EE4310

Antenna Theory and Applications

Lecture 9: Loop Antennas

Faroq Razzaz
 Loop Antennas
❑Loop Antennas: A conductor bent into the
shape of a closed curve with various shapes→
circular, triangular, square, elliptical etc..

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 Loop Antennas
There are two types of loop antennas:
• Electrically small loop antennas→
• Electrically large loop antennas→
where C is the circumference of the loop.
• Widely used in applications (up to ≈ 3 GHz):
• As (EM) field probes in the microwave bands.
• In Radio-Receivers of AM broadcast where a
multi-turn loop is wound on a ferromagnetic core.
• Widely used in pagers (with ferrite core).
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 Loop Antennas
❑ Performance and Design Considerations.
• A single turn loop has a very small radiation
resistance and large loss resistance.
• can be increased by using more turns and
inserting ferrite core.
• Multi-turn loops have better radiation
resistance but their efficiency is still very poor.
• Far-field pattern is very similar to that of a
small dipole except the polarization → (It is
horizontally polarized not vertically).
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 Loop Antennas

Radiation Pattern
of Small and Large
Loop Antennas

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 Loop Antennas
❑ Comments on Radiation Patterns:
• As can be seen when C ≈ λ (large loop) , the
maximum of the pattern is at the loop’s
normal (z-axis).

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 Loop Antennas

• In the plane of the loop, there is a null in the

direction parallel to the side containing the
feed (along the x axis).

• And there is a lobe in a direction

perpendicular to the side containing the feed
(along the y-axis).

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 Loop Antennas
❑ Radiation Parameters of a Small Loop
• A small loop is a loop of constant current
whose radius (a) satisfies a derived limit:

• or, whose circumference (C) satisfies

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 Loop Antennas
• Far field components of the field of an
infinitesimal loop are derived as:

• From Field analysis and approximation for

small loop, It is obvious that:
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 Loop Antennas
the Far-Field Pattern:

Is identical to that of a z-directed infinitesimal

Dipole (but with orthogonal polarization).
• The power pattern is also identical:

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 Loop Antennas
• Radiated Power:

• Where: is the phase constant.

• and A: Area of loop→
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 Loop Antennas
• Radiation Resistance:

Where in free space,

• Then is simplified for a single-turn loop as:

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 Loop Antennas
• If the loop antenna has N turns, then the
radiation resistance increases with a factor of

• The above expression becomes:

• This relation provides a mechanism to

increase and .

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 Loop Antennas
• Typically, loop antennas have low efficiency,
and thus are preferred mostly as receiving
antennas.
• Directivity is the same as that of an
infinitesimal dipole:

• Maximum Effective Area

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 Loop Antennas- Equivalent Circuit
• Equivalent Circuit of a Loop Antenna

-Self-inductance of the wire

Note that:

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 Loop Antennas- Loss Resistance
1. Calculation of Loss Resistance
• In the case of a uniform current distribution,
the HF resistance is calculated as:

where is the length of the wire, and is the

perimeter of the wire’s cross section. is the
surface resistance. is the conductivity.
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 Loop Antennas- Loss Resistance
• Now, when the loop has more turns, we are not
concerned with the current distribution, but with
the phenomenon of Proximity effect related to
the Skin effect.
• When the spacing between the wires is very
small, the loss resistance
due to the proximity effect
might be larger than that
of the skin effect.
Why? See the figure.
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 Loop Antennas- Loss Resistance
• The following formula is
used to calculate exactly
the loss resistance
of a loop with N-turns,
wire radius b, and loop
separation 2c:

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 Loop Antennas- Loss Resistance
•
Is the ohmic resistance per unit length due to
the proximity effect.

• and
is the ohmic resistance per unit length due to
the skin effect.
• The ratio can also be found from the
following design curves.
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 Loop Antennas- Loss Resistance
• This ratio
has been
calculated
for different
relative
spacing c/b,
for loops with
2≤N≤8

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 Loop Antennas- Loop Inductance
2. Calculation of Loop Inductance
• The inductance of a single circular loop of
radius a and wire radius b is found from:

• The inductance of a square loop with sides a

and wire radius b is calculated as:

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 Loop Antennas- Loop Inductance
• The inductance of N-turn loop is obtained
from the inductance of a single-turn loop
multiplied by:

3. The self-inductance of the wire itself is very

small and is often neglected. It can be found
for a straight wire or a single loop of length
as:

• For N-turn loop, how much??

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 Loop Antennas- Tuning Capacitor
4. Calculation of Tuning Capacitor.
• Assume the loop is used as a transmitting
antenna. Recall its equivalent circuit with the
tuning capacitor and
that the input impedance:

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 Loop Antennas- Tuning Capacitor
• The equivalent admittance of the loop is:

• The following transformation holds:

• Where:

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 Loop Antennas- Tuning Capacitor
• The susceptance of the capacitor:

must be chosen to eliminate the susceptance

of the loop:
• For resonance to occur at:
the condition: must be satisfied.
• Therefore

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 Loop Antennas- Tuning Capacitor
• Under resonance, the input impedance in Z′
becomes:

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 Example 1
• A linear half-wavelength dipole is
operating at a frequency of 1 GHz,
determine the capacitance or inductance
that must be placed across the input
terminals of the dipole, so that the
antenna becomes resonant (make the
total input impedance real). What is then
the VSWR of the resonant half-
wavelength dipole when it is connected to
a 50 Ω line?
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 Solution 1
• The known data:

• Then

• The capacitance that has to be put across the

antenna input terminals is found
from:
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 Solution 1- Continue
• And thus:

• Now, the resonant antenna will only have the

real:

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 Solution 1- Continue
• The of the transmission line is the input
impedance of the antenna .
• Thus: The reflection coefficient at the input
terminals of the antenna is:

• Finally, The VSWR is found:

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 Exercise Problem 1
• Design a lossless resonant circular loop
operating at 10 MHz so that its single turn
radiation resistance is 0.73 Ω . The resonant
loop is to be connected to a matched load
through a balanced “twin-lead” 300 Ω
transmission line.
a)Determine the radius of the loop (in meters
and wavelengths).
b)To minimize the matching reflections between
the resonant loop and the 300 Ω
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 Problem 1- Continue
transmission line, determine the closest
number of integer turns the loop must have.
c) For the loop of part b), determine the
maximum power that can be expected to be
delivered to a receiver-matched load if the
incident wave is polarization matched to the
lossless resonant loop. The power density of
the incident wave is .
First, Try to solve independently. Then we
may discuss your solutions in class!!
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 Exercise Problem 2
• A resonant 6-turn loop of “closely spaced
turns” is operating at 50 MHz. The radius
of the loop is λ/30 , and the loop is
connected to a 50 Ω transmission line.
The radius of the wire is λ/300, its
conductivity is and the
spacing between the turns is λ/100.
→
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 Problem 2- Continue
Determine the:
a) directivity of the antenna (in dB),
b)radiation efficiency taking into account
the proximity effects of the turns,
c) reflection efficiency,
d) gain of the antenna (in dB).
• First, Try to solve independently. Then we may
discuss your solutions in a tutorial class!!
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 Large Loop Antennas
• When the loop radius a
becomes larger than
0.2λ , the constant-
current assumption
does not hold. Observe
the pattern shift as
shown
right

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 Large Loop Antennas
• When the loop radius a of the loop approaches
0.61 λ and beyond, the maximum of the
radiation pattern shifts further to form a null.

• Check!! using the Matlab program provided with

the text book.

• The input resistance and reactance for large

circular loops are given below as design
assistance.

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 Large Loop Antennas
Large
circular
loop
input
Resistance

Note that:

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 Large Loop Antennas

Large
circular
loop
input
Reactance

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 Photo of Large Loop Antennas
Single Loop Antenna Array of Eight Loops
 Ferrite Loops
• The radiation resistance and radiation
efficiency can be raised by inserting a ferrite
core to the loop antenna.

• Such a core has large magnetic permeability

in the operating frequency band.

• Large magnetic permeability means large

magnetic flux, and hence large induced
voltage.
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 Ferrite Loops
• Now the magnetic properties of the loop will be
included in the expression for the
• The magnetic properties of a ferrite core depend
not only on the of the material, but also
on its geometry. Thus:
• The increase in the magnetic flux is represented
by the effective relative permeability (effective
magnetic constant):

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 Ferrite Loops
• The of a ferrite-core loop ( ) is larger
times the value than the of the air-
core loop of the same geometry.
• So, we can finally express the as for N-turns
ferrite loop, denoted as :

• Where A is the area

• and = 120 is the free space imped.
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 Ferrite Loops
• Note the following:
1.
2. Toroidal cores have the highest see fig.
3. Ferrite-stick cores have the lowest

Toroidal form

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 Ferrite Loops
4. is frequency-dependent. One has to be
careful when picking the right core for the
application at hand. i.e.→
5. The magnetic losses of ferromagnetic
materials increase with frequency.
6. At very high (microwave) frequencies, the
magnetic losses are not negligible. They have
to be calculated and represented in the
equivalent circuit of the antenna as a shunt
conductance .
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Try this problem using the design curves
Exercise:
Design a resonant loop antenna to operate at 100
MHz, so that the pattern maximum is along the
axis of the loop.
Determine:
• The radius of the loop and that of the wire (in m).
• The parallel lumped capacitor to be placed at
antenna terminals in order to resonate (if not
self-resonant).
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