Antenna Theory and Design

Antenna Theory and Design

Associate Professor:
WANG Junjun 王珺珺
School of Electronic and Information Engineering
Beihang University
wangjunjun@buaa.edu.cn
13426405497
New Main Building F1025
General Information
• Scopes: Antenna theory and Design. Review from electromagnetics,
microwave technology, the antenna family, fundamental parameters of
antennas, point source, wire antennas, microstrip antennas, broadband
antennas, some special antennas, antenna design software, antenna
measurement, laboratory experiments.
• Pre-request Courses: Electromagnetics Theory, Microwave technology
• Textbook: John D. Kraus, Antennas: For All Applications
3rd edition, 2003.
Constantine A. Balanis, ANTENNA THEORY-
ANALYSIS AND DESIGN, 3rd edition, 2005.
• Grading policy: final: 70%, homework+experiment: 20%,
attendance: 10%
• Class/Laboratory Schedule: 26 lectures+6 experiments
8-9 weeks, every Wednesday, 4 classes/week
What is an antenna?
A usually metallic device (as a rod or wire) for radiating or
receiving radio waves.
 4

What is an antenna?
▫ In science and engineering: A usually metallic device for
radiating or receiving radio waves.
▫ In layman’s opinion: magic!
▫ In electric engineer’s opinion: it’s a simple piece of metal with a
highly complex task.
▫ In my opinion: it’s an artwork!
• A typical microwave communication system
Analog Baseband Communication
Protocols
and RF Circuits Algorithms
• Types of transmission lines
▫ TEM (quasi-TEM) wave transmission lines

Fig 1 TEM (quasi-TEM) wave transmission line

(a)Parallel lines (b) Coaxial line (c) Stripe line (d) Microstrip line

Wide bandwidth, high loss at high frequencies

• Types of transmission lines
▫ TE & TM wave transmission lines

Fig 2 Wave-guide transmission lines

(a)Rectangular waveguide (b) Circular waveguide
(c) Ridged wave-guide (d) Elliptic waveguide

Narrow bandwidth, low loss, high power, big volume

• Types of transmission lines
▫ Surface wave transmission lines

Fig 3 Surface wave transmission line

(i) Dielectric waveguide (j) Mirror image transmission line
(k) Single surface wave transmission line

Simple structure, high power, small volume

• Types of transmission lines
▫ Coax Connectors
• Types of transmission lines
▫ Striplines

Microstrip

Embedded stripline

Coplanar stripline
Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 1 Introduction

• General description of antennas

▫ Related history
▫ The EM spectrum and RF bands
▫ Types of antennas
▫ Radiation mechanism
▫ Future challenges
▫ Applications
1. Related history

• The history of antennas dates back to James Clerk Maxwell (a Scottish

scientist) who unified the theories of electricity and magnetism, and
eloquently represented their relations through a set of profound equations
best known as Maxwell’s Equations. His work was first published in 1873.
He also showed that light was electromagnetic and that both light and
electromagnetic waves travel by wave disturbances of the same speed.
1. Related history

• In 1886, Professor Heinrich Rudolph Hertz (a German physicist)

demonstrated the first wireless electromagnetic system.
• It was not until 1901 that Guglielmo Marconi was able to send signals
over large distances.
• From Marconi’s inception through the 1940s, antenna technology was
primarily centered on wire related radiating elements and frequencies up to
about UHF. It was not until World War II that modern antenna technology
was launched and new elements (such as waveguide apertures, horns,
reflectors) were primarily introduced.
1. Related history
• 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 an even greater influence on antenna engineering
into the twenty-first century.
• Beginning primarily in the early 1960s, numerical methods were introduced
that allowed previously intractable complex antenna system configurations to
be analyzed and designed very accurately.
• With the advent of radar, centimeter wavelengths became popular and the
entire radio spectrum opened up to wide usage. GPS, cellular phone, planets
of the solar system, aircraft and ships, all types of wireless devices…
2. Frequency bands
• Commercial broadcasting

• RF Band
2. Frequency bands
• Microwave band
3. Types of antennas

① Wire antennas
• Wire antennas are familiar to the layman because they are seen virtually
everywhere ——on automobiles, buildings, ships, aircraft, spacecraft, and so
on.
① Wire antennas
Dipole
② 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.
② Aperture antennas

Pyramidal
horn

Conical Rectangular
horn waveguide
③ Microstrip antennas
• Microstrip antennas became very popular in the 1970s primarily for
spaceborne applications. Today they are used for government and
commercial applications. These antennas consist of a metallic patch on a
grounded substrate.
③ Microstrip antennas

Rectangular patch Circular

patch
④ Array antennas
• Many applications require radiation characteristics that may not be
achievable by a single element.
④ Array antennas

Yagi-uda array

Microstrip patch Aperture

array array
⑤ Reflector antennas
• Because of the need to communicate over great distances, sophisticated
forms of antennas had to be used in order to transmit and receive signals that
had to travel millions of miles.
⑤ Reflector antennas

Parabolic
reflector

Corner
reflector
Cassegrain
reflector
⑥ Lens antennas
• Lenses are primarily used to collimate incident divergent energy to prevent it
from spreading in undesired directions. By properly shaping the geometrical
configuration and choosing the appropriate material of the lenses, they can
transform various forms of divergent energy into plane waves.
⑥ Lens antennas
4. Radiation mechanism

1. Single Wire
Basic radiation equation:
Charge uniformly
distributed in a circular
cross section cylinder wire

 Charges (q) for transients and pulses

 Currents (I) for time harmonic variations

Iz: current over the cross section of the thin wire

ql: charge per unit length in the thin wire
vz: uniform velocity when total charge Q with volume V is moving in the
z direction
4. Radiation mechanism

 Radiation condition:

 a time-varying current
or
 an acceleration (or deceleration) of charge

• No moving charges no current no radiation (necessary)

• No variation in velocity of charges no acceleration (or deceleration)
no radiation (enough)
Question
If charge is oscillating in a time-motion, radiation?
Yes, it radiates.
4. Radiation mechanism

2. Two Wires

Source Transmission line Antenna

When the EM waves are

within the transmission line However, when the waves are
and antenna, their existence is radiated, they form closed loops
associated with the presence of and there are no charges to
the charges inside the sustain their existence.
conductors.
4. Radiation mechanism

Source Transmission line Antenna

• Electric charges are required to excite the fields but are not
needed to sustain them and may exist in their absence.
4. Radiation mechanism

• If the electric disturbance is of a continuous nature, EM waves exist

continuously and follow in their travel behind the others.
5. Radiation pattern
6. Antenna applications
Applications of an antenna
 Communication

Basic operation of transmit and receive antennas in a communication system

Applications of an antenna
 Communication
 Radar

Basic operation of transmit and receive antennas in a radar system

Applications of an antenna
 Communication
 Radar
 …
 Wireless power transfer
 RFID
 Wireless charging
 Energy harvesting
 Collect energy from the environment
 Store the energy like a battery
 Drive low-power modules like sensors
 “Virtue battery”
Applications of an antenna
 Communication
 Radar
 …
 Wireless power transfer
 RFID
 Wireless charging
 Energy harvesting
 Collect energy from the environment
 Antenna
 Store the energy
 Rectifier
 Storage module
 Communication
 Send signal of the sensor
• Conclusions
1.What’s the antenna basic radiation equation?
2.What’s the microwave bands?
3.The introduction of the antenna family.
4.The radiation mechanism of the antenna?

• Question:
1. The current distribution on a linear dipole antenna
of length and ?