Therefore, the proposed antenna can be used in AIS system receivers to overcome the shortcomings of omnidirectional or traditional directional antennas.