A circularly polarized patch antenna was designed for operation in the 5.8 GHz band and experimentally validated on an actual unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) platform for firstperson-view (FPV) communication. The key contribution of this paper is the complete characterization of the antenna from full-wave simulation to actual field testing on a UAV, which is generally lacking for 5.8 GHz FPV antennas. The antenna uses a square patch with chamfered corners that is excited through a single coaxial feed to achieve circular polarization without any complex external couplers. The simulation in CST Microwave studio showed a return loss of-16.41 dB and a VSWR of 1.36 at 5.824 GHz, with a realized gain of 6.85 dBi at 5.832 GHz and an axial ratio of 0.97 dB at 5.832 GHz. The antenna was mounted on a quadrotor UAV and tested outdoors, with received signal strength recorded at distances from 1.5 m to 42 m. The signal strength was maintained at-35 dBm until 6 m and gradually degraded down to-88.9 dBm at 42 m. Thus, the antenna can be used for short- to medium range FPV communication and demonstrates that real-environment characterization reveals performance parameters not directly obtainable from simulation.

communication,UAV