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Friis Transmission Equation
Friis Transmission Equation
The Friis transmission formula is used in telecommunications engineering, equating the power at the
terminals of a receive antenna as the product of power density of the incident wave and the effective
aperture of the receiving antenna under idealized conditions given another antenna some distance away
transmitting a known amount of power.[1] The formula was presented first by Danish-American radio
engineer Harald T. Friis in 1946.[2] The formula is sometimes referenced as the Friis transmission
equation.
where:
Contemporary formula
Few follow Friis' advice on using antenna effective area to characterize antenna performance over the
contemporary use of directivity and gain metrics. Replacing the effective antenna areas with their gain
counterparts yields
where and are the antenna gains (with respect to an isotropic radiator) of the transmitting and
receiving antennas respectively, is the wavelength representing the effective aperture area of the receiving
antenna, and is the distance separating the antennas.[1] To use the equation as written, the antenna gains
are unitless values, and the units for wavelength ( ) and distance ( ) must be the same.
where:
Derivation
There are several methods to derive the Friis transmission equation. In addition to the usual derivation from
antenna theory, the basic equation also can be derived from principles of radiometry and scalar diffraction
in a manner that emphasizes physical understanding.[6] Another derivation is to take the far-field limit of the
near-field transmission integral.[7]
See also
Link budget
Radio propagation model
References
1. Johnson, Richard (1984). Antenna Engineering Handbook (2nd ed.). New York, NY:
McGraw-Hill, Inc. p. 1-12. ISBN 0-07-032291-0.
2. Friis, H.T. (May 1946). "A Note on a Simple Transmission Formula". IRE Proc. 34 (5): 254–
256. doi:10.1109/JRPROC.1946.234568 (https://doi.org/10.1109%2FJRPROC.1946.23456
8). S2CID 51630329 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:51630329).
3. Stutzman, Warren; Thiele, Gary (1981). Antenna Theory and Design (https://archive.org/deta
ils/antennatheorydes00stut_299). John Wiley & Sons, Inc. p. 60 (https://archive.org/details/a
ntennatheorydes00stut_299/page/n35). ISBN 0-471-04458-X.
4. Bevelacqua, Pete. "Friis Equation - (aka Friis Transmission Formula)" (http://www.antenna-t
heory.com/basics/friis.php). www.antenna-theory.com. Retrieved 2018-08-21.
5. Jayakody, Dushantha Nalin K.; Thompson, John; Chatzinotas, Symeon; Durrani, Salman
(2017-07-20). Wireless Information and Power Transfer: A New Paradigm for Green
Communications (https://books.google.com/books?id=gb0tDwAAQBAJ&q=The+ideal+condi
tions+are+almost+never+achieved+in+ordinary+terrestrial+communications%2C+due+to+o
bstructions%2C&pg=PA193). Springer. p. 193. ISBN 9783319566696.
6. Shaw, Joseph A. (2013). "Radiometry and the Friis transmission equation". American
Journal of Physics. 81 (1): 33–37. Bibcode:2013AmJPh..81...33S (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.
edu/abs/2013AmJPh..81...33S). doi:10.1119/1.4755780 (https://doi.org/10.1119%2F1.47557
80).
7. Frid, H.; Holter, H.; Jonsson, B. L. G. (2015). "An Approximate Method for Calculating the
Near-Field Mutual Coupling Between Line-of-Sight Antennas on Vehicles". IEEE
Transactions on Antennas and Propagation. 63 (9): 4132–4138.
Bibcode:2015ITAP...63.4132F (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015ITAP...63.4132F).
doi:10.1109/TAP.2015.2447003 (https://doi.org/10.1109%2FTAP.2015.2447003).
S2CID 13059054 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:13059054).
Further reading
Harald T. Friis, "A Note on a Simple Transmission Formula," Proceedings of the I.R.E. and
Waves and Electrons, May, 1946, pp 254–256.
John D. Kraus, "Antennas," 2nd Ed., McGraw-Hill, 1988.
Kraus and Fleisch, "Electromagnetics," 5th Ed., McGraw-Hill, 1999.
D.M. Pozar, "Microwave Engineering." 2nd Ed., Wiley, 1998.
Shaw, J.A. (2013). "Radiometry and the Friis transmission equation". Am. J. Phys. 81 (33):
33–37. Bibcode:2013AmJPh..81...33S (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AmJPh..81...
33S). doi:10.1119/1.4755780 (https://doi.org/10.1119%2F1.4755780).
External links
Derivation of Friis Transmission Formula (http://www.antenna-theory.com/basics/friis.php)
Friis Transmission Equation Calculator (http://www.random-science-tools.com/electronics/frii
s.htm)
Another Friis Transmission Equation Calculator (https://web.archive.org/web/201711021505
57/http://www.learningmeasure.com/cgi-bin/calculators/friis.pl)
Seminar Notes by Laasonen (https://web.archive.org/web/20170813033933/https://www.cs.
helsinki.fi/u/floreen/adhoc/laasonen.pdf)