The need for antennas for communication with unmanned systems used by the military to perform surveillance and recognition tasks led to the development of this work. This paper has the objective to design and build a prototype of an antenna, which is able to perform wireless communication between the operator and unmanned systems. The work was focused on the optimization and practical use of an ESPAR (Eletronically Steerable Passive Arrays Radiators) antenna, using the technique of genetic algorithms. This antenna allows a directional radiation pattern which can be switched in azimuth. Initially the antenna has been designed and simulated in 4NEC2X simulation program, to operate in the band of 2.4 GHz. The construction of a prototype involved also the construction of a basic structure and the inclusion of electronic components. After construction, the antenna was tested in an anechoic chamber and performed measurements of radiation patterns and the  parameter were performed. The measurement results confirmed the characteristics of directive radiation and the switch of the radiation pattern in azimuth, which is in accordance with the performed simulations. At the end realizes the comparison of ESPAR antenna built as part of this work, with a printed Yagi-Uda, whose prototype was carried out in a previous work.

ESPAR antenna, Yagi-Uda antenna, switched parasitic arrays (SPA), genetic algorithms.