FUNDAMENTALS OF ANTENNA 1.1 INTRODUCTION Antenna is one of the most important and essential components of any wireless system, It provides a means for transmitting or receiving radio waves. It acts as a transducer to convert guided waves on a transmission structure into free space waves and vice versa in the receiving case. Antenna is defined in the dictionary as “a usually metallic device (as a rod or wire) for radiating or receiving radio waves”. The official definition of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) of an antenna follows this concept: “that part of a transmitting or receiving system that is designed to radiate or receive electromagnetic waves". Antennas (also known as antennae) are reciprocal devices, i.e. they behave the same way while transmitting or receiving radio waves. In the receiving mode, antennas collect incoming waves and direct them to a common feed point where a transmission line is attached. In some cases, antennas focus radio waves just as lenses focus optical waves. In all cases, antennas have directional characteristics; that is, clectromagnetic power density is radiated from a transmitting antenna with intensity that varies with angle around the antenna, An important part of any antenna sub-system is the transmission line used to connect the transmitter or receiver to the antenna. In fact the design of a feed line and any necessary impedance-matching or power-dividing devices associated with it are usually considered to be part of the antenna design problem. The line connects to the antenna at its input terminals or input port, In the case of linear or planar array, the feed design constitute the major part of the complete design of the antenna. ere are several types of antennas that have come into existence, after being starting from the vertical wire antenna, which was first to be invented in the middle of the nineteen century. The conceptualization and development of various antennas stemmed from the requirements of radar during the World War IT. There are several antennas such as wire, loop, parabolic and corner reflectors, homs, slots, helixes, lenses, log periodics, arrays, microstrip antennas, etc, The ever increasing use of these new/modern antennas reflects the progress made in this exciting field of antenna theory and design, 1.2 TYPES OF ANTENNAS, Antennas can be categorized in different ways such as: based on the frequeney of operation, physical shape, parameters etc, Antennas are divided into four basic types by their performance as a function of frequency. Electrically small antennas are used at VHF frequencies and below. Resonant antennas are used from VHF to mid GHz frequencies. Aperture antennas are mainly used at UHF and above, whereas Broadband antennas cover all these frequeney range. ‘The dimensions of small antennas are much smaller than a wavelength and are simple in structure and their properties are not sensitive to construction details. The vertical monopole used for AM reception on cars is a good example, It is about 0.0032. long and has a pattern that is nearly omnidirectional in the horizontal plane with low directivity. ‘This is often a desirable property, but its low input resistance and high input reactance areserious disadvantages. Also, small antennas are inefficient because of ohmic losses on the structure. Other examples of these antennas are small dipole and loop antennas. Resonant antennas, as the name suggests, ate resonant at the designed frequencies. They have simple structure with good input impedance. ‘These antennas have a narrow bandwidth with broad main beam and low or moderate (2 few dB) gain. The half- wavelength long dipole, quarter-wave monopole, microstrip patch element, etc., are the prominent examples of the resonant antennas. ‘Aperture antennas have an aperture or opening through which propagating slectromagnetic waves flow. A horn antenna is a good example; it acts as a “funnel,” directing the waves into the connecting waveguide. The aperture is usually several wavelengths long in one or more dimensions. The pattern usually has a narrow main beam, leading to high gain, ‘The pattern main beam narrows with increasing frequency for 1 fised physical aperture size. Bandwidth is moderate (as much as 2:1). Open ended waveguide, reflector antennas ete. are other examples of this category. Many’ applications require an antenna that operates over a wide frequency range. A broadband antenna has acceptable performance as measured with one or more parameters (paitern, gain, and/or impedance) over a 2:1 bandwidth ratio of upper to lower operating frequency. A broadband antenna is characterized by an active region propagating (or traveling) waves originate at the feed point and travel without radiation to the active revion where most of the power is radiated, A broadband antenna with circular geometry has an active region where the circumference is one wavelength and produces circular polarization, An example is the spiral antenna that can have a 20:1 bandwidth. A band antenna made up of linear elements or straight edges has an active region where these elements are about a half-wavelength in extent and produces linearly ized radiation parallel to the linear elements. Since only a portion of a broadband ‘antchna is responsible for radiation at a given frequency, the gain is low. But it may be an advantage to have gain that is nearly constant with frequency, although low. Also the traveling wave nature of a broadband antenna means that it has real-valued input imedance. Other examples of broadband antennas are Log-periodic and Helical antennas. Sometimes single antenna does not meet the radiation characteristic requirement for the ap» tivation, In that case it may be possible to achieve the required characteristics by using nny single antenna elements arranged in a group, generally referred to as an array of ‘nica. In an array the radiations from each element add up to yield desired radiation ‘teristics. The antenna clement for the array could be chosen from any of the nnas discussed above. ch an 1.5 BASIC ANTENNA PARAMETERS ‘The basic antenna parameters and their definitions and related terminology, which will be howled in the later chapters for discussing the performances of various antennas, are discussed in the following section. 1.3.1 Radiation Pattern ‘The antenna pattern is generally referred to as a radiation pattern, but it is also a tion pattem” because an antenna is a reciprocal device. However, it is somewhateqsier to discuss the radiation pattern, which describes the relative strength of the radiated ficld in various directions from the antenna at a fixed or a constant distance. The radiation paiiern of an antenna is one of its most fundamental properties, and many of its perliymance parameters such as gain, directivity, efficiency, lobes, beamwidth etc., pevtain to various aspects of the pattern, ‘Ths antenna pattern is defined as a graphical representation of the radiation of the antenna in three dimensions as a function of direction. Antennas radiate spherical waves po puvating in the radial direction with the antenna at the center of the coordinate system as shown in Figure 1.1. At large distances (far field), spherical waves can be voximated by plane waves. The radiation pattern is determined by measuring the « field over the surface of a sphere at some fixed distance r. Since the field Z is then a! ssction of the two variable 6 and 4, itis written E(,4) in functional notation. Here 0 is > lly referred fo as the elevation angle, and ¢ is called the azimuth angle. This pattern is ky sas field pattern, A measurement of the electric field E(@,#) of an electromagnetic 1 free space is equivalent to a measurement of the magnetic field H (0,6), since the si. ctie field is proportional to the electric field in the far field. E=nH ap T! > constant of proportionality 1 is the impedance of free space, which is equal to 377 ly 120 x = 376.79). The E and H are at right angles to each other. Therefore, the p. © could equally well be given in terms of E or H. It is customary, however, to cs patterns in terms of the electric field E. Or commonly used term is the antenna power pattern which is a trace of received Pp. -rat.a consiant radius. It is a measure of the density of the power flowing through a 8) © + of large radius. The average Poynting vector, which is the vector cross product of UU cctric and magnetic fields, is denoted as W=ExH. a2) "lie steady-state time periodic case, the average Poynting vector is given by 1 Wy = Wray 7h (ExH), (1.3) Wo, the asterisk represents the complex conjugate. ‘T! ~ tal radiated power P(0,4) is determined by integrating the normal component of this, P. ‘ng vector over the complete surface area. Therefore, a plot of the antenna pattern in te of P (0,6) conveys the same information as a plot of the magnitude of E (8,6). In s\ circumstances, the phase of the field is of some interest, and a plot may be made of th) sase angle of E (0,6) as well as its magnitude; this plot is called the phase pattern of {+ tenna, But ordinarily the term antenna pattem in the far field implies only the m: + ‘tude of E or P.Al pri fo di ot re si sinadadd dQ, woere a= sole angle sin 08 do ‘his strip has area = ersin ed OHO patra ate Figure 1.1 Spherical polar coordinate system for antenna ough radiation pattern is three dimensional, in practice it is measured and recorded in es of two-dimensional patterns. Antenna performance is often described in terms of ipal plane patterns, as they convey an adequate picture of three-dimensional pattern nost purposes. The E and H-plane patterns measure radiation as a function of radiation pattern at a given distance from the antenna is plotted in terms of the field uth in electrical unit volts per meter or the power density in watts per square meter, it rown as an absolute pattern. An absolute pattern describes the characteristics of an nina but also those of the associated transmitter power, since the absolute field veth at a given point in space depends on the total amount of power radiated as well as, 1e directional properties of the antenna. ever, in practice pattems are often expressed in relative term with respect to the mum value occurring at the peak of the main beam. This relative power pattern is .d as the normalized power pattern. The field strength or power density is unity in tion and has fractional values in other directions. This pattern describes only the verties of the antenna, without reference to an associate transmitter (or receiver). It is expressed in decibels as 20l0g(E/Eq,.) 0t10log(P/Paa,)- Therefore value at the imum of the pattern is zero decibels, and the decibel values are negative at other© umon Types of Radiation Patterns ‘Avcenna patterns are classified based on their shape. Some common shapes are shown in F’ re 1.2. An isotropic pattern is one in which the power radiation is equal in all d. tions. Although it is not realizable in practice, this pattern is often taken as a reference. ‘Ay omni-directional pattern is one which has equal amplitudes in each direction in a plane po ing through the antenna. This omnidirectional plane is usually horizontal for ©. sntinication systems. A pencil beam pattern is one with a relatively narrow main lobe bing a ciroular eross section. A fan beam is narrow in one direction and broad at right ay tes. 1 esand Nulls P- ‘ation pattern contains maxima and minima in different directions. Maximum radiation ©: oak in particular direction is known as lobe, whereas minima are referred to as nulls of 1! adiation pattern as shown in Figure 1.3. Generally radiation pattem is represented by P+ co-ordinates, but it is also possible to use two dimensional Cartesian coordinates. On tl rectangular plot, it is easier to locate the angular positions of lobes and nulls of the Fi ‘ion pattern in polar co-ordinate, Same tion pattern is shown in two dimensional Cartesian systems. ) 1 of the radiation pattems contain one main lobe or main beam with maximum 1 “on, and several other smaller lobes, known as sidelobes or minor lobes. These minor |< are in the direction other than the intended main beam and represent the undesired tion. A null separates two lobes. Two sidelobes next to either side of the main lobe are nas first sidelobes and are generally bigger than other minor lobes. These sidelobes |. is defined as the ratio in decibels of the amplitude at the peak of the main beam to the 2 ‘inde at the peak of the sidelobe under consideration. The desired side lobe levels are © less than -20 dB or even -30 dB or less. A sidelobe present in the direction opposite to t 1 lobe is called the backlobe. The ratio of the amplitude at the peak of the main to the amplitude at the peak of the back lobe in decibels is known as Front to Back ( 1 ratio. The (F/B) ratio is required to be very small where high reflection is expected he back of the antenna, which otherwise will interfere with the desired radiation. 1 vent Field Regions | yonstrate different field regions let us consider a pair of concentric spheres centered ‘ nitenna, The fields E around the antenna decrease as 1/ R, 1/R°, and 1/ R’, where tance from the antenna. The power density due to field terms proportional to 1/R°, \ccreases with distance faster than the area increases. The energy on the inner is larger than that on the outer sphere. The energies are not radiated but are instead trated around the antenna; they are reactive near-field terms. Only the 1/ R° term of ting veetor (I/R field terms) represents radiated power because the sphere area ‘and gives a constant product. All the radiated power on the inner sphere will «e to the outer sphere which is known as far field term. These parameters will be Jin detail in Chapter 2 with respect to dipole antenna.(6) Omnidirectional (@ Isotropic (©) Pencil (Fan Figure 1.2 Commonly used antenna pattems ‘Tho woion of space surrounding antenna where field E is dominated by terms 1/R*, 1/R? fic reactive, rather than radiating, in nature and is known as reactive near field region. I’ s the maximum dimension of the antenna and 2 is the wave length, the outer wry of this region is R< 0.62VD" /A from the antenna surface. The region of the here term I/ R is dominant, hence the field is essentially independent of the +. is termed as a far field or Fraunhofer region. This region extends from 2D* / a «region in-between the reactive near field and the far field is known as radiating, n «4. For smaller antenna whose maximum dimension is much less than 2, this vets merged with the reactive near field and may not exist. This region is also as Fresnel region in optical terminology. The extents of various regions are ved in Table I.First mal eam exw) Major lobe Halfpower beam, (EW) Minor bee eee o 4 Radiaon inna leper beamiath RBW) Fit Beam PNBW) Major tobe ing bes isd | Reactive near field Radiating near field field ‘All cadiation parameters of an antenna are defined for far field. 1.2. am Solid Angle, Beamwidth and Beam Efficiency ‘Ths ‘jation pattern is a three dimensional figure hence the main beam occupies a solid a which a single beamwidth figure refers only to the pattern in a particular plane.1 TI angle can be thought of as a three dimensional angle. The measure of a plane radian. This is steradian in the case of sold angle. Suppose a square with area = ay other shape with area = R” ) is marked on the surface of a sphere with radius = ‘rom the center of the sphere line is drawn to the four corners of square, and 1 lines are joined by plane surfaces, these surfaces demarcate a solid angle of le equals to 1 steradian. If the area of the any shaped quadrangle is AA, the Je of the solid angle Q is AA RR ro) ‘hee area of a sphere with radius R is 44 = 47R?, the solid angle subtended by the here is 4x steradians. The Figure 1.1 shows infinitesimal area AA on the surface rere with radius r of (5) ‘nent of solid angle corresponding to this elementary area is in OdOdg (1.6) main beam is represented by solid angle, the beam may have different widths in + planes through the beam axis passing through the maxima of the beam. Therefore the beam are given in two principal planes which are at right angles to each other. ‘na beamwidth is the angular width of the antenna radiation pattern between points = power level has decreased to one-half of the maximum value. That is the reason it nown as the half-power beam-width, which is shown in Figure 1.3. For the electric ‘tern, this width is corresponding to 1/v2 or 0.707 of the maximum value. ¢s -10dB width and the -20dB width are also used which represent the angular ‘tween the points where the power has decreased to one-tenth and one-hundredth simum value. For some applications beam width between first nulls FNBW are portance, awidth in the plane containing the E-vector is called the E-plane beamwidth and ¢ perpendicular plane the H-plane beamwidth for linear polarized waves. If Og and two half power beam width in E and H plane respectively then the solid angle of ‘obe is approximately given as 2,06; 4y a7 re directive or sharper beam antenna the beam width will be smaller. The hh determines the spatial resolution of the antenna or the minimum angular 1 between two objects which can be distinguished by a receiving antenna. 1 efficiency, which is a measure of amount of power in the main lobe of the ompared to the total power, is also defined in terms of beam solid angle. It is,2a ae (18) 2 = Q,+ 2,5 2,, is the minor lobe area or solid angle. ‘ation Intensity venient to define radiation intensity 10 remove the 1/R’ dependence of the vector or radiated power density. Therefore, radiation intensity depends only on ‘on of radiation and will be same at all distances. Of course, the distance should © field criterion, It is defined as the power radiated per unit solid angle and is U(8,8) =r? Wg Wisolid angle (1.9) isotropic radiator the solid angle is 4x, so radiated power is divided by 47 to get tensity Uo, 2. =e 1.10) an mo) ~ctivity, Gain and Efficieney D gives the concentration of the radiation in the direction of the maximum, It is defined as the ratio of the maximum radiation intensity to the radiation iveraged over all directions, so it is given based on an isotropic radiator as the maximum radiation intensity _ Ug average radiation intensity U, a.u) AU py, _ AU par _ 4 Pot Un 2g (1.12) ' angle of the main lobe is approximated as the product the two half power 1 in E and H plane as given in Eqn (1.7). So, Equation (1.12) is approximated as, an 1.13} an (13) and 6 are given in radians. But these angles are generally measured in degrees. les are converted into degree and numerical value of x is taken, then the above components of the electric field which are exactly in phase or out of phase, 32) gives (138) (139) ail polarization the electric field vector rotates at a frequency equal to the F the electromagnetic wave, and the locus of the tip of the electric field vector \ ellipse. The polarization is defined as being left handed when the direction of of the electric field vector is counterclockwise when looking toward the ve at the transmitter, For this case O @ minimum so that very little of the noisy earth will be illuminated when the pointed skyward. It is also desirable to keep transmission line losses to a nee this loss increases the antenna noise temperature, 16