EC8701

ANTENNAS AND MICROWAVE

ENGINEERING
ANTENNA
An antenna is an electrical device which converts
electric energy into radio waves, and vice versa. It is
usually used with a radio transmitter or radio receiver.

An antenna is a device for sending or receiving

electromagnetic waves.
HISTORY

The first antennas were built in 1888 by German physicist

Heinrich Hertz in his pioneering experiments to prove the
existence of electromagnetic waves predicted by the
theory of James Clerk Maxwell.
TRANSMITTER ANTENNA
Any structure designed to
efficiently radiate
electromagnetic radiation in a
preferred direction is called a
transmitting antenna.

A device that converts

sound, light, or electrical
signals into radio,
microwave, or other
electrical signals .
RECIVER ANTENNA

Any structure designed to

efficiently receive
electromagnetic radiation is
called a receiving antenna

An antenna used to convert

electromagnetic waves in to
electrical energy.
 BASIC STRUCTURE
It is a metallic conductor system capable of radiating and
receiving EM waves.
• Typically an antenna consists of an arrangement of
metallic conductors (“elements"), electrically connected
(often through a transmission line) to the receiver or
transmitter.
• An oscillating current of electrons forced through the
antenna by a transmitter will create an oscillating
magnetic field around the antenna elements, while the
charge of the electrons also creates an oscillating electric
field along the elements.
 WHY ANTENNAS ?
• Need of antenna arisen when two person wanted to
communicate between them when separated by
some distance and wired communication is not
possible.

• Antennas are required by any radio receiver or

transmitter to couple its electrical connection to the
electromagnetic field.

• Radio waves are electromagnetic waves which

carry signals through the air (or through space) at
the speed of light with almost no transmission loss.
• Radio waves are also used directly for measurements
in technologies including Radar, GPS, and radio
astronomy.

• In each and every case, the transmitters and receivers

involved require antennas, although these are
sometimes hidden (such as the antenna inside an AM
radio or inside a laptop computer equipped with Wi-
Fi).
 Applications
 Mobile communications
 Digital broadcast system (TV)
 Radio(AM/FM)reception
 Satellite communication
 Wireless LANs (WLAN)
 GPS System
 Missiles and telemetry
 UHF patch antennas for space
 Remote sensing
 RADAR
TYPES OF ANTENNA
YAGI – UDA ANTENNA
LOG – PERIODIC ANTENNA
HELIX ANTENNA
PARABOLIC ANTENNA
LOOPANTENNA
Microwaves

Microwaves are electromagnetic waves whose

frequencies range from about 300 MHz – 300 GHz
or wavelengths in air ranging from 100 cm – 1
mm.

The word Microwave means very short wave,

which is the shortest wavelength region of the
radio spectrum and a part of the electromagnetic
spectrum.
Properties of Microwaves

1. Microwave is an electromagnetic radiation of

short wavelength.
2. They can reflect by conducting surfaces just
like optical waves since they travel in straight
line.
3. Microwave currents flow through a thin outer
layer of an ordinary cable.
4. Microwaves are easily attenuated within short
distances.
5. They are not reflected by ionosphere
ADVANTAGES OF MICROWAVES

Large Bandwidth:
Better Directivity:
Small Size Antenna:
Low Power Consumption:
Less Effect Of Fading:
APPLICATIONS OF
MICROWAVES
Communication
Remote Sensing
Heating
Medical Science
Military communication system
Surveillance
Astronomy and space Explorations
Wireless Applications
Microwave Frequency Band
IEEE MICROWAVE FREQ BANDS
Physical concept of radiation
A radio antenna may be defined as the structure associated with the region of
transition between a guided wave and a free space wave or vice versa.

An antenna or aerial acts as a transducer used in matching the transmission line

to the surrounding medium.

All antennas uses the basic principle of radiation. Radiation is produced by

accelerated or decelerated charge.

𝑰𝑳 =QV (basic radiation eqn),

Where, 𝐼= time charging current Q= charge

L= length of the current element V=velocity
Antenna as a transition device at the transmitters side.
The generator or source produces electromagnetic energy. A transmission line
is a device for transmitting or guiding radio frequency energy from one point
to another.

After transmitting electromagnetic energy from transmission line to antenna.

The antenna converts circuit currents into electromagnetic photons radiated
into space.

Fig. Antenna as a transition device at receiving side.

The receiving antenna receives and converts electromagnetic photons into

circuit currents
Fig. schematic representation of region of space via a tx line

From the figure, the antenna appear to the transmission lines as resistance Rr called
radiation resistance. It is used to represent the transfer of energy from free space
wave to the antenna.

Fig. Thevenin’s equivalent circuit for antenna

Near- and far-field regions,
The EM field characteristics vary as a function of distance from the antenna.
They are broadly divided into two regions, the near-field region, and the far
field region.
The Near Field Region is the region right next to the antenna. It is defined by the
following equation:

In this region, the fields are sort of unpredictable and therefore no measurements
are usually made in this region.

Reactive Near Field: This is the region that is adjacent to the antenna. In this
region, the E-Field and H-Field are 90 degrees out of phase with each other and
are therefore reactive. To radiate or propagate the E/H fields need to be
orthogonal (perpendicular) and in phase with each other.
Radiative Near Field: This region is also known as the Fresnel Region. It is the region between
the reactive near field and the far field.
This is the region where the EM fields start to transition from reactive to radiating fields.
However, since they have not completely transitioned, the shape of the radiation pattern still
varies with distance.

The Far Field Region is the region that comes after the near radiative near field. In this region,
the EM fields are dominated by radiating fields. The E and H-fields are orthogonal to each other
and to the direction of propagation as with plane waves. The far-field region is represented by
the following equation:
Antennas are usually used to transfer signals at large distances
which are considered to be in the far-field region.

One condition that must be met when making measurements in

the far field region is that the distance from the antenna must be
much greater than the size of the antenna and the wavelength.
 Antenna Pattern Characteristics
Radiation Pattern:
The radiation pattern is defined as a mathematical function or graphical
representation of radiation properties of the antenna as a function of spatial
coordinates.

The radiation pattern is a plot of the magnitude of the radiation field as a function of
direction.

Two pattern:

1. Field pattern:
If the radiation of an antenna is expressed in terms of field strength (E or H)

2. Power pattern:
If the radiation of an antenna is expressed in terms of power per unit area.
The power pattern is proportional to the square of field pattern.
Radiation pattern
Radiation pattern
E-plane radiation of an horn antenna
The above fig. shows the radiation pattern as a 3 dimensional figure and uses a
spherical coordinate system. The various parts of a radiation patterns are
referred to as lobes.

 Major lobe or (Main Beam)

Defined as radiation lobe containing the direction of maximum
radiation.

 Minor lobe
A minor lobe is an lobe except a major lobe (side and back lobe).

 Side lobe
It is adjacent to the main lobe and occupies the hemisphere in the
direction of main lobes.

 Back lobe
It occupies the hemisphere in a direction opposite to that of the main lobe
at an angle of 1800 with respect to beam of an antenna

 Null
Direction of minimum or zero radiation
HPBW (Half power beam Width)
The angle at which the peak radiating power of the main lobe falls by half on either
sides is called half power beam width or HPBW.

FNBW or BWFN (First Null Beam Width)

The angle subtended by the major lobe between two adjacent nulls is called beam width
between first nulls or BWFN.
Beam solid angle:
The radiated beam of the antenna comes out from an angle at the antenna, known as
solid angle, where the power radiation intensity is maximum. This solid beam angle is
termed as the beam area. It is represented by ΩA.

The beam area is defined as the integral

of the normalized power pattern.

It is defined as,
Radiation intensity

Radiation intensity or the antenna power pattern, is defined as the power radiated from
an antenna per unit solid angle.
Or
Ratio of radiation intensity u(ϴ, ϕ) as a function of angle to its maximum value.

Beam efficiency
The beam efficiency is the ratio of the main beam area to the total beam area.
Beam efficiency: Ratio of solid angle of the main beam to the sum of
solid angles subtended by all lobes (including main lobe).

Stray factor: Ratio of sum of solid angles subtended only by minor lobes to
the sum of solid angles subtended by all lobes (including main lobe).

Thus the sum of these two factors is unity,

Antenna Gain and Efficiency
GAIN:

An useful measure in describing the performance of an antenna is the gain.

The gain of an antenna is closely related to the directivity, it is a measure that
takes in to account the efficiency of an antenna as well as its directional
capabilities.

The gain of an antenna in terms of field strength is defined as the ratio of field
strength at a given distance from the test antenna E1 to the field strength from
an isotropic antenna at the same distance E2.

G=E1/E2

The gain of an antenna is expressed by the product of efficiency and directivity.

G=KD
Where, K= Efficiency factor, 0 ≤ K ≤ 1
D= Directivity
When K=1, G=D
Directive Gain
Directive gain is defined as the ratio of the radiation intensity in a particular direction to
the average radiated power.
Power Gain (Gp)
The directive gain compares the radiated power density of the actual antenna and
that of an isotropic antenna on the basis that both are radiating the same total power.

But power gain compares the radiated power density of the actual antenna and that
of an isotropic antenna on the basis that both are fed with the same input power.
Directivity
Directivity of an antenna is defined as the ratio of radiation intensity in a given
direction from the antenna radiation intensity averaged over all directions.

𝑈 𝑈(ϴ,ϕ)
Directivity, D= =
𝑈𝑜 𝑈𝑎𝑣𝑔

Where, U = 𝑈 ϴ, ϕ = Radiation intensity

Uavg = U0 = Average intensity

The average radiation intensity is equal to the total power Radiated by the
antenna divided by 4∏

𝑈 4∏ 𝑈
D= =
𝑈𝑜 𝑃 𝑟𝑎𝑑
Aperture Efficiency and Effective Area,
Many types of antennas can be classified as aperture antennas, meaning that the
antenna has a well-defined aperture area from which radiation occurs. Examples
include reflector antennas, horn antennas, lens antennas, and array antennas.

For such antennas, it can be shown that the maximum directivity that can be obtained
from an electrically large aperture of area A is given as,

In practical, there are several factors that can serve to reduce the directivity of an
antenna from its maximum possible value, such as non ideal amplitude or phase
characteristics of the aperture field, aperture blockage,

For this reason, we define an aperture efficiency as the ratio of the actual directivity of
an aperture antenna to the maximum directivity.

Aperture efficiency is always less than or equal to unity.

The maximum effective aperture area of an antenna can be shown to be related to the
directivity of the antenna as,

The effective usage of the physical aperture depends on the aperture efficiency of the
antenna which is the ratio of effective aperture area Ae to the physical aperture area Ap
of the antenna and is expressed below:
Antenna Efficiency:
Ratio of power radiated by the antenna to the total input power supplied to the antenna.
It is denoted by K. K likes between 0 and 1.

Where, Pr= power radiated, Pi= ohmic losses

The overall efficiency of an antenna is,

e0 = er ec ed

Where, e0 = total efficiency er = reflection efficiency

ec = conduction efficiency ed = dielectric efficiency
Antenna Noise Temperature and G/T
The antenna temperature TA is defined as the temperature of far field region of space
and near surroundings which are coupled to the antenna through radiation resistance
and it has no relation with the physical temperature of the antenna.

It depends on the temperature of the region to which the antenna is radiating.

Consider a resistance R at a temperature Tr as shown in fig.

The noise power per unit bandwidth at the terminal of the resistor is by nyquist
relation is
P=KTr W/Hz -------------- eqn 1
Where, P = power per unit bandwidth
K = Boltzmann's constant = 1.38 X 10^-23 J/K
Tr = absolute temperature

Now if resistor R is replaced by a lossless antenna of radiation resistance

R and the antenna pointed at the sky of temperature Ts shown in figure. Then the noise
power per unit bandwidth is same as in equation 1 provided Ts= Tr and the antenna has
a noise temperature TA equal to the sky temperature Ts.

An antenna can be used to measure a distant temperature. This is called as passive

remote sensing . Example radio telescope.

For a radio telescope antenna the noise power per unit bandwidth is ,

P = K TA W/Hz -------------- eqn 2

Where, TA = antenna noise temperature.

If the power per unit bandwidth P is independent of frequency then the total power P is,

P = K TA B watts -------------- eqn 3

Now the power received from the source is given as,

P = S Ae B watts -------------- eqn 4

Where, Ae = Antenna efficiency
S= Power density/ unit bandwidth

Equating equations 3 and 4,

K TA B = S Ae B

-------------- eqn 5

Eqn 5 can be rewritten as,

 To calculate source temperature as,

Mathematically the total noise temperature can be written as,

Another useful parameter for receive antennas is the G/T ratio, defined as,

Where, G is the gain of the antenna, and

TA is the antenna noise temperature.

This quantity is important because the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the input to a
receiver is proportional to G/TA.

The ratio G/T can often be maximized by increasing the gain of the antenna, since this
increases the numerator and usually minimizes reception of noise from hot sources at
low elevation angles.
Link Budget and Link Margin
The various terms in the Friis formula are often tabulated separately in a link budget,
where each of the factors can be individually considered in terms of its net effect on the
received power.

Additional loss factors, such as line losses or impedance mismatch at the antennas,
atmospheric attenuation and polarization mismatch can also be added to the link budget.

One of the terms in a link budget is the path loss, accounting for the free-space
reduction in signal strength with distance between the transmitter and receiver.
Path loss is defined (in dB) as,

With the above definition of path loss, we can write the remaining terms of the Friis
formula as shown in the following link budget:
We can write the receive power as,

If the transmit and/or receive antenna is not impedance matched to the transmitter/
receiver impedance mismatch will reduce the received power by the factor ,
where Γ is the appropriate reflection coefficient.
The resulting impedance mismatch loss,

Another possible entry in the link budget relates to the polarization matching of the
transmit and receive antennas, as maximum power transmission between transmitter and
receiver requires both antennas to be polarized in the same manner.
In practical communications systems, it is usually desired to have the received
power level greater than the threshold level required for the minimum
acceptable quality of service (SNR).

This design allowance for received power is referred to as the link margin, and
can be expressed as the difference between the design value of received power
and the minimum threshold value of receive power:

Link margin should be a positive number (3 to 20 dB).

Having a reasonable link margin provides a level of robustness to the system to

account for variables such as signal fading due to weather, movement of a
mobile user, multipath propagation problems, that can degrade system
performance and quality of service.

Link margin that is used to account for fading effects is sometimes referred to
as fade margin.
Noise Characterization of a microwave
receiver.
We can analyze the noise characteristics of a complete antenna–transmission line–
receiver front end, as shown in Figure below
In this system the total noise power at the output of the receiver, No, will be due to
contributions from the antenna pattern, the loss in the antenna, the loss in the
transmission line, and the receiver components.

The receiver components in Figure consist of ,

 RF amplifier with gain GRF and noise temperature TRF
 Mixer with an RF-to-IF conversion loss factor LM and Noise temperature TM ,
 An IF amplifier with gain GIF and noise temperature TIF.

The equivalent noise temperature of the receiver can be found as,

The transmission line connecting the antenna to the receiver has a loss LT , and is at a
physical temperature Tp. Its equivalent noise temperature is,

we find that the noise temperature of the transmission line (TL) and receiver (REC)
cascade is
The entire antenna pattern can collect noise power. If the antenna has a reasonably high gain
with relatively low side lobes, we can assume that all noise power comes via the main
beam, so that the noise temperature of the antenna is given by,

where ηrad is the efficiency of the antenna, Tp is its physical temperature, and Tb is the
equivalent brightness temperature of the background.

The noise power at the antenna terminals, which is also the noise power delivered to the
transmission line, is

where B is the system bandwidth. If Si is the received power at the antenna terminals, then
the input SNR at the antenna terminals is Si /Ni . The output signal power is

where GSYS has been defined as a system power gain.

The output noise power is,

where TSYS has been defined as the overall system noise temperature.

The output SNR is

__________

It may be possible to improve this SNR by various signal processing techniques.

Impedance matching
Impedance matching is the practice of designing the input impedance of an
electrical load or the output impedance of its corresponding signal source to
maximize the power transfer or minimize signal reflection from the load.

The maximum power theorem says that maximum power is transferred from
source to load when the load resistance equals the source resistance and the
load reactance equals the negative of the source reactance.

Another way of saying this is that the load impedance must equal the complex
conjugate of the source impedance. If this condition is met the two parts of the
circuit are said to be impedance matched.
BALUN

A Balun is used to "balance" unbalanced systems - i.e. those where power

flows from an unbalanced line to a balanced line (hence, balun derives
from balance to unbalanced).

It is a device that connects a balanced two conductor line to an unbalanced

coaxial line.

For eg. BALUN connects a twisted pair cable (one that has two conductors
with equal currents in opposite direction) with a coaxial cable (one that has just
one conductor and ground.

BALUN isolate a transmission line and provide a balanced output. It is widely

used in television antenna
Hi
Folded dipole
In folded dipole, two half wave dipoles (one continuous and another split at the center)
have been folded and joined together in parallel at the ends. Radiation pattern of folded
dipole and half wave dipole is same but input impedance of folded dipole is higher. It
has better directivity and bandwidth than simple dipole.
Let vge V applied to the antenna terminals be divided between the 2 dipoles, then fig b
gives,
V = I1 Z11 + I2 Z12 ----------1

Where, I1 = current of dipole 1

I2 = current of dipole 2
Z11 = self impedance of dipole 1
Z12 = mutual impedance of dipoles 1 and 2
If I1= I2,

Eqn 1 becomes, V= 2 I1 (z11 +Z12)

Since the 2 dipoles are closer together the impedance, Z11 = Z12

V = 2 I1 (2 z11)

V = 4 I1 Z11

Thus the terminal impedance Z of the antenna is given as,

Z=V/ I1 = 4 Z11

Take Z11 = 70 + j0 Ω for a λ/2 dipole, the terminal impedance of a 2 wire folded dipole
becomes, Z = 280 Ω
 Problem 1

An antenna has a beam solid angle that is equivalent to a trpezoidal patch on the surface of a sphere of radius r. The angular space of the patch on the surface
of the sphere extends between π 6 ≤ θ ≤ π in latitude and π 4 ≤ φ ≤ π 3 in longitude.
a) Find, exatly, the equivalent beam solid angle.
b) Corresponding antenna maximum directivity in dB.
Solution
φ=π 3 π φ=π 3 π π
π π
a) Ω= ∫ ∫ sin θd θd φ= ∫ d φ ∫ sin θd θ=  −  ∫ sin θd θ =
φ=π 4 θ=π 6 φ=π 4 θ=π 6  3 4  θ=π 6
π   π   π  3
= ( − cos ( π ) ) −  − cos     = ⋅ 1 −  = 0.035 rad.
12    6   12  2 
4π 4π
=
b) D = = 359.04 = 25.55dB
Ω 0.035
0
 Problem 2

A hypotetical isotropic antenna is radiating in free-space. At a distance of 100 m from the antenna, the total electric field ( Eθ ) is measured to be 5 V/m. Find the
a) power radiated ( Prad )
b) power density ( S ) .
Solution
1 Eθ2 1 52 5 4
a) P= 4π=
r 2
4π104 =
W 10 =
W 4.16 kW
2 η0 2 120π
rad
12
Prad 1 Eθ2 5 W W
b) S = = = = 0.416 2
4πr 2
2 η0 12 m 2
m