EIT-M

SCHOOL OF ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING

STREAM OF COMMNICATION ENGINEERING

MINI PROJECT ON ANTENNA:

APERTURE ANTENNA

Name Id
Milliona Mehari Eitm/ur82853/07
Yosef weldegebreil Eitm/ur83444/07
Muse Tueum Eitm/ur82899/07
Mahlet Zenebe Eitm/ur82853/07

Submitted to inst. Tekle b.

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Table of Contents
Chapter-1 ..................................................................................................................................................... 4
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 4
1.1 background ........................................................................................................................................ 4
1.2literature review ................................................................................................................................. 6
1.3 Statement of Problem ....................................................................................................................... 7
1.4 Objectives..................................................................................................................................... 7
1.4.1 General Objective........................................................................................................................ 7
1.4.2 Specific Objectives....................................................................................................................... 7
1.5 Methodology ...................................................................................................................................... 8
Chapter 2 ..................................................................................................................................................... 9
Aperture antenna ........................................................................................................................................ 9
2.1 Type Of Antenna ............................................................................................................................... 9
2.2.1 Slot Antenna ............................................................................................................................. 10
2.2.2 Horn Antenna ........................................................................................................................... 12
2.2.3 Waveguide Antenna ................................................................................................................. 15
Chapter-3 ................................................................................................................................................... 17
System model and design.......................................................................................................................... 17
3.1 Waveguides ...................................................................................................................................... 17
3.2 Input Impedance and VSWR ......................................................................................................... 17
3.3 Directivity ........................................................................................................................................ 17
3.4 Gain .................................................................................................................................................. 17
3.5 Efficiency ......................................................................................................................................... 18
3.6 Radiation Pattern ............................................................................................................................ 18
3.7 Rectangular Waveguide ................................................................................................................. 18
3.8 Circular Aperture ........................................................................................................................... 19
3.9 Design ............................................................................................................................................... 19
chapter-4 .................................................................................................................................................... 21
Result and discussion ................................................................................................................................ 21
4.1 VSWR Vs frequency plot ............................................................................................................... 21
4.2 Return loss Vs frequency................................................................................................................ 22
4.3 Gain .................................................................................................................................................. 22
4.4 input impedance Vs frequency....................................................................................................... 23

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.................................................................................................................................................................... 23
4.5 Radiation pattern ............................................................................................................................ 23
Chapter 5 ................................................................................................................................................... 24
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 24

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 Chapter-1

Introduction

1.1 background
Aperture antennas are very common at microwave frequencies where the transmission media are
waveguides. They may take the form of the opening of a waveguide, a horn or a reflector, where
the transmission media are waveguides. The geometry of the aperture may be square, rectangular,
circular, elliptical, or virtually any other shape. Horn antennas have been widely used for space
applications from the very beginning due to Their capability of being best operation from
Megahertz to Gigahertz to Terra hertz range. In practice, the rectangular aperture is probably
the most common microwave antenna. Because of its configuration, the rectangular coordinate
system is the most convenient system to express the fields at the aperture and to perform the
integration Reflector antennas are characterized by very high gains (30 dB and higher) and narrow
main beams. The aperture fields over an open-ended waveguide are not uniform over the aperture.
The standard assumption is that they are equal to the fields that would exist if the guide were to be
continued. The only practical way to increase the directivity of a waveguide is to flare out its ends
into a horn. Pyramidal Horn is the best horn as it has equal radiation patterns in both E-plane
and H-plane along with its high gain and directivity.

Horn antennas have been widely used for space applications from the very beginning due to
their capability of being best operation from Megahertz to Gigahertz to Terra hertz range.
advantages of horn antennas over other types of antennas are: a, Horn antennas needs High data
rate systems operation at a higher frequency range in order to achieve higher bandwidth .
b, Power handling capability of horn antenna is also superior to other antennas as it is
waveguide fed antenna. c, The gain of a horn is usually very close to its directivity because
the radiation efficiency is very good (low losses). If the horn length is increases then Gain is
decreases, which is one disadvantage of horn antennas. The pyramidal horn is the most widely
used antenna for feeding large microwave dish antennas and for calibrating them.

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The radiation characteristics of wire antennas can be determined once the current distribution on
the wire is known. For many configurations, however, the current distribution is not known exactly
and only physical intuition or experimental measurements can provide a reasonable approximation
to it. This is even more evident in aperture antennas (slits, slots, waveguides, horns, reflectors,
lenses). It is therefore expedient to have alternate methods to compute the radiation characteristics
of antennas. Emphasis will be placed on techniques that for their solution rely primarily not on the
current distribution but on reasonable approximations of the fields on or in the vicinity of the
antenna structure. One such technique is the Field Equivalence Principle.

Field equivalence, is a principle by which the actual sources on an antenna aperture are replaced
by equivalent sources on an external closed surface that is physically outside the antenna aperture.
The fictitious sources are said to be equivalent with in a region because they produce the same
fields within that region. Another key concept is Huygens’ principle, which states that the
equivalent source at each point on the external surface is a source of a spherical wave. The
secondary wave front can be constructed as the envelope of these secondary spherical waves.
Using these principles, the electrical and/or magnetic fields in the equivalent aperture region can
be determined with these straightforward, but approximate, methods. The fields elsewhere are
assumed to be zero. In most applications, the closed surface is selected so that most of it coincides
with the conducting parts of the physical antenna aperture structure. This is preferred because the
disappearance of the tangential electrical components over the conducting parts of the surface
reduces the physical limits of integration. The formula to compute the fields radiated by the
equivalent sources is exact, but it requires integration over the closed surface. The degree of
accuracy depends on the knowledge of the tangential components of the electromagnetic fields
over the closed surface.

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1.2literature review
Scientists named M. P. Hurst and R. Mittra, states Aperture antennas are very popular for
aerospace applications because they can be flush-mounted onto the spacecraft or aircraft
surface. Their aperture opening can be covered with an electromagnetic (dielectric) window
material that is transparent to the RF energy to protect the antenna from the environmental
conditions. This is known as a radome, and it is implemented so as not to disturb the
aerodynamic profile of the vehicle, which is of special importance to high-speed aircraft or
missiles. Aperture antennas are most commonly used at microwave and the millimeter-wave
frequencies. Introduced by Schelkunoff, a principle by which the actual sources on an antenna
aperture are replaced by equivalent sources on an external closed surface that is physically
outside the antenna aperture. The electromagnetic properties of a material can be described by
its permittivity and permeability, these two parameters macroscopically describe the effects of
induced electric and magnetic polarization explained by Russian physicist Viktor Veselago,
theoretically analyzed plane wave propagation in a substance with negative ε or μ. His study
shows that, in such media, direction of the Poynting vector is antiparallel to the direction of
phase velocity, consequently, he referred such media as “left handed media”. Mallahzadeh et
al has explained a modified double ridged antenna for the 2-18 GHz band .HFSS software
were used for analysis of designed antenna. Compared to conventional antennas DRH with
rectangular openings, the antenna designed (with smaller opening) has low cross polarization
and lower eight. Double ridged. Waveguides are still needed in some applications Waveguides
offers the advantages such as lower loss and high power handling capability. Waveguide
antennas are characterized using several parameters like gain, voltage standing wave ratio
(VSWR), geometry, half-power beam width, frequency of operation, and polarization.

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1.3 Statement of Problem
VSWR(voltage standing wave ratio), directivity, loss tangent, beam width and impedance
matching are important parameters of antenna. The waveguide with terminated end acts as
antenna. The main advantages of waveguide is radiation is greater than two-wire transmission
line and the pattern is omni-directional. But only a small portion of the energy is radiated while
a large portion of it gets reflected back in the open circuit. It means VSWR value increase.
The diffraction around the waveguide provides poor radiation. These are the main limitations
of wave guide aperture antennas.

1.4 Objectives
1.4.1 General Objective
 Design and modeling of circular and rectangular aperture antenna

1.4.2 Specific Objectives

 Design a circular and rectangular waveguide aperture antenna operating at x- band
application using HFSS
 .Performance analysis of aperture antenna in terms of:

 Return loss
 Gain
 Directivity
 Beam width
 Radiation pattern

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1.5 Methodology
 literature review: literature review surveys books, review papers, and any other source
related to our issue.
 Learn HFSS software and matlab
 Analysis: There two type of analysis, which are: quantitative and qualitative data
analysis.
 System model: includes a chart modeling of the procedures followed for dimension
Selection, and mathematical modeling.
 Design antenna
 Interpret and report

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 Chapter 2
Aperture antenna
2.1 Type Of Antenna
Antennas may be divided into various types depending upon:

1. The physical structure of the antenna

2. The frequency range of operation
3. The mode of applications etc.

Table 2.1 Antenna types and their applications.

Type of antenna Example Applications

Wire Dipole antenna, Personal applications,
Antennas Monopole antenna Buildings, ships,
Helix antenna automobiles, space crafts
Loop antenna
Aperture Waveguide (opening), Flush-mounted
Antennas Horn antenna applications, air-craft,
space-craft
Reflector Parabolic reflectors, corner Microwave communication,
Antennas reflectors satellite tracking, radio
astronomy
Micro strip Circular-shaped, Air-craft, space-craft,
Antennas rectangular shaped metallic satellites, missiles, cars,
patch above the ground mobile phones etc.
plane
Lens Convex-plane, Concave- Used for very high
Antennas plane, Convex-convex, frequency applications
Concave-concave lenses
Array Yagi-uda antenna, Micro Used for very high gain
Antennas strip patch array, Aperture applications, mostly when

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 array, Slotted waveguide needs to control the
array radiation pattern

2.2 Aperture Antenna

An antenna with an aperture at the end. The edge of a transmission line when terminated with an
opening, radiates energy. This opening which is an aperture makes it an aperture antenna. Aperture
is defined as the area, oriented perpendicular to the direction of an incoming electromagnetic wave,
which would interpret the same amount of power from that wave as is produced by the antenna
receiving it. 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.

The main categories of aperture antenna are-

1. Wave guide antenna

2. Horn antenna
3. Slot antenna

2.2.1 Slot Antenna

Is a type of antenna which is made on a conducting sheet.

Frequency Range

The frequency range used for the application of slot antenna is 300MHZ to

Construction and working of slot antennas

When am infinite conducting sheet is made a rectangular cut and the fields are excited in the
aperture (which is called as a slot), it is termed as Slot antenna. The principles of optics is
applied to electromagnetic waves for the wave to get radiated. It is true that when a HF field
exists across a narrow slot in a conducting plane, the energy is radiated. The image shows a slot
antenna

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 Figure 2.1 slot antenna

Radiation pattern

The radiation pattern of the slot antenna is Omni-directional like a half-wave dipole antenna.

Figure 2.2 Radiation pattern of slot antenna

Advantages

The following are the advantages of slot antenna

1. It can be fabricated and concealed within metallic objects

2. It can provide covert communications with a small transmitter

Disadvantages

The following are the disadvantages of slot antenna

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 1. Higher cross-polarization levels
2. Lower radiation efficiency

Applications

The following are the applications of slot antenna

1. Usually for radar navigational purposes

2. Used as an array fed by a wave guide

2.2.2 Horn Antenna

Horn antenna is an antenna that consists of a flaring metal waveguide shaped like a horn to direct
radio wave in abeam. The antenna is used to transmit radio waves from waveguide into space or
receive radio wave into a waveguide for reception. Also are used as feed in to antenna for larger
antenna structures as parabolic antennas, as standard calibration for larger antenna structure such
as directivity antennas with moderate directivity, low standing wave ratio ,broad bandwidth, and
simple construction and adjustment.

Frequency Range

The frequency range of a horn antenna is around 300MHZ to 30GHZ, which allows to work the
antenna in UHF and SHF frequency ranges.

Construction and working of horn antenna

The energy of the beam when slowly transform into radiation, the losses are reduced and the
focusing of the beam improves. A Horn antenna may be considered as a flared out wave guide. By
which the directivity is improved and the diffraction is reduced.

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 Figure 2.3 Horn antenna

The above image shows the model of a horn antenna. The flaring of a horn antenna is clearly
shown. There are several horn configurations out of which, three configuration are most commonly
used.

Sectorial horn

This type of horn antenna flares out in only one direction. Flaring in the direction of electric vector
produces the sectorial E-plane horn. Similarly, flaring in the direction of magnetic vector,
produces the sectorial H-plane horn.

Pyramidal horn

This type of horn antenna has flaring on both sides. If flaring is done on both the E an H walls of
a rectangular wave guide, then the pyramidal horn antenna is produced. This antenna has the
shape of a truncated pyramid.

Conical horn

When the walls of a circular wave guide are flared, it is known as a conical horn. This is a logical
termination of a circular wave guide

Radiation pattern

The radiation pattern of a horn antenna is a spherical wave front. The wave radiates from the
aperture, minimizing the diffraction of waves. The flaring keeps the beam focused and radiated
beam has high directivity.

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 Figure 2.4 Radiation pattern of Horn antenna

Advantages

The following are the advantages of horn antenna

1. Small minor lobes are formed

2. Impedance matching is good
3. Greater directivity
4. Narrower beam width
5. Standing waves are avoid

Disadvantages

The following are the disadvantages of horn antenna

1. Designing of flare angle, decides the directivity

2. Flare angle and length of the flare should not be very small

Applications

The following are the application of horn antenna

1. Used for astronomical studies

2. Used in microwave applications

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2.2.3 Waveguide Antenna
Wave guide is an example of aperture antenna where the edge of a transmission line when
terminated with an opening, radiates energy. Is capable of radiating energy when excited at one
end opened at the other end. The radiation in waveguide is greater than a two wire transmission
line. The waveguide with terminated end act as an antenna. But only a small portion of energy is
radiated while a large portion of it gets reflected back in the open circuit. It means VSWR (Voltage
Standing Wave Ratio) value increases. The diffraction around the waveguide provides poor
radiation pattern.

Figure 2.5 waveguide antenna

Frequency Range

The operational frequency range of a waveguide is around 300MHZ to 30GHZ. This antenna
works in UHF and EHF frequency ranges.

Radiation pattern

The radiation pattern of waveguide antenna is poor and the pattern is non-directive, which means
omni-directional. An omni-directional pattern is the one which has no certain directivity but
radiates in all directions, hence it is called as non-directive radiation pattern.

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Advantages

The following are the advantages of the waveguide antenna

1. Radiation is greater than two-wire transmission line

2. Radiation is Omni-directional

Figure 2.6 Radiation pattern of waveguide antenna

Disadvantages

The following are the disadvantages of waveguide antenna

1. VSWR increases
2. Poor radiation

Applications

The following are the applications of the waveguide antenna

1. Microwave applications
2. Surface search radar applications

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 Chapter-3
System model and design
3.1 Waveguides
Waveguides are wideband devices ("a guide") for transporting electromagnetic energy from one
region to another. Typically, waveguides are hollow metal tubes (often rectangular or circular in
cross section). They are capable of directing power precisely to where it is needed, can handle
large amounts of power and function as a high-pass filter.

The waveguide acts as a high pass filter in that most of the energy above a certain frequency (the
cutoff frequency) will pass through the waveguide, whereas most of the energy that is below the
cutoff frequency will be attenuated by the waveguide. Waveguides are often used at microwave
frequencies (greater than 300 MHz, with 8 GHz and above being more common).

3.2 Input Impedance and VSWR

Input impedance is defined as the impedance presented by the antenna at its terminals or the ratio
of the voltage to current at its terminals. If the antenna is not matched to the interconnecting
transmission line, a standing wave is induced along the transmission line. The ratio of the
maximum voltage to the minimum voltage along the line is called the Voltage Standing Wave
Ratio (VSWR).

3.3 Directivity
The directivity is a measure that describes the directional transmitting properties of the antenna. It
is defined as the ratio of the antenna radiation intensity in a specific direction in space over the
radiation intensity of an isotropic source for the same radiated power. There are cases in which the
term directivity is implied to refer to its maximum value.

3.4 Gain
Gain provides information about the capacity of the antenna to direct the signal in a desired
direction compared to an isotropic antenna I the desired direction. The gain of the antenna is
closely related to the directivity, but takes into consideration the losses in the antenna as well as
its directional capabilities.

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3.5 Efficiency
The antenna efficiency is the ratio of directivity to gain. It takes into consideration all the power
lost before radiation. The losses may be due to mismatch at the input terminals, conduction losses,
dielectric losses and spillover losses.

3.6 Radiation Pattern

The antenna radiation pattern is the display of the radiation properties of the antenna as a function
of the spherical coordinates (θ,φ). In most cases, the radiation pattern is determined in the Far-
Field region for constant radial distance and frequency. A typical radiation pattern is characterized
by a main beam with 3 dB beamwidth and sidelobes at different levels. The antenna performance
is often described in terms of its principal E- and H-plane patterns. For a linearly polarized antenna,
the E- and H-planes are defined as the planes containing the direction of maximum radiation and
the electric and magnetic field vectors, respectively.

3.7 Rectangular Waveguide

In practice, the rectangular aperture is probably the most common microwave antenna. Because of
its configuration, the rectangular coordinate system is the most convenient system to express the
fields at the aperture and to perform the integration. For a rectangular aperture, of dimensions a
and b, and with a uniform distribution, the procedure to determine the optimum aperture
dimensions a, b to maximize the directivity at an edge angle θc of a given angular sector (0≤θ≤θc).
Thus to determine the optimum dimension b of the aperture so that the directivity is maximum at
an edge-of-coverage angle θce of an angular sector 0≤θ≤θce in the E -plane is given by,

E-Plane: b=λ/2sinθce

Similarly for the H-plane, the optimum dimension a is determined by

H-Plane: a=λ/2sinθch
Where θch is the angle, in the H-plane, at the edge-of-coverage (EOC) angular sector where the
directivity needs to be maximized
The directivity of the antenna is
D0=(4π/λ2)Aem

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3.8 Circular Aperture
A widely used microwave antenna is the circular aperture. One of the attractive features of this
configuration is its simplicity in construction. In addition, closed form expressions for the fields
of all the modes that can exist over the aperture can be obtained. The procedure followed to
determine the fields radiated by a circular aperture is identical to that of the rectangular. A
procedure similar to that for the rectangular aperture can be used for the circular aperture. For a
circular aperture with uniform distribution, the normalized power pattern multiplied by the
maximum directivity can be written as:
P(θ)=(2πa)2/{2J1(ka sinθ)/(ka sinθ)}
The maximum value of occurs when θ=0. However, for any other angle θ=θc, the maximum of the
pattern occurs when kasinθc=1.841
Or a=1.841λ/2π sinθc =λ/3.413 sinθc

The directivity based on the optimum radius is

D0=4π/λ2Ap=4π/λ2π(1.841λ2πsinθc)2=3.3893/sin2θc=1.079π/sin2θc

First and possibly most importantly, the waveguide has a cutoff frequency, fc. The cutoff
frequency is the frequency at which all lower frequencies are attenuated by the waveguide, and
above the cutoff frequency all higher frequencies propagate within the waveguide. The cutoff
frequency defines the high-pass filter characteristic of the waveguide: above this frequency, the
waveguide passes power, below this frequency the waveguide attenuates or blocks power.

3.9 Design
A rectangular waveguide cannot propagate below some certain frequency. This frequency is called
the cut-off frequency. The frequency band we choose for this project is X-band which ranges from
8.4GHZ to 12.4GHZ.The cutoff frequency depends on the shape and size of the cross section of
the waveguide. The larger the waveguide is, the lower the cutoff frequency for that waveguide is.
The lower cutoff frequency (or wavelength) for a particular mode in rectangular waveguide is
determined by the following equations .

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Where

a= Inside width (m), longest dimension

B=Inside height(m), shortest dimension

m=Number of 1/2 –wavelength variations of fields in the ‘’a’’ direction

n=Number of ½ -wavelength variations of fields in the ‘’b’’ direction

ε=permittivity (8.8541878E-12 for free space)

µ=permeability (4πE-7 for free space)

The TE10 mode is the dominant mode of a rectangular waveguide with a>b, since it has the lowest
attenuation of all modes. Either m or n can be zero, but not both. For TM modes, m=0 and n=0 are
not possible, thus, TM11 is the lowest possible TM mode. For simplification of theoretical study,
the standard WR-90 rectangular waveguide is used with cross section of 22.86mm×10.16 mm and
at operating frequency of antenna 10 GHz.

For TE10 dominant mode:

f10= 1/(2×(εµ)1/2 ) × 1/a=c/2a=3×108 /2×22.86×10-3

f10=6.56 GHZ

for the circular waveguide we choose 10mm frequency with 50mm height.

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 chapter-4
Result and discussion
4.1 VSWR Vs frequency plot

The VSWR(dB)of rectangular and circular waveguide increases as frequency increases, because
only a small portion of the energy is radiated while a large portion of it gets reflected back in the
open circuit. This waveguide antenna has to be further modified to achieve better performance,
which results in the formation of HORN antenna. At the design frequency, the VSWR value
must correspond to the range 1-2. The figure below shows the gained VSWR at 10GHZ is 1.38.

Figure 4.1 VSWR VS frequency plot

The next step to determine the design is good or not is to go for return loss Vs frequency plot.

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4.2 Return loss Vs frequency

Figure4.2 return loss Vs frequency plot of rectangular waveguide

These figures shows depending on the design frequency chosen, the return loss plot descends and
rises below -70dB at nearly the design frequency which is 9.5GHZ.

4.3 Gain

Figure 4.3 Gain

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From this figure we can conclude that the antenna is omni directional with poor radiation.

The obtained values are: peak gain 2.5, peak directivity of 2.44,maximam radiation intensity
0.19423,radiated power 0.9794w.

4.4 input impedance Vs frequency

Figure4.4 input impedance

4.5 Radiation pattern

figure 4.5 Radiation pattern

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 Chapter 5
Conclusion
The wave guide confines the wave to propagate in one dimension, so that, as the result gained the
wave losses no power while propagating. But due to total reflection at the walls of the waveguide
,waves are confined to the interior wave guide. So we can conclude that the wave guide antenna
have poor radiation.

The VSWR of waveguide increases as frequency increases, because only a small portion of the
energy is radiated while a large portion of it gets reflected back in the open circuit. This waveguide
antenna has to be further modified to achieve better performance, which results in the formation
of HORN antenna.

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