Antenna Arrays

All figures are from

Antenna Theory
Balanis
We need high-directivity antennas
• For long distance communications
• When we know which direction the signal is
coming from
– When you buy Dish TV, which direction do they
orient it in?
 How can we increase directivity?
• By making antenna larger

• By making antenna arrays!

 Antenna Arrays
• Total field of the array is equal to vector
addition of individual antenna fields
• To provide directive arrays antenna fields
have:
– to constructively add in the desired direction
– To cancel each other in all other direction
To shape the overall pattern of the antenna
depends on
• Geometry of array (linear, rectangular…)
• Relative displacement between elements
• Excitation amplitude
• Excitation phase
• Pattern of individual elements
 VLA New Mexico

http://www.sickchirpse.com/fancy-naming-a-
radio-telescope/vla-night/
Patch Antenna Array

https://www.cst.com/Applications/Article/
http://ka7oei.com/Dfgps3l.jpg
Base Station Sectoral Array
EEE 212

TWO-ELEMENT ARRAY
Far Fields of Hertzian Dipole
Array of two infinitesimal dipoles
Array Factor
Array Factor
Beta=0
EEE 212

N-ELEMENT ARRAY
 How do we find the N-element array
radiation pattern of identical antennas?

• We first find the Array Factor (AF)

– Assuming that the individual antennas are point
sources
• We multiply AF with the individual antenna
radiation pattern
N-element Array
N-element Linear Array
 Plot antenna array factor in matlab
• Plot exact and approxim as a function of Ψ
– Clc, clear all, creating a vector –pi:pi*0.001:pi; */
use .*, ./

http://smallsats.org/2013/05/13/phased-array-antenna-radiation-pattern-and-array-
configuration/
Normalized array factor

Use matlab to plot it http://www.falstad.com/antenna/index.html