ANTENNA AND WAVE

PROPAGATION

Presented by
S. Kannappan M. Tech,(Ph.D)
Associate Professor
Dept. of ECE
GATESIT, Gooty
 Antenna Parameters
• Patterns
• Beam Area
• Radiation Intensity
• Beam Efficiency
• Directivity
• Gain
• Antenna Apertures
• Effective height
• Fields from oscillating dipole
• Field Zones,
• Shape- Impedance considerations
• Polarization – Linear, Elliptical, & Circular polarizations
• Antenna temperature
• Antenna impedance
• Front–to-back ratio
• Antenna theorems
 Antenna Gain
• The term Antenna Gain describes how much power is transmitted
in the direction of peak radiation to that of an isotropic source. 
• Antenna gain is more commonly quoted than directivity in an
antenna's specification sheet because it takes into account the
actual losses that occur.
• A transmitting antenna with a gain of 3 dB means that the power
received far from the antenna will be 3 dB higher (twice as much)
than what would be received from a lossless isotropic antenna with
the same input power.
• Note that a lossless antenna would be an antenna with an antenna
efficiency of 0 dB (or 100%). Similarly, a receive antenna with a gain
of 3 dB in a particular direction would receive 3 dB more power
than a lossless isotropic antenna.
• The gain of a real antenna can be as high as 40-50 dB for very large
dish antennas
• High gain antenna is more expensive than low gain antennas.

• If you know exactly where your desired signal is coming from,

you would like to have maximum gain (towards the desired)
direction.

• However, if you don't know where the desired signal will be

coming from, it is better to have a low gain antenna.
• TV Antennas. If you mount a TV antenna on your roof, and know
the tv broadcast antennas are to the south (for example, on some
hill south of the city), then it is preferred to have a high gain
antenna. Antennas with gain of at least 12-15 dB are preferred.

• GPS (Global Positioning System). GPS antennas for mobile devices

are receive only. The job of the GPS antenna is to triangulate your
position by measuring the received signal from multiple GPS
satellites, which are all in different directions relative to the
receive antenna. For this case, a very highly directional antenna
would not be preferred.

• Mobile Cellular Antennas. The cellular antenna on your smart

phone communicates with a single cellular network tower.
However, the cellular antenna can be held in any orientation, and
can be in any position relative to the network tower. Hence, for
your mobile device, it is preferred to have a low gain antenna.
• If you look at the specification sheet for an antenna, you will typically see units
for antenna gain listed in dB, dBi or dBd.

• dB - decibels, as we have been discussing. 10 dB means 10 times the energy

relative to an isotropic antenna in the peak direction of radiation.

• dBi - "decibels relative to an isotropic antenna". This is the same as dB as we

have been using it. 3 dBi means twice (2x) the power relative to an isotropic
antenna in the peak direction.

• dBd - "decibels relative to a dipole antenna". Note that a half-wavelength

dipole antenna has a gain of 2.15 dBi. Hence, 7.85 dBd means the peak gain is
7.85 dB higher than a dipole antenna; this is 10 dB higher than an isotropic
antenna
 Types of gain
• Antenna gain can be of following types
• Power gain
• Directive gain
• Power Gain (Gp): It is the ratio of radiation intensity in a given
direction to the average total input power.

Total input power PT = Pr + Pl

Pr: Radiated power
Pl: Ohmic losses in the antenna
• Directive Gain (Gd): It is the ratio of radiation intensity in
a particular direction to the average radiated power.
• Gd does not depend upon the power input to the
antenna & its ohmic losses.

The maximum value of directive gain is the directivity D of

the antenna.
Also,
η: Efficiency factor which lies between 0 to 1
 Antenna Aperture
• A useful parameter calculating the receive power of an
antenna is the effective area or effective aperture.
• Assume
1. A plane wave with the same polarization as the
receive antenna is incident upon the antenna.
2. The wave is travelling towards the antenna in the
antenna's direction of maximum radiation (the direction
from which the most power would be received).
Then the effective aperture parameter describes how
much power is captured from a given plane wave.
• Let p be the power density of the plane wave (in W/m^2).
If P_t represents the power (in Watts) at the antennas
terminals available to the antenna's receiver, then:

• Hence, the effective area simply represents how much power

is captured from the plane wave and delivered by the
antenna.

• Effective aperture or effective area can be measured on actual

antennas by comparison with a known antenna with a given
effective aperture, or by calculation using the measured gain
and the above equation.
 Effective height
• Effective height indicates how far an antenna
is effective in transmitting or receiving EM
wave energy.
• It is defined as the ratio induced voltage to the
incident field(E)
• he= V/E metres