CHAPTER I

Introduction to Antenna Systems

➢ Basic Principles
➢ Types of Antennas
➢ Electromagnetic Wave Radiation Mechanisms

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Introduction
➢ An antenna is defined as “a usually metallic device (as a rod or wire)
for radiating or receiving radio waves.”
➢ The IEEE Standard Definitions of Terms for Antennas (IEEE Std
145–1983)∗ defines the antenna or aerial as “a means for radiating
or receiving radio waves.”
➢ In other words the antenna is the transitional structure between free-
space and a guiding device, as shown in fig. 1.
➢ The guiding device or transmission line may take the form of a
coaxial line or a hollow pipe (waveguide), and it is used to transport
electromagnetic energy from the transmitting source to the antenna,
or from the antenna to the receiver. In the former case, we have a
transmitting antenna and in the latter a receiving antenna.
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➢ A transmission-line Thevenin equivalent of the antenna system of
fig. 1 in the transmitting mode is shown in fig. 2 where:
➢ The source is represented by an ideal generator, the transmission
line is represented by a line with characteristic impedance 𝑍𝑐 ,
and;
➢ The antenna is represented by a load 𝑍𝐴 = (𝑅𝐿 +𝑅𝑟 + 𝑗𝑋𝐴 ]
connected to the transmission line.
➢ The load resistance 𝑹𝑳 is used to represent the conduction and
dielectric losses associated with the antenna structure while 𝑹𝒓 ,
referred to as the radiation resistance, is used to represent radiation
by the antenna.
➢ The reactance 𝑿𝑨 is used to represent the imaginary part of the
impedance associated with radiation by the antenna.

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➢ Under ideal conditions, energy generated by the source should be
totally transferred to the radiation resistance 𝑅𝑟 , which is used to
represent radiation by the antenna.
➢ However, in a practical system there are conduction-dielectric
losses due to the lossy nature of the transmission line and the
antenna, as well as those due to reflections (mismatch) losses at the
interface between the line and the antenna.
➢ Taking into account the internal impedance of the source and
neglecting line and reflection (mismatch) losses, maximum power is
delivered to the antenna under conjugate matching.
➢ If the antenna system is not properly designed, the transmission line
could act to a large degree as an energy storage element instead of as
a wave guiding and energy transporting device.
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➢ The reflected waves from the interface create, along with the
traveling waves from the source toward the antenna, constructive and
destructive interference patterns, referred to as standing waves,
inside the transmission line which represent pockets of energy
concentrations and storage, typical of resonant devices.
➢ If the maximum field intensities of the standing wave are sufficiently
large, they can cause arching inside the transmission lines.
Generally;
➢ Antennas are passive devices; the power radiated cannot be greater
than the power entering from the transmitter.
➢ Antennas are reciprocal - the same design works for receiving
systems as for transmitting systems

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 Fig. 1: Antenna as a transition device
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 Fig. 2: Transmission line Thevenin equivalent of antenna in transmitting mode.

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Types of Antennas
Wire Antennas:
➢ They are familiar to the layman because they are seen virtually
everywhere on automobiles, buildings, ships, aircraft, spacecraft,
and so on.
➢ There are various shapes of wire antennas such as dipole, loop, and
helix which are shown in fig. below. They may take the form of a
rectangle, square, ellipse, or any other configuration.
➢ The circular loop is the most common because of its simplicity in
construction.

a) Dipole b) Circular (Square) loop c) Helix

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Aperture Antennas
➢ Aperture antennas may be more familiar to the layman today than in
the past because of the increasing demand for more sophisticated
forms of antennas and the utilization of higher frequencies.
➢ Antennas of this type are very useful for aircraft and spacecraft
applications, because they can be very conveniently flush-mounted
on the skin of the aircraft or spacecraft.
➢ In addition, they can be covered with a dielectric material to protect
them from hazardous conditions of the environment.

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Microstrip Antennas
➢ Microstrip antennas became very popular in the 1970’s primarily for
spaceborne applications.
➢ Today they are used for government and commercial applications.
➢ These antennas consist of a metallic patch on a grounded
substrate.
➢ The metallic patch can take many different configurations, as shown
in fig. below.
➢ However, the rectangular and circular patches are the most popular
because of ease of analysis and fabrication, and their attractive
radiation characteristics, especially low cross-polarization radiation.

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➢ The microstrip antennas are:
➢ Low profile
➢ Comfortable to planar and nonplanar surfaces
➢ Simple and inexpensive to fabricate using modern printed-circuit technology
➢ Mechanically robust when mounted on rigid surfaces, compatible with
MMIC designs, and
➢ Very versatile in terms of resonant frequency, polarization, pattern, and
impedance.
➢ These antennas can be mounted on the surface of high-performance
aircraft, spacecraft, satellites, missiles, cars, and even mobile
devices.

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 Fig. 5: Rectangular and circular microstrip (patch) antennas

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Array Antennas
➢ Many applications require radiation characteristics that may not be
achievable by a single element.
➢ It may, however, be possible that an aggregate of radiating elements
in an electrical and geometrical arrangement (an array) will result in
the desired radiation characteristics.
➢ The arrangement of the array may be such that the radiation from the
elements adds up to give a radiation maximum in a particular
direction or directions, minimum in others, or otherwise as desired.
➢ Typical examples of arrays are shown in fig. below.
➢ Usually the term array is reserved for an arrangement in which the
individual radiators are separate as shown in fig below.

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Radiation Mechanism
➢ One of the first questions that may be asked concerning antennas
would be “how is radiation accomplished?”
➢ In other words, how are the electromagnetic fields generated by the
source, contained and guided within the transmission line and
antenna, and finally “detached” from the antenna to form a free-
space wave?
➢ If a charge is not moving, current is not created and there is no
radiation.
➢ If charge is moving with a uniform velocity:
a. There is no radiation if the wire is straight, and infinite in extent.
b. There is radiation if the wire is curved, bent, discontinuous, terminated, or
truncated.
➢ If charge is oscillating in a time-motion, it radiates even if the wire
is straight.
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➢ Radiation of antenna can be explained by using capacitor concept.
➢ During positive half cycle of current capacitor charges with upper plate
positive and lower plate negative chargers. This creates electric line of
forces and there direction is from top to bottom.
➢ In anticlockwise direction of current, polarity reverses and electric lines
of forces become bottom to top.
➢ When current flowing in one direction and is required to reverse their
direction rapidly, those lines of forces at the extreme edge are unable to
make this change with sufficient rapidly and are forced to out of the
system.
➢ In this way a certain amount of energy, stored in capacitor is radiated
during each cycle. This affect increases with frequency, so that at radio
frequencies, efficient radiations obtained from the conductor i.e. antenna.

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 Any Questions?
END !

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