Antennas characteristics:

Radiation pattern, Directivity

and Gain

Radiation Pattern
is a representation of the normalised radiated
~ as a function of dipower or the normalised E
rection in space.

Have we got the choice of the co-ordinates,

cartesian or polar?

A three-D plot of the antenna is avoided

by plotting separately the normalised radi~ versus for a constant
ated power of E
(vertical/elevation plane) and versus for
a constant (horizontal/azimuth plane).

ROTATE

Distance?

Power Meter

Directivity

An antenna does not radiate uniformly in

3-D.

The variation of intensity with direction in

space is described by the radiation pattern,
but this variation is measured by the directivity function D(, ).

D(, ) is the ratio of the maximum radiation intensity to the equivalent radiation
intensity from an isotropic antenna.

I(, )|max
D(, ) =
Iiso
dPr /d
.
=
Pr /4
We can rewrite dPr /d as Pr /a. Therefore,
Pr |/a|max
,
Pr /4
4
=
.
a

D(, ) =

What is the directivity of the isotropic source?

Gain

is the ratio of the power radiated per unit

of solid angle to the input power divided by
4

If we introduce:
is the ohmic efficiency. It is independent of the incidence of the wave.
c is the aperture efficiency and it is dependent on the incident wave.

the gain can be written as:

G(, ) = c(, ) D

It can be shown that an ideal isotropic radiation ( = 1) has an effective area given by:
2
,
ae =
4
where is the wavelength in free space. We
apply this result to real antennas.
The antenna gain is defined as the ratio of the
Ir (, )
Iiso
ae(, ) S
=
aiso S
4
=
ae(, )
2

4
=
aph c(, ),
2

G(, ) =

a
G(, ) = 4
2 ph
We are usually interested in the gain on the
boresight, so it common to simply ignore the
angular dependance of the efficiency.
8

Comments

It can be shown that the gain and the efficiencies are the same for transmission and
reception, so that all passive antennas are
said to be reciprocal.

Dependence of the gain on 1/2

Unit of the gain

EIRP

Pt

PtGt

Isotropic radiation

If we consider a power Pt supplied to an antenna with a gain Gt. An observer along

the boresight will not know wether the antenna is an isotropic radiator. The observer will detect an effective isotropic radiated power of Pt Gt.
An antenna with a gain of 10 and an input
power of 1W is as effective that an antenna with a gain of 2 and an input power
of 5W. Both have the same EIRP, 10W.
What about the EIRP in log scale?
10