Antenna - Notes

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Electromagnetics, Antenna and Propagation

Course Code: ESCC202

MSc Electronics
What is antenna?
The purpose of antenna is to convert radio-frequency electric current of electromagnetic waves, which often term as
Radiated waves.

Field Intensity

The energy from a propagated wave decreases with distance from the source. This decrease in strength is caused by
the spreading of the wave energy over ever-larger spherical
surfaces as the distance from the source increases.
Radiation mechanism of Antenna

•By separating the wire more area is exposed to atmosphere and enhance the radiation pattern.

•The radiation efficiency is further improves when the wires bent at 90deg.

•The electric and magnetic field is fully coupled to the surrounding instead of being combined.
Current and voltage distribution

•When power is fed to an antenna, the current and voltage vary along its length. The current is minimum at the
ends, regardless of the antenna’s length. The current does not actually reach zero at the current minima, because of
capacitance at the antenna ends.

•In the case of a half-wave antenna there is a current maximum at the center and a voltage minimum at the center.
Cont…

•The pattern of alternating current and voltage minimums 1⁄4 wavelength apart repeats every 1⁄2 wavelength along a
linear antenna.

•The phase of the current and voltage are inverted in each successive half-wavelength section.
Feed point impedance
There are two forms of impedance associated with any antenna: self impedance and mutual impedance

Self Impedance
The self impedance of the antenna is simply equal to the voltage applied to its feed point divided by the current
flowing into the feed point according to Ohm’s Law.

Current and voltage are exactly in phase - impedance is purely resistive, and the antenna is resonant

Except at the one frequency where it is exactly resonant, the current in an antenna has a different phase compared to
the applied voltage.

Mutual Impedance

Mutual impedance is the ratio of voltage in one conductor, divided by the current in another (coupled) conductor.
Isotropic radiator
•Infinitely small antenna at a point located in outer space, completely removed from anything else around it.

•The uniquely useful property of this theoretical point source antenna is that it radiates equally well in all directions.

•Isotropic antenna favors no direction at the expense of any other.


Near and far fields
Some sort of mutual coupling can occur in the region very close to the antenna under test. This region is called
the reactive near-field region.

Near field

Inductive Capacitive

•For simple wire antennas, the reactive near field is considered to be within
about a half wavelength from an antenna’s radiating freq..

•The strength of the reactive near field decreases in a complicated fashion as


you increase the distance from the antenna.
Far field
The boundary between the radiating near and far fields is generally accepted as:

where L is the largest dimension of the physical antenna expressed in the same units of measurement as the
wavelength λ.

The total energy is equally divided between the electric and magnetic fields.
Antenna Parameters
Radiation pattern

A graph showing the actual or relative field intensity at a fixed distance as a function of the direction from the
antenna system, is called a radiation pattern.

Or
3-dimensional plot of radiation at far field.
Radiation intensity
Power radiated from an antenna per unit solid angle.

U(θ,φ) =r2 Pave


Directive gain

The directive gain G(θ,φ) of the antenna is a measure of the concentration of the radiated power in a particular
direction (θ,φ).
Directivity
The directivity of antenna is the ratio of the maximum radiation intensity to the average radiation intensity

Power gain
Radiation efficiency

The ratio of power gain in any specified direction (θ,φ) to the directive gain in that direction is referred to as radiation
efficiency.
Dipole Antenna
The dipole is a fundamental form of antenna — in its most common form it is
approximately one-half wavelength (1⁄2 λ) long at the frequency of use.

A dipole is resonant when its electrical length is some odd multiple of 1⁄2 l so that the current and voltage in the
antenna are exactly 90° out of phase.
Radiation patterns
The radiation pattern of a dipole antenna in free space is strongest at right angles to the wire.

At length of λ/2
(A) (B)

(a) Vertical plane (b) Horizontal plane


Radiation pattern of a dipole in a vertical and horizontal plane
In free space the theoretical impedance of a half-wavelength antenna made of an infinitely thin conductor is 73 +j 42.5 ohm.

The positive sign in the + j 42.5ohm reactive term indicates that the antenna exhibits an inductive reactance at its feed
point.

Length (L) of dipole antenna= λ/2


Monopole
Another simple form of antenna derived from a dipole is
called a monopole. The name suggests that this is one half of
a dipole, and so it is.

Monopoles are usually mounted vertically with respect


to the surface of the ground. As such, they are called vertical
monopoles.

One-half of the dipole antenna is replaced by a conducting


ground plane.

The presence of the ground plane below allows monopole to work as electrically equivalent to a dipole antenna.

This mechanism is explained by the ‘image theory’, where a current-carrying conductor above a conducting surface
creates its inverse image.
The length of the monopole is determined by its wavelength ‘λ’, which should be at least a quarter of wavelength.

The total radiation from a quarter-wave λ/4 monopole is half of the corresponding dipole antenna.

Monopole antenna placed above infinite conducting ground plane results in radiation pattern similar to a dipole.

Radiation would only in the upper half hemisphere results half of the power is radiated compared with a dipole for
the same current I.

impedance of monopole is also half of the dipole.


Radiation Pattern

(a) Vertical plane (b) Horizontal plane


Radiation pattern of monopole in a vertical and horizontal plane

The directivity of the monopole is twice of a dipole. The increase in directivity comes from the fact that only radiation in the upper
hemisphere.
Loop Antenna
Small loop

The antenna feed points would be in series with the loop, such that a small loop looks somewhat like
a short circuit across the antenna feed, called loop antenna.

These antennas have low radiation resistance and high inductive reactance, so that their impedance is
difficult to match to a radio impedance (often 50 Ohms).

As a result, these antennas are most often used as receive antennas, where impedance mismatch loss
can be a bit more easily tolerated in some systems.

Current is almost constant along the loop, because of larger wavelength.


Cont…
The features of small loop antennas are −

A small loop antenna has low radiation resistance. If multi-turn ferrite core constructions are used, then high
radiation resistance can be achieved.

It has low radiation efficiency due to high losses.

Its construction is simple with small size and weight.


Large loop
A loop antenna will be resonant (with a purely real impedance) as the perimeter of the loop approaches one
wavelength in size.

„λ‟ free space wavelength

Applications

The following are the applications of Loop antenna −


•Used in RFID devices
•Used in MF, HF and Short wave receivers
•Used in Aircraft receivers for direction finding
•Used in UHF transmitters
Horn antennas
•Horn antennas are very popular at UHF (300 MHz-3 GHz)
and higher frequencies.

•Wide impedance bandwidth

•Gain 10-20dB

•Horn is fed by the small probe or with small dipole.

•End section of waveguide is flared to match the impedance


With free space (377ohm).

• Capable of handle large amount of power.

•Section of waveguide flared to match the impedance of free


space. Flared shape becomes like a horn.
•The gain of horn antennas often increases (and the beamwidth decreases) as the frequency of operation is increased.

•This is because the size of the horn aperture is always measured in wavelengths; at higher frequencies the horn
antenna is "electrically larger"; this is because a higher frequency has a smaller wavelength.

E-Plane (flared on width side)


H-Plane (flared on high side)

E and H- Plane on both sides


Parabolic Reflector
parabolic reflector antenna, commonly known as a satellite
dish antenna.

Locus of a point, which moves in such a way that its distance


from the fixed point (called focus) plus its distance from a
straight line (called directrix) is constant.
i.e. p1+q1=p2+q2=p3+q3=const.

When the electromagnetic wave hits the shape of the parabola,


the wave gets reflected onto the feed point. The dipole or the
horn antenna, which acts as the receiver antenna at its feed,
receives this signal, to convert it into electric signal and
forwards it to the receiver circuitry.
Cont…
Parabolic reflectors typically have a very high gain (30-40 dB is common) and low cross polarization.

The smaller dish antennas typically operate somewhere between 2 and 28 GHz. The large dishes can operate in the
VHF region (30-300 MHz)

Unlike resonant antennas like the dipole antenna which are typically approximately a half-wavelength long at the
frequency of operation, the reflecting dish must be much larger than a wavelength in size.

The dish is at least several wavelengths in diameter.

Diameter of dish uses of TV broadcast is 60cm.

The ratio F/D, which usually range between 0.3 and 1.0.

Frequency of DTH dish antenna 12 to 18 GHz (Ku band).


Microstrip antenna or Patch antenna
Planar antennas

•Characterstic of the circuit or the antenna determine by the dimension in one plane.

•Lumped element- zero dimention elements


•TL- one dimension
•Microstrip, slot line or patch antenna- two dimensional
•Wave guide antenna- Three dimensional Microstrip line feed

• One of the most useful antennas at microwave frequencies (f > 1 GHz).


• It usually consists of a metal “patch” on top of a grounded dielectric substrate.
• Dielectric is placed between the patch and ground, provide mechanical support. Also
affects the resonating frequency of the antenna.

Coax feed
Common Shapes

Rectangular Square Circular Annular ring

Elliptical Triangular
Working V=0, I=max V=max, I=0
z

Ex - - - - - + + + + +

r Ey
Ey h
Ex
x
λ/2
•The fringing fields around the antenna can help explain why the microstrip antenna radiates.

•Consider the side view of a patch antenna, the current at the end of the patch is zero (open circuit end), the current is
maximum at the center of the half-wave patch and (theoretically) zero at the beginning of the patch.

•At the edge impedance is very high.

•patch antenna can be viewed as an open circuited transmission line.

•VSWR=1, current and voltage are out of phase.

•It is the fringing fields that are responsible for the radiation. Note that the fringing fields near the surface of the patch
antenna are both in the +y direction. Hence, the fringing E-fields on the edge of the microstrip antenna add up in
phase and produce the radiation of the microstrip antenna.
For Antenna The fundamental mode of a rectangular patch is TM10 mode.
Εr-> low
H-> high
*The overall dielectric const. experienced by the geometry is not Er, E, eff<ER
Advantages of Microstrip Antennas
• Low profile (can even be “conformal,” i.e. flexible to conform to a surface).
• Easy to fabricate (use etching and photolithography).
• Easy to feed (coaxial cable, microstrip line, etc.).
• Easy to incorporate with other microstrip circuit elements and integrate into systems.

Disadvantages of Microstrip Antennas


• Efficiency may be lower than with other antennas. Efficiency is limited by conductor and dielectric
losses*, and by surface-wave loss**.

• Only used at microwave frequencies and above (the substrate becomes too large at lower
frequencies).

• Cannot handle extremely large amounts of power (dielectric breakdown).


Antenna Array
•An antenna array is a group of radiating elements arranged to produce particular radiation
characteristic.

•The number, geometrical arrangement, and relative amplitudes and phases of the array
elements depend on the angular pattern that must be achieved.
Array factor
We consider a three-dimensional array of several identical antennas located at positions d0, d1,
d2, . . . with relative feed coefficients a0, a1, a2, . . . ,

The current density of the nth antenna will be Jn(r)= an×J(r - dn)

And, the corresponding radiation vector:

The total current density of the array will be:

The total radiation vector:

The factor F(k) due to a single antenna element at the origin is common to all terms

where A(k) is the array factor:

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