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Understanding the Element-Gain Paradox for Receiving Arrays Using Poynting

Streamlines

Conference Paper · July 2018

DOI: 10.1109/APUSNCURSINRSM.2018.8609418

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 Understanding the Element-Gain Paradox for
Receiving Arrays Using Poynting Streamlines
Junming Diao∗ , Lu Liu† and Karl F. Warnick‡
∗ Departmentof Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
[email protected]
† Department of Electrical Engineering

University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, Sichuan, China

‡ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA

Abstract—Energy flow directions around receiving array an- loads are marked with dash red lines, and the non-absorbed
tennas can be modeled by generating streamlines of Poynting streamlines are markted with solid black lines. All the Poynt-
vector fields near the antenna. The geometrical shape of array ing streamlines between the two array elements are absorbed
effective area can be calculated from the locus of Poynting
streamlines that terminate on the array element loads. The by the antenna element loads when the element spacing is
decrease of array directivity due to mutual coupling effects, or the 0.28λ, while some of them are missed between antennas when
element-gain paradox, can be explained by the overlap of element the element spacing is 0.67λ.
effective area shapes leading to the decrease of array effective
area shape. The critical element distance for the element gain
paradox effect is equal to the width of the effective area shape
for a single isolated array element. These results provide a new, 1.5
intuitive, and visually oriented tool for understanding a variety
of effects in the theory and design of receiving antennas and
z-scale ( )

arrays. 1

I. I NTRODUCTION
0.5
Antenna figure of merits such as directivity, beamwidth,
impedance and S-paramteres model radiation characteristics
0
for transmitting antennas, and the properties for receiving an-
tennas are obtained from reciprocity theorem. Standardization -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6
x-scale ( )
and parameterization of antennas based on these figure of
merits provide an easy way to analyze the transmitting an- (a) 0.28λ element spacing.
tennas, but they may limit the understanding of the properties
for receiving antennas. The goal of this paper is to consider
whether directly modeling antennas as receivers can lead to
unique understanding on mutual couplings for receiving array
antennas.
Poynting streamlines describing the field energy distribution
near the receiving antennas has been used to generate the
effective area shapes for receiving antennas and guide the
design of superdirective antennas [1], [2]. In this paper, the
effect that array directivity less than the summation of array
embedded elements directivity, or the element-gain paradox
[3], is studied using Poynting streamline method.
(b) 0.67λ element spacing.
Fig. 1: Poynting streamline distributions for a two-dipole boresight
II. P OYNSTING S TREAMLINE A NALYSIS array with different element spacings.
Streamlines of Poynting vectors fields representing field
energy flow directions are calculated when a plane wave
incidents on a receiving antenna from the boresight direction. III. E LEMENT-G AIN PARADOX
Fig. 1 illustrates the Poynting streamline distributions in the A full-wave model based on Finite-Element Method (FEM)
H-plane when the array element spacing is 0.28λ and 0.67λ, is used to analyze directivity for a two-dipole array influenced
respectively. Poynting streamlines terminated by the antenna by mutual couplng effects. S-parameters for the array antenna
is shown in Fig. 2a. The array elements are under good
impedance matches over different element spacing d(λ). The
mutual coupling effects is decreased by the increase of array 0.28
0
0.2
element spacing. Fig. 2b illustrates a comparison of array 0
directivity Darray with uniform excitation and the summation -0.2
of directivity for the two embedded elements D1 + D2 . The
element-gain paradox occurs when the array element spacing 0.2 0.1

is less than 0.28λ. 0

-0.2

0
S11 0.2 0.28
S12
-5 0
-0.2
S-Parameters (dB)

-10

0.2 0.67
-15
0
-20 Two-Dipole Array
-0.2

1 2
-25
0.2 1.27
d 0
-30
-1 0
10 10
-0.2
d( )

(a) S-parameters. 0.2

1.83

8 0
0.67
7 -0.2
1.83
6 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1
scale ( )
Directivity (dB)

4
0.28 1.27
Fig. 3: Effective area shapes comparison for a two-dipole boresight
3
0.1 array over different element spacings.
2
Element-Gain Paradox
Darray
1
D1 +D2
0
and the critical distance for the overlap and non-overlap of the
-1 0
10 10 element effective area shapes.
d( )
The largest expension for array effective area shapes occurs
(b) Directivity. when the element spacing is 0.67λ, which corresponds to the
Fig. 2: Two-dipole boresight array antenna with uniform excitation
over different element spacings. largest directivity in Fig. 2b. The element effective area shapes
become close to the single isolated element when the element
spacing is larger than 1λ.
IV. E FFECTIVE A REA S HAPES V. C ONCLUSION
Fig. 3 shows effective area shapes calculated from the Poynting streamline method provides a unique way to
terminated Poynting streamlines on the antenna load in each understand the element-gain paradox for a two-dipole array
rotated cut plane for the two-dipole array over different antenna by the overlap of element effective area shapes. The
element spacing. When the array element spacing is 0.1λ, width of the effective area shape for a single array element
the overlap between the two effective area shapes can be defines the critical element spacing for the element-gain para-
explaned by that when a plane wave incidents on the two- dox effect. In future work, Poynting streamline method may be
dipole array, some of the field energy will be absorbed by the potentially used for conceiving, understanding and optimizing
two dipole elements through the non-overlap area, while the receiving antennas and arrays.
field energy in the overlap area is shared by the two dipole
elements through mutual coupling. The element-gain paradox R EFERENCES
effect in Fig. 2b can be easily understood by the overlap of [1] J. Diao and K. F. Warnick, “Poynting streamlines, effective area shape,
and the design of superdirective antennas,” IEEE Transactions on Anten-
the two element effective area shapes, leading to a smaller nas and Propagation, vol. 65, no. 2, pp. 861–866, 2017.
array effective area shape compared to the total effective area [2] ——, “Practical superdirectivity with resonant screened apertures moti-
shapes for array elements. vated by a poynting streamlines analysis,” IEEE Transactions on Antennas
and Propagation, vol. 66, no. 1, pp. 432–437, 2018.
When the array element spacing is 0.28λ, the element-gain [3] P. Hannan, “The element-gain paradox for a phased-array antenna,” IEEE
paradox effect disappears. This distance is equal to the width Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 423–433,
of the effective area shape for a single isolated dipole antenna 1964.

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