Antenna

Introduction
• Antennas plays very important role in communication
systems. By definition, an antenna is a device used to
transfer an RF signal, which is traveling on a conductor,
into an electromagnetic wave in free space.
• Antennas demonstrate a component known as
reciprocity, which means that an antenna will maintain
the same characteristics while transmitting or receiving
the data.
• An antenna must have same frequency band of the radio
system to which it is connected. When a signal is
transmitted into an antenna, the antenna will emit
radiation distributed in space in a certain way.
• A graphical representation of the relative distribution of
the radiated power in space is called a radiation pattern.
 Types of Antennas
There are different types of antennas which
are named as:-
• Wire antenna
• Aperature Antenna
• Microstrip Antenna
• Array Antenna
• Reflector antenna
• Lens Antenna
A. Wire Antenna
We are very much familiar to these antenna as they can be seen virtually everywhere
on automobiles, building, ships, aircrafts, spacecraft and etc. These are of different
shapes which includes straight, wire, loop and helix.
1. Short Dipole Antenna:- This is the most simple form of wire antenna which is
basically an open circuit and the data or signal is fed in the center. The term “short”
in this antenna does not refer to the size of the antenna but it basically shows the
relative wavelength.

2. Dipole Antenna:- A Dipole Antenna is made up of two conductors which

represents the same axis and whereas, the length of the wire is need to be small as
compared to wavelength.
3. Loop Antenna:- A Loop antenna is made up of a single or multiple turn of wire
forming a loop. The radiation produced by the loop antenna is compared to the short
dipole antenna.
B. Aperture Antenna
There are different aperture antennas such as pyramidal horn, conical horn and
rectangular waveguide. Antennas of these types are very useful for aircraft and space
craft application because these can be easily mounted on the aircraft or spacecraft.
1. Slot Antenna:- A type of antenna with an opening cut of certain dimensions in
a metallic conductor which is excited using a two-wire transmission line or
coaxial cable is known as a slot antenna. These antennas operate in the
frequency ranging between 300 MHz to 30 GHz.
2. Horn Antenna:- Horn antenna is a type of aperture antenna which is specially
designed for microwave frequencies. The end of the antenna is widened or in the
horn shape. Because of this structure, there is larger directivity so that the emitted
signal can be easily transmitted to long distances. Horn antennas operate in
microwave frequency, so the frequency range of these antennas is super high or ultra-
high which ranges from 300 MHz – 30 GHz.
C. Microstrip Antenna:-
Micro strip antennas became very popular in 1970’s famous for space applications.
Today these antennas 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 forms which may vary from the rectangular and circular patches
are most popular because of ease of analysis and fabrication and their attractive
radiation characteristics especially low cross polarization radiation. These antennas
can be mounted on the surface of high performance aircraft, satellites, missiles, cars
and even can be used in mobile telephones.
D. Array Antenna:-
It is an array of antennas connected together to function as a single antenna that is
employed for the transmission and reception of radio waves. It is also termed the
radiating system that includes individual components (antennas) and radiators. Every
radiator in the system that operates holds its specific induction field. The antennas
that are in the system are so closely placed to one another that one antenna lies in the
induction field of other antennas. So the radiation pattern of the system is considered
to be the vector sum of all the individual antennas.
E. Reflector Antenna:-
In present era sophisticated form of antenna is to be used in order to transmit and
receive signals which is used to communicate over large distances. A very common
antenna type for such applications is known as parabolic reflector. These types of
antennas have been built with diameters as large as 305m.
1. Plane Reflector Antenna:- It consists of primary antenna and reflecting
surface. With this arrangement, it is useful to radiate EM energy in the desired
direction but not possible to collimate energy in forward direction.
2. Corner Reflector Antenna:- It consists of two or three mutually intersecting
conducting flat surfaces. In this type, feed element can be either dipole or array
of collinear dipoles. The corner reflector antenna type is used to achieve
collimation of EM energy in forward direction. It is used to suppress radiation in
the backward and in the side directions.
3. Parabolic reflector antenna:- This type of antenna has shape of paraboloid and
hence it has properties of a parabola. The various feed antennas are used at focal
point. Figure shows horn antenna at feed point. As shown waves generated by horn
antenna are incident on reflector. The reflector reflects them back which forms plane
wavefront. The radiation is concentrated along the parabola axis. The waves are
cancelled in other directions due to path as well as phase differences. This way
parabolic reflector antenna converts spherical wave into plane wave.
F. Lens antenna
A lens antenna uses the convergence and divergence properties of a lens to transmit
and receive signals. These antennas consist of a dipole or horn antenna followed by
a lens. The size of the lens used depends on the operating frequency - the higher the
frequency the smaller the lens. Due to this lens antennas are used at high
frequencies as they can be quite bulky at lower frequencies.
• While transmitting, the lens is placed in such a way that the feeding antennas is
located at its focal point, this way we get collimated or parallel rays at the
output of the lens. The feed is usually a horn antenna that generates a spherical
wavefront or an antenna array that produces a cylindrical wavefront. While
receiving, when the incident rays strike the lens they get refracted and get
converged to the focal point where the receptor is located.
• These types of antennas are used for high-frequency applications that require
wide bandwidths.
• There are two main types of lens antennas:
• Di-electric lens or Delay lens Antennas
• Metal plate lens antennas.
• Di-electric lens antennas :- spherical wavefront produced by primary feed
antenna is converted into plane wavefront by dielectric lens. It is also known as
delay lens antenna due to the fact that outgoing EM rays are collimated &
delayed by lens material, is usually made up of polystyrene or Lucite and
polyethylene. These types of antennas are usually used Microwave and mm-
Wave frequencies as for frequencies less than 3 GHz they become heavy and
bulky.
• metal plate lens antenna. In this type of lens antenna, spherical wavefront is
converted into plane wavefront but here outgoing wavefront is speeded up by
material of lens. The same operation is shown in the figure.
Basic characteristics of antenna
• Antenna Radiation Pattern
• Radiation Intensity
• Directivity and Gain
• Radiation Efficiency and Power Gain
• Input Impedance
• Effective Length
• Bandwidth
• Effective Aperture
• Antenna Polarization
 Radiation Pattern
• A antenna cannot radiate signals in all the directions
with equal strength. But, in case of radiation pattern an
antenna mostly transmit signal in one direction. Field
Strength is the quantity that is used to represent the
radiation pattern of an antenna. Field strength can be
measured by calculating to different voltage prints of
an electric line.
• 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. Radiation properties include
power flux density, radiation intensity, field strength,
directivity, phase or polarization.
 Radiation Intensity
Steradian :- One steradian is defined as the solid angle with its vertex
at the center of a sphere of radius r that is subtended by a spherical
surface area equal to that of a square with each side of length r . Since
the area of a sphere of radius r is A = 4πr 2 , there are 4π sr in a closed
sphere.
Radiation intensity in a given direction is defined as the power
radiated from an antenna per unit solid angle. The radiation intensity
is a far-field parameter. •It can be obtained by simply multiplying the
radiation density by the square of the distance.
U = r 2Wrad
"U’ is the radiation intensity (W/unit solid angle)
Wrad: radiation density (W/m2)
• The radiation intensity of an antenna is the power per unit
solid angle. It is represented by U and is independent to
distance from the antenna. Units of radiation intensity are
Watts per steradian (W/Sr).
 Directivity and Gain
• An antenna which transmit energy in all directions equally
i.e. an omnidirectional antenna is called as Isotropic
Antenna. An isotropic antenna doesn’t exist in practice.
But if we consider an isotropic antenna, then its power
density will be same at all points on the sphere of
radiation. Hence, the average power of an antenna as a
function of radiated power is

• The ratio of power density to the average power radiated is

known as Directive Gain
 Radiation Efficiency and Power
Gain
• Radiation Efficiency is the ratio of the radiated power to the
input power.

• Power Gain of an Antenna is the ratio of the power radiated in

a direction to the total input power.
• Gain of an antenna 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”
 Input Impedance
• We should match the input impedance of the
antenna to that of the input transmission line.
Because, If the input impedance doesn’t
match, then the system degrades over time
due to the reflected power.
• E. Effective Length
The length of an imaginary linear antenna which is uniformly
distributed is defined as the Effective Length of an antenna.

• Bandwidth:-
The bandwidth can be define as: the range of frequencies, on either side of
a center frequency (usually the resonance frequency for a dipole), where
the antenna characteristics (such as input impedance, pattern, beamwidth,
polarization, side lobe level, gain, beam direction, radiation efficiency) are
within an acceptable value of those at the center frequency.
• For broadband antennas, the bandwidth is usually expressed as the
ratio of the upperto-lower frequencies of acceptable operation. For
example, a 10:1 bandwidth indicates that the upper frequency is 10
times greater than the lower.
• For narrowband antennas, the bandwidth is expressed as a percentage
of the frequency difference (upper minus lower) over the center
frequency of the bandwidth. For example, a 5% bandwidth indicates
that the frequency difference of acceptable operation is 5% of the
center frequency of the bandwidth.
• G. Effective Aperture
• The term effective aperture or effective area is
associated with the receiving antenna. Effective
Aperture or Area of an antenna is the measure of
the ability of an antenna to extract energy from
the electromagnetic wave.
• H. Antenna Polarization
• The Antenna Polarization refers to the physical
orientation of the electromagnetic wave radiated
in a given direction. There are other characteristics
like Antenna Temperature, beamwidth, beam
efficiency etc. which are also critical.