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Contents
Addis Ababa University
Addis Ababa Institute of Technology • Wire antennas
– Dipole, Monopole, Helix
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering • Aperture antennas
• Microstrip antennas
Antennas and Radio Wave Propagation – ECEG-4304 • Reflector antennas
• Antennas for cellular communication
Common Antenna Types

AAiT – ECEG – 3404 , Ephrem Teshale Bekele, PhD AAiT – ECEG – 3404 , Ephrem Teshale Bekele, PhD 2

Introduction Introduction
• Antenna parameters discussed in previous • The antenna engineer is expected to
chapter are diverse and some times conflicting. make a choice that satisfies a proper
• Antenna types differ from one another with balance of the requirements
respect to parameters of interest.
• There is no such thing at universally best • The objective of this chapter is to
antenna. examine and analyse some of the most
• Choice depends on specific application popular antennas using relevant
requirements antenna theories to see:
– High/Low directivity operation – why they have become popular, and
– Low side-lobes – Low cost – what their major features and properties
– Compact – Bandwidth (including advantages and disadvantages)
– Light weight – Impedance are.
– Low/High energy – ….

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Common antenna types Contents

• Wire antennas
– Dipole, Monopole, Helix
• Aperture antennas
• Microstrip antennas
• Reflector antennas
• Antennas for cellular communication

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Wire antennas Dipole

• Dipole
• Monopole
• Loop
• Helical
• Yagi-Uda

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Dipole Dipole
• Electrical properties of a finite length dipole
Elevation plane
amplitude
patterns for a
thin dipole with
sinusoidal
current
distribution

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Dipole Dipole
• l=1.25λ • Variation of Radiation resistance and
directivity of a dipole with respect to its length.

Increasing the length beyond l=1.00λ reduces

the beam-width, but it leads to side-lobes.
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Dipole Dipole
• Half wavelength dipole: l=0.5λ
• Some popular forms of dipole antennas

To reduce the imaginary part of the input impedance to zero, the

antenna is matched or reduced in length until the reactance
vanishes. Typical length is l=0.47λ to l=0.48λ
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Monopole Monopole
• Half of a dipole antenna mounted above the earth or a
ground plane
• Normally one-quarter wavelength long almost the same • Analysis for a
feature as a dipole, except the 37Ωradiation
resistance, higher gain, a shorter length, and easier to vertical near
feed! infinite
• Based on the Image Theory l
electric plane
conductor,
using image
theory
Ground
l

l
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Monopole Monopole
• Quarter wavelength monopole: l=0.25λ

• An example:

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Monopole Helical Antennas

• Some
popular
forms of
monopole
antennas
• It may be viewed as a derivative of the dipole or
monopole, but it can also be considered a
derivative of a loop.
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Helical Antennas Helical Antennas

• Normal mode Helix • Normal mode Helix
– It may be treated as the superposition of n – The axial ratio:
elements, each consisting of a small loop of
diameter D and a short dipole of length s, thus
the far fields are

where S is the area of the loop. – When the circumference is equal to

– They are orthogonal and 90 degrees out of
phase;
– The combination of them gives a circularly or
elliptically polarised wave.
AAiT – ECEG – 3404 , Ephrem Teshale Bekele, PhD 21
the axial ratio becomes unity and the radiation
is circularly polarised.
AAiT – ECEG – 3404 , Ephrem Teshale Bekele, PhD 22

Helical Antennas Helical Antennas

• Axial Mode Helix • Axial Mode Helix
– The axial (end-fire) mode occurs when the circumference Normalised radiation pattern:
of the helix is comparable with the wavelength (C = πD ≈ λ)
and the total length is much greater than the wavelength.
– This has made the helix an extremely popular circularly-
polarised broadband antenna at the VHF and UHF band
frequencies Half power beamwidth:
Directivity
– The recommended parameters for an optimum design to
achieve circular polarisation are:

Axial Ratio
First Null beamwidth:

Radiation resistance
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Yagi-Uda Antennas Yagi-Uda Antennas

• The driven element (feeder) • The reflector

– is the very heart of the antenna. It determines the
polarisation and centre frequency.
– For a dipole, the recommended length is about
0.47lλ to ensuring a good input impedance to a 50 Ω
feed line.
AAiT – ECEG – 3404 , Ephrem Teshale Bekele, PhD
– is longer than the feeder to force the radiated
energy towards the front.
– The optimum spacing between the reflector and
the feeder is between 0.15 to 0.25 wavelengths.
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Yagi-Uda Antennas Contents

• Wire antennas
– Dipole, Monopole, Helix
• Aperture antennas
• Microstrip antennas
• Reflector antennas
• The directors
– are usually 10 to 20% shorter than the feeder and appear • Antennas for cellular communication
to direct the radiation towards the front.
– The director to director spacing is typically 0.25 to 0.35
wavelengths,
– The number of directors determines the maximum
achievable directivity and gain.
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Aperture antennas Aperture antennas

• They are often used for higher frequency
• Rectangular and Circular Aperture
applications (>1GHz) than wire-type antennas.
– Common microwave antenna
– Simple in construction
• It is just an opening of a waveguide terminated on
(infinitely) wide conducting plane.

AAiT – ECEG – 3404 , Ephrem Teshale Bekele, PhD 29 AAiT – ECEG – 3404 , Ephrem Teshale Bekele, PhD 30

Aperture antennas Aperture antennas

• Rectangular and Circular Aperture • Horn Antennas
– The simplest and one of the most widely used
Circular Aperture Rectangular Aperture microwave antennas.
– The antenna is nicely integrated with the feed line
(waveguide).
Directivity
– The horn is nothing more than a hollow pipe of
different cross sections, which has been tapered
(flared) to a larger opening.
– The type, direction, and amount of taper (flare) can
have a profound effect on the overall performance of
TE11 TE10 the element as a radiator.
– They are mainly used for: standard antenna gain and
3D Pattern field measurements, feed element for reflector
antennas, and microwave communications.

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Aperture antennas Aperture antennas

• Horn Antennas • Horn Antennas
– Typical electromagnetic horn antenna – E-Plane sectoral horn: a1=a
configurations – H-Plane sectoral horn: b1=b

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Aperture antennas Aperture antennas

• Horn Antennas • Horn Antennas
– E-Plane sectoral horn: a1=a – E-Plane sectoral horn
– Half-power beamwidth
as a function of
included angle and for
different lengths.

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Aperture antennas Aperture antennas

• Horn Antennas • Horn Antennas
– E-Plane sectoral
horn – H-Plane sectoral horn: b1=b
– Normalized directivity
as a function of
aperture size and for
different lengths.

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Aperture antennas Aperture antennas

• Horn Antennas • Horn Antennas
– Pyramidal horn: Both E and – Pyramidal horn: Both E and H plane flare
H plane flare – Typical standard gain X-band (8.2–12.4 GHz)
pyramidal horn and its gain characteristics.

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Aperture antennas Aperture antennas

• Horn Antennas
– Conical horn: While the pyramidal, E-, and H- • Horn Antennas
plane sectoral horns are usually fed by a
rectangular waveguide, the feed of a conical – Directivity of a
horn is often a circular waveguide. conical horn as
a function of
aperture
diameter for
different axial
horn lengths

AAiT – ECEG – 3404 , Ephrem Teshale Bekele, PhD 41 AAiT – ECEG – 3404 , Ephrem Teshale Bekele, PhD 42

Aperture antennas Aperture antennas

• Horn Antennas • Horn Antennas

– Corrugated horn – Corrugated horn
– Leads to efficiencies of – Leads to efficiencies of
the order of 75–80% the order of 75–80%

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Contents Microstrip/Patch Antennas

• Wire antennas
– Dipole, Monopole, Helix
• Aperture antennas
• Microstrip antennas
• Reflector antennas
• Antennas for cellular communication

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Microstrip/Patch Antennas Microstrip/Patch Antennas

• Advantages: • Dis-advantages:
Ease of construction Small bandwidth: BW ∝
and integration, d/λ
Relatively low cost,
Poor efficiency
Compact and low
profile (h << λ) Trade-off between scan
coverage and bandwidth
Light Weight
in large phased arrays
Good flexibility
(Conformal) Difficult to design -
require full wave
• Typical applications analysis
for 1 - 20 GHz

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Applications of Microstrip
Operational principles
Antennas
• Aerospace vehicles including • Resonant antenna
– high-performance aircraft, – L ~0.5λ
– spacecraft, • In this case, the antenna can be considered
– satellites and as a λ /2 transmission line resonant cavity
with two open ends.
– missiles
• The fringing fields from the patch to the
• Mobile radios, phones and pagers ground are exposed to the upper half space (z
• Base stations for personal > 0) and are responsible for the radiation.
communications • As a resonant cavity, there are many
• Large ground-based phased array possible modes (as waveguides), thus a
antennas patch antenna is multi-mode and may have
many resonant frequencies.

AAiT – ECEG – 3404 , Ephrem Teshale Bekele, PhD 49 AAiT – ECEG – 3404 , Ephrem Teshale Bekele, PhD 50

Geometry of Microstrip Antenna RF/Analog Substrate Requirements

• The basic antenna consists of a thin metallic patch separated from the • Low dielectric losses,
ground plane by a dielectric layer
• Usually used at microwave frequencies • Low leakage,
Radiating Patch
• Low and uniform dielectric constant
• Choice of a material based on its
Ground Plane
dielectric constant characteristics and
losses usually dominates over other
considerations.
Dielectric Substrate

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Well known Substrates for RF Well known Substrates for RF

applications applications

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Substrates behaviour Microstrip Antenna Shapes

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Rectangular Patch: Directivity Rectangular Patch: Bandwidth

AAiT – ECEG – 3404 , Ephrem Teshale Bekele, PhD AAiT – ECEG – 3404 , Ephrem Teshale Bekele, PhD

Rectangular Patch: Efficiency Rectangular Patch: Radiation Pattern

• E-plane pattern • H-plane pattern

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Rectangular Patch: Radiation Pattern Rectangular Patch: Impedance Level

• Three Dimensional pattern

AAiT – ECEG – 3404 , Ephrem Teshale Bekele, PhD AAiT – ECEG – 3404 , Ephrem Teshale Bekele, PhD
Typical values: 150-300Ω

Rectangular Patch: Input Impedance Feeding Methods

Feed Line
• Microstrip line feed
– Feed line with much smaller width
compared to the patch
– easy to fabricate
– easy to match by
controlling inset position
– “easy” to model (approximately)
– spurious feed-line radiation
and surface-wave excitation

– Limited bandwidth (2%-5%)

– produce cross-polarized radiation

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Feeding Methods (Cont.) Feeding Methods (Cont.)

• Aperture-coupled feed
• Probe feed
– inner conductor of the coax is
attached to the radiation patch while
the outer conductor is connected to
the ground plane
– easy to fabricate
– easy to match by
controlling position
– requires via hole
– adds probe inductance (matching is
difficult with thicker substrates)
– Feed point affects impedance
– narrow bandwidth
– produce cross-polarized radiation
AAiT – ECEG – 3404 , Ephrem Teshale Bekele, PhD
– On the bottom side of the lower substrate
there is a microstrip feed line
– energy is coupled to the patch through a
slot on the ground plane separating the
two substrates
– can give broader bandwidth
– more difficult to fabricate
– allows independent optimisation of feed
substrate
– separates antenna and feed-circuit
layers
– Good pattern formation and polarization
purity
– some spurious radiation due to slot
AAiT – ECEG – 3404 , Ephrem Teshale Bekele, PhD

Feeding Methods (Cont.) Printed Antenna Efficiency

• Proximity-coupled feed
– Can give broader bandwidth
– low spurious radiation Feed type Feed Loss Efficiency
– more difficult to fabricate (dB)
Probe-fed 0.00 96±2%
MS-Line 0.02 91±2%
Aperture Coupled 0.26 85±2%

Note: Direct-contact feeding techniques are more efficient.

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Designing a Rectangular Patch

Methods of Analysis Using the Transmission Line
• Transmission-line model
Model
– simplest
– good physical insight
– less accurate, valid only for rectangular patches
• Cavity model
– more complicated
– good physical insight, more accurate, more versatile
• Numerical Solvers
– complicated,
– less physical insight,
– very accurate & versatile
– can take into consideration surrounding environment

AAiT – ECEG – 3404 , Ephrem Teshale Bekele, PhD AAiT – ECEG – 3404 , Ephrem Teshale Bekele, PhD 70
AAiT – Analysis and Design of Antennas,

Designing a Rectangular Patch Designing a Rectangular Patch

Using the Transmission Line Using the Transmission Line
Model Model
Relevant Formulas • Input data: εr , h, fr
1) Calculate W
2) Calculate ereff
ε reff =
ε r +1 ε r −1
+ 1 + 12
h 3) Calculate the extension ∆L
2 2 W 4) Calculate the actual (physical) length
of the patch using

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Example Example
• Design and verify with simulation a • Bluetooth operating frequency: 2.4-
rectangular microstrip patch antenna 2.485 GHz
that operates at Bluetooth using FR4
substrate. • FR4
– Thickness: 254µm
• Assuming the intrinsic impedance of
the feed system to be 50Ω, plot the S11 – Relative permittivity: 4.1
vs frequency near application
frequency.
• Now apply recess and re-plot the S11.

AAiT – ECEG – 3404 , Ephrem Teshale Bekele, PhD 73 AAiT – ECEG – 3404 , Ephrem Teshale Bekele, PhD 74

Contents Reflector antennas

• Wire antennas
– Dipole, Monopole, Helix
• Aperture antennas
• Microstrip antennas
• Reflector antennas
• Antennas for cellular communication

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Reflector Antennas Reflector Antennas

• Widely used to modify radiation • Advantages
pattern of radiation element. – High gain
• Result in high gain required for long- – High directivity
distance radio communications. – Narrow Beam width
– Can achieve gains above 30dB. • Drawbacks
• Two components – Requires reflector and drive element.
1. Reflecting surface – Cost
2. Feed antenna – Size

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Applications Geometrical configurations

• Radio astronomy
• Microwave communication
• Satellite links Plane reflector

• Satellite TV
• Satellite tracking S-band antenna
on lunar surface
• High resolution RADAR
• Deep-space communication
– example on the surface of the moon
Curved reflector
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Corner reflector

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Geometrical configurations Planar Reflector

• Example of non- • The simplest type.
conventional • Can be analyzed
using image theory.
reflector • Polarization of the
– CDMA and GSM feed and its position
cellular antenna. relative to the
– Wide 3-dB reflecting surface can
be used to control
beamwidth of more the radiating
than 90°. properties:
– Planar and corner – Pattern
reflectors employed. – Impedance
– directivity

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Corner reflector Corner reflector

• Feed element is almost always a
• Two plane reflectors joined to dipole or an array of collinear
form a corner. dipoles placed parallel to the
• Simple in construction. vertex.
• Widely used as receiving • When the wavelength is large
elements for home television. compared to physical
dimensions, the surfaces can be
made of grid wires rather than
solid sheet metal
– spacing (g) between wires is made a
small fraction of a wavelength
(usually g ≤ λ/10)

• In most practical applications,

the included angle is 90◦

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Corner reflector 900 Corner reflector

• In practice, the aperture of the
corner reflector (Da) is usually
made between one and two • For small spacing the
wavelengths pattern consists of a
– (λ < Da < 2λ)
• The length of the sides of a 90◦
single major lobe.
corner reflector is most • Multiple lobes appear
commonly taken to be about
twice the distance from the vertex for the larger spacing
to the feed – (s > 0.7λ)
– (l≈2s)
• The height (h) of the reflector is • For s = λ the pattern
usually taken to be about 1.2 to exhibits two lobes
1.5 times greater than the total
length of the feed element separated by a null
along the φ = 00 axis.
Radiation
Amplitude Pattern
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Parabolic Reflector Parabolic Reflector

• Parallel rays is incident upon
a parabolic reflector • Reflector
converge (focus) at a spot – Sheet metal, Metal Screen, or Wire grill (spacing <
– focal point. 0.1λ)

• Have some of the highest – Shape has to be accurate within a small

fraction of a wavelength.
gains
– Narrowest beam width angles • Feed
Collimated rays
• Reflector must have – Low gain antenna
dimension much larger than • λ/2 dipole
• Horn
the wavelength.
– Used in high frequency ranges:
UHF, SHF
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Parabolic Reflector Types Parabolic Reflector Types

• Based on shape of reflector • Based on shape of reflector

Paraboloid
• The most common Cylindrical
• Pencil-shaped beam • Curved only in one direction
Shrouded dish • Focus on a line
• Shields the antenna from side radiation • Feed is usually dipole or array
Orange peel
• Reduces side-lobes • Fan shaped beam.
• Radiates wide fan shaped beam.
• Internal part of the shroud is coated with absorbers. • Often used in RADAR antenna.
• Shroud can reduce back-lobe radiation by 10dB
AAiT – ECEG – 3404 , Ephrem Teshale Bekele, PhD 89 AAiT – ECEG – 3404 , Ephrem Teshale Bekele, PhD 90

Parabolic Reflector Types Parabolic Reflector Types

• Based on shape feed configuration • Based on shape feed configuration
Cassegrain feed

Feed on or behind the dish.

Axial or front feed • Primary feed illuminates a convex
• The most common. hyperboloidal secondary reflector.
• Feed at focus. Offset or Off-axis feed • Suitable for antennas with complicated Gregorian feed
• Feed and support block the beam. • Reflector is asymmetrical segment of paraboloid. or bulky feeds. • Similar to Cassegrain but the secondary reflector
• Limited aperture efficiency • Focus and feed are on the side. • Can achieve lower spillover and more is concave.
55% - 60% • Feed out of beam path. uniform illumination of the main reflector • Can reach aperture efficiencies beyond 70%.
• Commonly used in home satellite TV antennas • Better aperture efficiency
where size of feed is comparable to the dish. 65% - 80%
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Principles of Parabolic Principles of Parabolic

Reflectors Reflectors
• All rays leaving F after • Usually, the focus is
reflection on the at plane wave front.
surface emerge
parallel. D=4f
• They reach the plane
RR’ at the same time • Generally
– Equiphase wave front. – D/f
is an important
FP + PQ = const = 2 f
parameter and in
y 2 = 4 fx
FP = ( f − x )2 + y 2 practice varies
Equation of a
PQ = f − x parabola – 0.25 to 0.5

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Principles of Parabolic
Gain of Parabolic Reflectors
Reflectors
2
 πD 
• When D/f is too low, • Gain G = 4πA e 2 A =  eA
λ  λ 
the reflector is not
properly illuminated.
– A geometrical area of the mouth of the
• When it is too large,
parabolic reflector.
radiation is lost over
the rim leading to – D diameter
spill-over. – λ is wavelength of the radio waves
– eA is the apperture efficiency with
common values between 0.55 and 0.70.

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Beam width of Parabolic

Gain of Parabolic Reflectors
Reflectors
• Factors affecting efficiency: • Half Power Beam width:
– Resistive or Ohmic losses λ
Θ=k
– Feed spillover D
– Feed illumination tapper
– Cross Polarization – k is a constant which depends on the
shape of the reflector and the feed.
– Aperture blockage
Usually taken to be k = 70.
– Non-Single Point Feed
– D diameter
– Shape/Surface finish errors
– And others … – λ is wavelength of2 the radio waves
 πk 
G =   eA
Θ
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Arecibo Radio Telescope FAST

• The world’s largest dish
antenna
• The world's most
sensitive radio telescope
• 305m diameter
• Spherical reflector
• Gregorian feed
• Operates between:
– 50MHz up to 10GHz
– (λ = 6 m) to (λ = 3 cm)
• At 2.4GHz: 900 ton
– HPBW=0.0280 Platform

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End of slide

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