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Chapt er : 2
ANT ENNA T HEORY
2 .1 DEFI NI T I ON & HI ST ORI CAL ADVANCEMENT :
An antenna is defined as a means for radiating or receiving radio waves. In other words the
antenna is the transitional structure between free space and guiding device shown in below
figure. The guiding device or transmission line may take the form of a coaxial line or a hollow







Fig: 2.1 Antenna as a transition device.
pipe (waveguide) and it is used to transport electromagnetic energy from the transmitting
source to the antenna, or from the antenna to the receiver.
The history of antenna dates back to James Clerk Maxwell who unified the theories of
electricity and magnetism, and represented their relations through a set of equations best
known as Maxwells Equations. His work was first published in 1873.In 1986 Professor
Heinrich Rudolph Hertz demonstrated the first wireless electromagnetic system. He was able
to produce in his laboratory at a wavelength of 4 meters a spark in the gap of a transmitting /2
dipole which was then detected as a spark in the gap of a nearby loop. In 1895, J. C. Bose gave
his first public demonstration of electromagnetic waves. And in 1901, Guglielmo Marconi was
able to send signals over large distances. He performed in 1901 the first transatlantic
transmission from Poldhu in Cornwell, England to St. Johns Newfoundland. His transmitting
antenna consisted of 50 vertical wires in the form of a fan connected to ground through a spark
transmitter. The wires were supported horizontally by a guyed wire between two 60m wooden
poles. The receiving antenna at St.Johns was a 200m wire pulled and supported by a kite.
From Marconis inception through the 1940s antenna technology was primarily centered on
wire related radiating elements and frequencies up to about UHF. While World War II
launched a new era in antennas, advances made in computer architecture and technology
during the 1960s through the 1990s have had a major impact on the advance of modern
antenna technology, and they are expected to have a greater influence on antenna engineering
into the twenty first century. Primarily, the antennas need to have high gain, small physical
size, broad bandwidth, versatility, embedded installation, etc. In particular, the bandwidths for
E
t
Signal
Source
Transmission
Line
Antenna
Free Space
Wave
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impedance, radiation patterns and gain are becoming the most important factors that affect the
application of antennas in contemporary and future wireless communication systems. The
bandwidths vary from 7% to 13% for commercial mobile communication systems, and reach
up to 109% for ultra-wideband communications. The antennas used must have the required
performance over the relevant operating frequency range. Antennas for fixed applications such
as cellular base-stations and wireless access points should have high gain and stable radiation
coverage over the operating range. Antennas for portable devices such as hand phones,
personal digital assistants (PDAs) and laptop computers should be embedded, efficient in
radiation and omnidirectional in coverage. Most importantly, the antennas should be well
impedance-matched over the operating frequency range. Antennas for mobile terminals must
be small in physical size so that they can be embedded in devices or conform to device
platforms. The antennas of electrically small in size significantly narrows the impedance
bandwidth and greatly reduces radiation efficiency or gain. For base-stations, antennas must be
compact to reduce installation costs and to harmonize with the environment, but the reduced
size generally results in a degraded radiation performance. Moreover, varying installation
environments require antennas with a big bandwidth tolerance. Consequently, the bandwidth
requirement for small or compact antennas has become a very critical design issue.

2 .2 ANT ENNA PARAM ET ERS:

To describe the performance of an antenna, definitions of various parameters are
necessary.

2 .2 .1 BANDWI DT H
The bandwidth of an antenna may be defined in terms of one or more physical parameters. As
shown in equation 2.1, the bandwidth may be calculated by using the frequencies f
u
andf
l
at the
upper and lower edges of the achieved bandwidth:
2( )
100%, 100%
B.W=
:1, 100%
l
l
l
fu f
bandwidth
fu f
fu
bandwidth
f

<

>

(2.1)

The bandwidth of an antenna can be defined for impedance, radiation pattern. First, a
satisfactory impedance bandwidth is the basic consideration for all antenna design, which
allows most of the energy to be transmitted to an antenna from a feed or a transmission system
at a transmitter, and from an antenna to its load at a receiver in a wireless communication
system. Second, a designated radiation pattern ensures that maximum or minimum energy is
radiated in a specific direction.



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a) I MPEDANCE BANDW I DT H:

In general, an antenna is a resonant device. Its input impedance varies greatly with frequency
even though the inherent impedance of its feed remains unchanged. If the antenna can be well
matched to its feed across a certain frequency range, that frequency range is defined as its
impedance bandwidth. The impedance bandwidth can be specified in terms of return loss (S
parameter: |S
11
|) or a voltage standing-wave ratio (VSWR) over a frequency range. The well-
matched impedance bandwidth must totally cover the required operating frequency range for
some specified level, such as VSWR = 2 or 1.5 or a return loss |S
11
| of less than 10 dB or 15
dB. Furthermore, the impedance bandwidth is inversely proportional to the quality factor (Q)
of an antenna is given by
VSWR-1
B.W=
Q VSWR
(2.2)
b) PAT T ERN BANDWI DT H:
There are many parameters to describe the radiation performance of an antenna, including the
following:

main beam direction
side-lobe, back-lobe, grating-lobe levels and directions
half-power beamwidth
front-to-back ratio
directivity
gain
efficiency
effective area, effective height and polarization.

These all vary with frequency, and the operating frequency range can be determined by
specifying any of these parameters as either a minimum or a maximum according to the system
requirements for the antenna. Variations in the parameters result essentially from frequency-
dependent distributions of the magnitudes and phases of electric and magnetic currents on
antenna surfaces. Radiation patterns are important indicators of the operating modes of an
antenna.

2 .2 .2 RADI AT I ON PAT T ERN
An antenna radiation pattern or antenna pattern is defined as a mathematical function or a
graphical representation of the radiation properties of the antenna as a function of space
coordinates. In most cases the radiation pattern is determined in the far-field region and is
represented as a function of the directional coordinates. The radiation property of most
concern is the two or three dimensional spatial distribution of radiated energy as a function of
the observers position along a path or surface of constant radius.

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There are three common radiation patterns that are used to describe an antennas radiation
property:
a) Isotropic: A hypothetical lossless antenna having equal radiation in all directions. It is
only applicable for an ideal antenna and is often taken as a reference for expressing the
directive properties of actual antennas.
b) Directional: An antenna having the property of radiating or receiving electromagnetic
waves more effectively in some directions than in others. This is usually applicable to
an antenna where its maximum directivity is significantly greater than that of a half
wave dipole.
c) Omni-directional: An antenna having an essentially non directional pattern in a given
plane and a directional pattern in any orthogonal plane.

Fig: 2.2 Coordinate system for antenna analysis. [3] Fig: 2.3 Omnidirectional pattern with
minor lobes.[3]
2 .2 .3 DI RECT I VI T Y
It is defined as the ratio of the radiation intensity in a given direction from the antenna to the
radiation intensity averaged over all directions. The average radiation intensity is equal to the
total power radiated by the antenna divided by 4. If the direction is not specified, the direction
of maximum radiation intensity is implied. More simply, the directivity of a nonisotropic
source is equal to the ratio of its radiation intensity in a given direction over that of an isotropic
source. In mathematical form it can be written as
4

O rad
U U
D
U P

= =
(2.3)

If the direction is not specified it implies the direction of maximum radiation intensity
(maximum directivity) expressed as
max
max
4
o
rad
U
D D
P

= = (2.4)

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where,
D=directivity (dimensionless)
D
o
=maximum directivity (dimensionless)
U=radiation intensity (W/unit solid angle)
U
max
=maximum radiation intensity (W/unit solid angle)
U
o
=radiation intensity of isotropic source (W/unit solid angle)
P
rad
=total radiated power (W)

2 .2 .4 GAI N

Gain is closely related to the directivity. It is a measure that takes into account the efficiency
of the antenna as well as its directional capabilities. Absolute gain of an antenna (in a given
direction) is defined as the ratio of the intensity, in a given direction, to the radiation
intensity that would be obtained if the power accepted by the antenna were radiated
isotropically. The radiation intensity corresponding to the isotropically radiated power is equal
to the power accepted (input) by the antenna divided by 4. It can be expressed as:

radiation intensity
gain=4
total input(accepted) power
(2.5)
Gain is related to the directivity by,
( , ) ( , )
cd
G D = (2.6)
Where
cd
is antenna radiation efficiency.
2 .2 .5 ANT ENNA RADI AT I ON EFFI CI ENCY
The antenna radiation efficiency takes into account the reflection, conduction and dielectric
losses. The conduction and dielectric losses of an antenna are very difficult to compute and in
most cases they are measured. They are very difficult to separate and usually lumped together
to form the
cd
efficiency or antenna radiation efficiency. It is defined as the ratio of the power
delivered to the radiation resistance R
r
to the power delivered to R
r
and R
L.
The radiation
efficiency can be written as,

r
cd
L r
R
R R

(
=
(
+

(dimensionless) (2.7)

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2 .2 .6 HALF- POW ER BEAM W I DT H:

The half-power beamwidth is defined as: In a plane containing the direction of the maximum
of a beam, the angle between the two directions in which the radiation intensity is one-half the


Fig: 2.4 Radiation pattern and half-power beamwidth.

maximum value of the beam. The term beamwidth by itself is usually reversed to describe
the 3-dB beamwidth.

The beamwidth of the antenna is very important figure-of-merit, and it often used to as a
tradeoff between it and the sidelobe level; that is as the beamwidth decreases the sidelobe
increases and vice versa.