Module 1 EM Radiation and

Antenna Parameters
Radiation mechanism - single wire, two wire and current distribution,
Hertzian dipole, Dipole and monopole - Radiation pattern, beam width, field
regions, radiation power density, radiation intensity, directivity and gain,
bandwidth, polarization, input impedance, efficiency, antenna effective
length and area, antenna temperature. Friss transmission equation, Radar
range equation

Reference:
C.A. Balanis, “Antenna Theory - Analysis and Design”, 2016, 3rd edition,
Wiley & Sons, New York, USA.
Current distribution on linear dipoles
l <<  (l < /50)
 Determination of Power
1. Select appropriate coordinate system.
2. Determine H from Magnetic flux density.
B=H,

WhereH 
1
  A,


WhereA   I dl
4r
  permeability , A  MagnetcVectorpotenti al
H  magneticfield int ensity

D 
3. Determine E from   H   E  j E
t t
4. Find the far field and time averaged radiated power
1
P  EH
2
 Electrostatic field

E  V
Q  1 1  Qd cos Idl sin  sin t 2ldl cos sin t
V    E  ; E 
4 0  r1 r2  4 0 r 2 40 r 3
r
40 r 3
 Induction Field

Idl sin  cost

H
4r 2
 Cartesian – Spherical Transformations
Cartesian to Spherical

 x2  y2 
r  x  y  z ,  tan 
2 2 2 1 ,   tan 1  y 
 z  x
 
x  r sin  cos , y  r sin  sin  , z  r cos Spherical to Cartesian
How Vectors Transform ?

Spherical
to
Cartesian

26
Coordinate systems
• The electric and magnetic field
components are:
I m dl sin    r 1  r 
H 
4  rc cos  t  c   r 2 sin   t  c 
    

I m dl cos  1  r 1  r 
Er 
2 0  r 2c sin   t  c   r 3 cos  t  c 
    
I m dl sin     r   r 
E   cos  t    2 sin   t  
4 0  rc 2
 c r C  c 
 Summary of Dipole Elements

Antennas from Theory to practice – Yi Huang and Kevin Boule

Summary of Monopole Elements
Antenna Parameters
 Radiated field components
Hertizian dipole
I dl 1
• Electric field E  
m
sin 
2  r
I dl 1
• Magnetic field  2  r sin 
H  m

Half wave dipole  

cos cos 
2 
• Electric field E  j
I
2r
e 0  j r

sin 

 
cos cos 
• Magnetic field H  j
I 0  jr
e 2 
2r sin 
 Radiation Pattern
A mathematical and/ or graphical
representation of the radiation properties of
an antenna, such as:
• Amplitude
• Phase
• Polarization, etc.
as a function of the angular phase
coordiantes (,)
 Amplitude Radiation pattern
Field pattern : A plot of
the field (either electric
E or magnetic H) on a
linear scale.
Power Pattern: A plot of
the power (proportional
to either the electricE2
or H2 fields) on a linear
or decibel (dB) scale.
 3-D pattern and Polar Plot
Elevation

3-D pattern
φ Azimuthal
• Antenna radiation pattern
is 3-dimensional. Most convenient plot is “Polar
• The 3-D plot of antenna plot” for radiation graphs.
pattern assumes both Θ will be called as “Elevation”
angles θ and ϕ varying, angle (0 to 180)
which is difficult to Φ as “Azimuthal” angle (0 to
produce and to interpret 360)
 2-D pattern

2-D patterns
• Usually the antenna pattern is
presented as a 2-D plot, with only
one of the direction angles, θ or ϕ
varies
• It is an intersection of the
3-D one with a given plane
usually it is a θ = const plane or a
ϕ= const plane that contains
the pattern’s maximum
 Principal patterns
Principal patterns are the 2-D
patterns of linearly
polarized antennas,
measured in 2 planes
E-plane : a plane parallel to the
E vector and containing the
direction of maximum
radiation.
H-plane : a plane parallel to the
H vector, orthogonal to the
E-plane, and containing the
direction of maximum
radiation

38
Radiation Pattern - Isotropic, Directional, Omni
directional

• Isotropic antenna or isotropic radiator is a

hypothetical (not physically realizable) concept, used as a
useful reference to describe real antennas.
• Isotropic antenna radiates equally in all directions.
– Its radiation pattern is represented by a sphere whose
center coincides with the location of the isotropic
radiator.

Directional Antenna is an antenna which radiates (or

receives) much more power in some directions than in
others.

Omni Directional Antenna : An antenna, which has

a non-directional pattern in a plane, It is usually
directional in other planes
Often the field and power patterns are normalized to the maximum value,
yielding normalized field and power patterns. The pattern is usually plotted in
logarithmic scale (dB), because it can give more details of those parts of the
pattern with very low value.

Two dimensional normalized pattern for a 10 element linear array with a

spacing of d=0.25
 Radiation Pattern lobes

(a) Radiation lobes and beamwidths of an antenna pattern (b) Linear plots of
power pattern
Pattern lobe is a portion of the radiation pattern with a local maximum. Lobes are
classified as: major, minor, side lobes, back lobes.
Half-power beamwidth (HPBW) is the angle between two vectors from the pattern’s
origin to the points of the major lobe where the radiation intensity is half its maximum.
First-null beamwidth (FNBW) is the angle between two vectors, originating at the
pattern’s origin and tangent to the main beam at its base. Often FNBW ≈ 2*HPBW
Half-power beamwidth (HPBW) is the angle between two vectors from the
pattern’s origin to the points of the major lobe where the radiation intensity is
half its maximum.
First-null beamwidth (FNBW) is the angle between two vectors, originating at
the pattern’s origin and tangent to the main beam at its base. Often FNBW42≈
2*HPBW
Problems
Field Regions
 Problems
3. An antenna with rectangular aperture is
radiating in free space. The dimensions of
the aperture are a=7.112 mm and b=3.556
mm.
(i) What are the three field regions of these
antenna
(ii) Determine the boundaries of these
regions as a function of wavelength
 Radiation Power Density
• If the Electric and Magnetic Field created by an antenna are E and H,
then the average power can be calculated using poynting vector

• Average Power Density Wavg  x, y , z  

1
Re E 
 H 
 W / m2
• Then the Average power radiated:
2

Prad
1

 Pav   Re E  H ds
2 s

• So the Radiation density or power density
 P 
Wrad   rad2 aˆ r
 4r 
 Radiation Intensity
• Power radiated from an antenna per solid angle
– Mostly it’s considered in Far-Field condition

Here U  r 2Wrad
U = radiation intensity (W/unit solid angle Ω)
Wrad = radiation density (W/m2)
• From this total power can be obtained,
2 
Prad  Ud    U sin dd
 0 0

Where, dΩ is called Unit solid angle = sinθ dθ dφ

 Directivity
• Also called “directive gain”, specifies the measure of
directionality of an antenna.
• Defined as “the ratio of the radiation intensity in a
given direction from the antenna to the radiation
intensity averaged over all direction”

U U
D 
U 0  Prad 
 4 

U max U max
D0  Dmax  
U0  Prad 
 4 

Umax is the maximum radiation
intensity, found maximum power
direction
• The Maximum directivity can be approximated as
4 4
D0  
 A  HPBW  HPBW
– ΩA is called Beam Solid angle (Sr)
– To convert to degrees, divide ΩA by (180/π)

• It’s further approximated to

4 180 /  2 41,253
D0  
 HPBW  HPBW  HPBW  HPBW
Problems
5 Problems
 Gain
• Measure of efficiency and directivity can explicitly seen in Antenna gain.
• The Absolute gain is defined as, in the text book, “the ratio of the
radiation intensity in the given direction to the accepted power of
isotropic radiation intensity”.
• In other words,
Radiation intensity U  ,  
Gain  4 .  4 .
Total input power Pin
• Here input power can be related to radiated power by,

Prad  ecd .Pin

• ecd is “radiation efficiency”, a dimensionless quantity.
 Relation between Gain and directivity
• While replacing the Input power in-terms of radiated power,
 U  ,    G ,    ecd .D ,  
Gain  ecd  4 . 
 P rad 

• From this relation, we can say the Maximum gain as

G0  ,    ecd .D0  ,  

• Approximated to;(for complicated radiation patterns)

30,000
G0  D0 
41,253
 HPBW  HPBW Similar to
 HPBW  HPBW
 Antenna efficiency
• Describes the how much of input power is
utilized for radiation, since the practical antennas
are lossy and not matched properly – they will
have efficiency of less than one.
• The total antenna efficiency is

e0  er ec ed  er ecd  1   ecd
2

– er = reflection efficiency=(1-Г2)
– ec = conduction efficiency Z  Z 0 
 A
– ed = dielectric efficiency Z A  Z0

• For simplicity, the “ed.ec= ecd ”, where ecd is the

radiation efficeincy, which highly depends on the
area, shape and used material of antenna.
Rrad
ecd 
Rrad  Rloss
• er - reflection efficiency is due to the mismatch
between the antenna and transmission line.
• For lossless antenna, e =1 lossy antenna
 Aperture Efficiency and Effective area
• Aperture of an antenna is the area
through which power is radiated or
received.
• Let Ap be the physical area and Wrad be
the power density.
• If the horn absorbs the total of the
power through physical aperture Ap
• The total of the power,
𝑃 = 𝑊𝑟𝑎𝑑𝐴𝑝 =(Ea2/) Ap
• Since the field response is not
uniform in horn as the field at side
wall has to be zero,
• the effective aperture Ae is less
than Ap
Aperture efficiency 𝜀𝑎𝑝= 𝐴𝑒
𝐴𝑝
 Effective Aperture Area
• Uniform field over the aperture
power radiated by the aperture
𝐸2𝑎
is 𝑃 = × 𝐴𝑒
𝜂
• Field radiated at a distance r is
𝐸22
𝑃= × 𝑟 2 Ω𝑎
𝜂
𝐸𝑎 𝐴𝑒 r
where 𝐸𝑟 =
𝑟𝜆
Substitution Er and equating the
two eqns,
4𝜋
𝐷=
Ω𝑎
4𝜋𝐴𝑒
𝐷= 2
𝜆
 Problems
6. The physical area of an aperture antenna operating at
10 GHz is 200cm2 while its directivity is 23 dB. Assuming
the antenna has an over all radiation efficiency of 90%
and it is perfectly matched to the input transmission line,
find the aperture efficiency of the antenna.
7 Problems
 Problems
8. Assume a horn antenna at the origin of the coordinate system.
Its E plane is in the yz plane and its H plane lies in the XZ plane.
The antenna is operated at 3 GHz. The figure below shows the
orientation of the antenna and its equivalent circuit. The radiation
resistance is Rr=45 and the loss resistance is RL=5. The
maximum directivity of the antenna appears in the direction is
D0=12dBi. Calculate the maximum effective aperture of the
antenna with the assumption of a matched load and matched
polarization.
Antenna Bandwidth
VSW % %Transmitt
R Reflected rd Power
Power2 (1- 2)

1 0 100
1.1 0.2 99.8
1.2 0.8 99.2
1.5 4 96
2 11.1 88.9
3 25 75
4 36 64
10 66.9 33.1