Accuracy Comparison of Radio Direction Finder with 6 and 4 of Log Periodic Dipole Array Antennas

Amplitude comparison is the simplest method of Radio Direction Finding (RDF) which utilise several directional antennas and compare the signal strength from each antenna to calculate the Angle of Arrival (AoA). There is some jargons mention that more antennas used in amplitude comparison RDF will improve the RDF accuracy. However, a further analysis and real test is still required to support this argument. Therefore, this paper will verify this specific problem by develop 6 antenna RDF system and 4 antenna RDF system then analyse the real test data. A type of printed circuit board log-periodic dipole array (PCB LPDA) antenna is utilised in this paper for the experiment setup. The real test setup and the data collection is explained in this paper to discuss and verify this argument. After the discussion, it is verified that amplitude comparison with 4 antennas has better accuracy than the similar system with 6 antennas.