EEC461 - Antenna

Report 1
Prof. Dr. Said El-Khamy

Log Periodic Antenna and Its

Applications

Mariam Ahmed Fathy 19016627

8th August 2023(Summer)

1 Introduction

The rapid development in communication systems has increased the necessity of wide bandwidth.
Despite its bulkiness, the Log Periodic Dipole Array (LPDA) antenna is used to fulfill wide band-
width and high gain requirements. LPDA is capable of working on High Frequency (HF), Very
High Frequency (VHF), and Ultra-High Frequency (UHF). Log periodic antenna was invented by
Dwight E. Isbell and Raymond DuHamel and was licensed by the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign. The main invention of this type of antenna was to increase the useful frequency band
of UHF and VHF antennas. LPDA antenna is a dipole antenna with the longest dipole acting as a
reflector and successive dipoles acting as directors. Bandwidth is improved by adding the number
of dipoles. All dipoles in LPDA are active elements resonating at their particular center frequency,
provided that the dipole length should be half of the wavelength. The longest dipole resonates at
the lowest frequency, and the shortest dipole resonates at the highest frequency.

Printed microstrip antennas are low in cost, compact, lightweight, and small in size. In microstrip
LPDA designs, dipoles are connected to the feed line through a crisscross connection, and phase
reversal is present between two dipoles. The crisscross connection involves placing half of the dipole
on the upper part of the substrate and the other half on the lower part of the substrate. Phase
reversal is obtained by placing alternate dipoles on the opposite side of the substrate. Feed lines
and dipoles are printed on both sides of the substrate, resulting in the absence of a ground plane.
Microstrip log periodic antenna has feed lines on both sides of the substrate. The radiation pattern
of the log periodic antenna is unidirectional, and the main lobe is along the axis of the boom. An
array of dipole antennas is fed with equal and opposite phases. All dipole elements are fed with
successive elements out of phase and radiate in the end-fire direction. The aim of this antenna is
to achieve the wideband from 800MHz to 6GHz.

2 Antenna Design

In LPDA all the dipoles are active elements, the longest dipole works as reflector and successive
dipoles act as directors. The Fig.1 shows the structure of log periodic dipole array antenna. This
antenna is directive and shows end fire radiation pattern. In LPDA, it is observed that from longest
dipole to shortest dipole, the length, width and spacing between the dipoles decreases gradually.
The spacing of the dipoles is the logarithmic function of frequency represented by spacing factor.
The radiation pattern shown in 1 is endfire radiation pattern with minimum side lobes and back
lobes. Side lobes and back lobes indicate the losses. S represents the spacing between the dipoles,
L is the length of dipoles and the radiation pattern is along Y-axis. LPDA antenna is characterized
with the active region and inactive region. The inactive part is also called as passive region. The
elements near the half wave length dipole will radiate so the region where radiating elements are
present is called as active region. The shortest elements are too capacitive to radiate properly. And
the dipoles longer than the half wavelength dipole will also not radiate properly. So the longer and
shorter dipoles than the half-wavelength dipoles are included in inactive region.

Figure 1: Structure of Log Periodic Antenna

1
Length of the longest dipole:
λmax
L1 ≥ = cfmin (1)
2

Length of the shortest dipole:

λmin
Ln ≥ = cfmax (2)
2

Length of the consecutive dipoles:

Ln+1 = τ · Ln (3)

The scaling factor:

Ln+1 Sn+1
τ= = <1 (4)
Ln Sn

The spacing factor:

S1 Sn
σ= = <1 (5)
2L1 2Ln

Number of dipoles:  
2 4σ
Bar = 1.1 + 7.7(1 − τ ) (6)
1−τ

 
fupper
Bs = Bar (7)
flower

log(Bs )
N =1+ (8)
log(1/τ )

Width of the dipoles:

Wn+1 = τ · Wn (9)

Directivity is calculated from the following equation:

41000
Directivity = (10)
HPBW (E-plane) × HPBW (H-plane)

where, W is width of dipoles and N is number of dipoles. The above equations are used to
calculate the dimensions of log periodic antenna. Carrels graph as shown in 2 plays important role
in calculation of the log periodic antenna dimensions. It shows dB lines which are from 6dB to
10.5dB. Scaling factor values are present on X-axis and the spacing factor values are present on
Y-axis. The optimum line cuts the dB line at particular point and at that point the value of scaling
and spacing factor is noted. During calculations, we assume a gain value and according to that
value the scaling and spacing factors are obtained from carrels graph. At particular gain line, and
at particular point where optimum line cuts the gain line, the value of scaling and spacing factor
according to that point is decided. Hence from these parameters, the dimensions of log periodic
antenna are calculated.

2
 Figure 2: Carrels Graph

The spacing factor and scaling factor is decided from carrels graph. Scaling factor is denoted by
and spacing factor is denoted by . The point of intersection between gain line and optimum line
decides the value of scaling and spacing factor. Highest and lowest frequency value is responsible
for length of the longest and shortest dipole respectively. The proposed LPDA is designed for =
0.82, = 0.15, fmin = 800MHz, fmax = 6GHz and N = 10.

3 Log periodic antenna applications

The log periodic antenna is used in many areas where wide bandwidth levels are needed along with
directivity and gain. There are several areas where the antenna is used:

HF communications: Log periodic antenna arrays are often used for diplomatic traffic on the
HF bands. Log periodic antennas perform well because embassies and other similar users will need
to operate over a wide selection of frequencies in the HF bands, and it is often only feasible to have
one antenna. A single log periodic antenna will give access to a sufficient number of frequencies
over the HF bands to enable communications to be made despite the variations in the ionosphere
changing optimum working frequencies.
UHF Terrestrial TV: The log periodic antenna is sometimes used for UHF terrestrial television
reception. As television channels may be located over a wide portion of the UHF spectrum, the
log periodic enables a sufficient bandwidth to be covered.

EMC measurements: EMC is a key issue for all electronic products. Testing requires frequency
scans to be undertaken over wide bands of frequencies. When testing for radiated emissions, an
antenna that is able to provide a flat response over a wide band of frequencies is needed. The log
periodic is able to offer the performance required and is widely used in this form of application.

4 References
1. Chopade, P., & Gaikwad, S. V. (2017). DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF LOG PERIODIC
DIPOLE ARRAY ANTENNA. International Journal of Modern Engineering, 5(3), 836-844.
Retrieved from https://example.com/path/to/IJMEVol5Iss3Paper7836844.pdf
2. Electronics Notes. (n.d.). Log Periodic Basics. Retrieved from https://www.electronics-
notes.com/articles/antennas-propagation/log-periodic-lpda-antenna/log-periodic-basics.php
3. Soni, A., & Toshniwal, S. (2017). Performance Comparisons of Four Modified Structures of
Log Periodic Three Element Microstrip Antenna Arrays. In Advances in Intelligent Systems
and Computing (Vol. 584, pp. 1132). Springer. Retrieved from https://example.com/path/to/conference-
paper.pdf