Antenna and Wave Propagation

PREPARED BY
MUHAMMAD MOSTAFA AMIR FAISAL
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT OF ETE
IIUC
 Lecture 1

G U I D E L I N E S

W H E R EIS IT IN OVERALL
TELECOMMUNICATION?

W H A T I S A N A N T E N N A ?

W H E N D O E S A N T E N N A R A D I A T E ?

W H Y A R E T H E Y F L A R E D O U T

W H Y C U R R E N T F L O W S T H R O U G H O P E N ?
Guidelines

 Please attend classes regularly.

 Sudden Class Test can be held at any time.
 Tutorial sessions will be there when necessary.
 Class test schedule and syllabus will be of your choice.
 If you don’t sit for class tests, sudden class test marks will
be finalized.
 If you sit for class test, then sudden class test will carry 4
marks and normal class test will carry the rest 6 marks.
 No proxy is allowed, NC and DC will be maintained.
 Higher order learning questions will be there, so be
attentive in the class.
Guidelines

List of References
1. Slides and PDFs given
2. Antenna Theory: Analysis and Design by Constantine
A. Balanis
3. Antenna and Wave Propagation by John D Kraus,
Ronald J Marhefka and Ahmad S Khan
4. www.antennatheory.com

 Any absence without prior notification will result in

absence in attendance sheet, and the things prepared to
be covered in that particular class will not be covered.
What are we covering here?
What is an Antenna?

 An antenna (plural antennae or antennas), or aerial, is an

electrical device which converts electric
power into electromagnetic waves or converts electrons to
photons, and vice versa. It is usually used with a radio
transmitter or radio receiver.

 In transmission, a radio transmitter supplies an electric

current oscillating at radio frequency (i.e. a high
frequency alternating current (AC)) to the antenna's
terminals, and the antenna radiates the energy from the
current as electromagnetic waves (radio waves).

 In reception, an antenna intercepts some of the power of an

electromagnetic wave in order to produce a tiny voltage at its
terminals, that is applied to a receiver to be amplified.
When Does Antenna Radiate?

 From EM Wave theory, accelerated (or decelerated)

charges or alternating current create EM wave.
Accelerated charges create disturbance in the electric
field surrounding the charge, and that disturbance is
propagated as EM wave at the speed of light.

 In theory, alternating currents flowing through wires and

transmission lines should also radiate EM wave, but we
don’t find so, why?

 Radiation actually occurs from wires carrying accelerated

charges, but very inefficiently.
When Does Antenna Radiate?

 Just like in ac circuits where maximum power is delivered to the load at

resonance, antenna also has a resonance frequency due to its distributed
inductances and capacitances. In that frequency, power that is delivered to
antenna is radiated to free space.

 More away the frequency is from the resonant frequency, Radiation

becomes lesser and reflection higher.

 Experimentally it is seen that antenna resonates best when its length is half
of the wavelength at operating frequency

 Normally the separation between wires of a transmission lines are of

several order of magnitudes smaller than the required length of antenna to
resonate. As a result, they don't radiate. Whenever the resonant length is
achieved, radiation results.

 Is that all! Definitely not: like impedance matching between antenna and
space etc...
Antenna a transition device
When Does Antenna Radiate?

 So what are the conditions to achieve radiation from

an antenna? (Hint: 2)

 Can DC power supplies to antenna cause antenna to

radiate?

 What will be the size of the antenna to realize

effective radiatiation when antenna is fed with 50Hz
electrical signal?
Why is it flared out?

 In cases of perfect open circuits or perfect short circuits,

theoretically there must be perfect reflection.

 Since the wave possesses a moment of inertia like property, it will

take some time to change its direction. However small this time is,
some energy is likely to leak into space. This leakage can be termed
as Radiation.

 The more is the opening at the end of the line, more time will be
required by wave to change its direction and thus more energy will
leak into space.

 Then when will maximum occur? If this is the case why is it not
always used? Can you now add to your answer why transmission
lines don’t radiate?
Other Views?

 In the ideal case, the currents on both conductors are

equal and opposite. That means that at any instant the
currents on the lines are flowing in opposite directions. A
consequence of this is that the electrical and magnetic
fields surrounding the two conductors are equal in
magnitude, but in opposite directions. At any distance
from the line, the fields sum to give the total effect, which
is zero, since one is positive and the other is negative.

by Walt Fair, Jr., W5ALT

(You can go on and on with the views like impedance
matching etc..)
Can DC sometimes cause Radiation?
Some Debates (1)

 How can any current flow, since there is no complete circuit from "-" to "+" of
V1?

 Consider this: relative to the speed at which the waves in the electromagnetic
fields propagate, the dipole is long. It's true that current can't flow, but it
doesn't know that until it gets to the end of the wire. As the current approaches
the end of the wire but has no place to go, the charges pile up until they are
pushed back in the other direction. By the time it's back, it's travelled λ/2 or
experienced a 180∘ phase shift. The voltage at V1 has also changed by this
point, and so the current is constructively adding to the new currents being
produced by V1. If it were not for some of this energy being lost as radiation,
the energy in this antenna would grow without bound.

 Why the energy radiates is complicated. The long answer is "Maxwell's

equations". If you don't want to understand all the gritty details of that math,
then here's a simple, incomplete understanding: the current in an antenna is
associated with a magnetic field, and the voltage is associated with an electric
field. An antenna is an arrangement such that at some distance away from the
antenna (the far field) these two fields are mutually perpendicular and in
phase, and what you get is a self-propagating wave like this:
Some Debates (2)

 There are basically two types of small antennas: the small loop
antenna, and the short dipole antenna. The small loop antenna is
just a ring of wire, and any current in the wire produces a magnetic
field surrounding the antenna. The device is an inductor, but one
that has a large space-filling magnetic field.

 On the other hand, the short dipole antenna is just a pair of metal
"capacitor plates" sticking out into the air, and if a voltage is applied
across them, there will be an e-field in the surrounding space. The
device is just a capacitor, but again, it has a large space-filling field
in the surrounding region.

 Apply a sine wave instead of constant volts or current, and the fields
around the "antennas" will expand, then contract to zero, then
expand again but pointing backwards ...then repeat. No waves are
generated, so they really aren't radio antennas at all. But they are
creating some local EM fields in space.
Some Debates (2)

 OK so far? The loop antenna generates a magnetic field, and the dipole antenna
generates an electric field. The weird stuff starts happening when we drive
either antenna with very high frequency. That, or we can build a version of
either antenna with such a large size that even 60Hz will be a type of "radio
signal" as far as the antenna is concerned.

 Here's the thing: the magnetic or electric fields surrounding those antennas
cannot expand or contract faster than the speed of light. So, what happens if
the AC pulses applied to these devices are "too fast?" The fields around
inductors or capacitors have to balloon outwards and then get sucked back in
again, but what if the speeds are nearly the speed of light? That's when the
fields stop acting like inflating or contracting invisible balloons. Instead the
fields start behaving as waves.

 So, when we reverse the polarity during the AC sine wave, the e-field or the b-
field doesn't get entirely sucked back in as usual. Instead it peels loose from the
antenna and just keeps moving. Some of the field-energy isn't retrieved, and
instead is lost into space. Our loop antenna is no longer just an inductor, and
it's started making waves. And our dipole is now a wave-launcher and not just a
capacitor.
Some Debates (3)

 Great question! Complex answer. To understand why this happens without a return
path ("negative pole") you have to move beyond Ohms-Law.

 All accelerated charges radiate. So everything that conducts alternating current

acts as an antenna. However often they are poor antennas and don't radiate well. As
a result this aspect can often be simply ignored to simplify the problem.

 To make a good antenna you have to transfer power (the energy is contained in
voltages and currents) into electromagnetic radiation (where the energy is contained
in the E- and H-fields) travelling away from the antenna. This requires the
impedance of your antenna to be roughly matched, and that the currents that cause
radiation add up in-phase so they don't cancel each other out as they would in a
transmission line. As Jim Dearden mentioned you can design this to get standing
waves or cancel them out depending on the physical length.

 The problem with your question about "not having a negative pole" is related to
using a simplified circuit model that is unconcerned with the 3d aspects and fields of
voltage and current. Current can flow in anything that is conductive (poles or no
poles). External EM (electromagnetic) waves do this all time. However there is no
ohm-law model that can predict this.
Some Debates (3)

 To move a step up from simple ohms law, engineers have adopted a

"Radiation Resistance" model. This is used in a similar fashion as standard
ohmic resistance. In ohms law the energy dissipated is turned into heat. In
the radiation resistance model the energy dissipated is turned into, well,
radiation.

 Radiation resistance is only a simple tool to help engineers evaluate a

known circuit element (i.e. usually some RF guy computed it for you)
without having to use Maxwell's Equations and applying the boundary
conditions to the physical circuit to understand exactly the modes of
radiation.

 The real key to understanding a circuit's behaviour is to understand when

the radiation aspects are important to take into consideration. When the
frequency of operation of a circuit has a wavelength that is physically close
to the size of the circuit, then Ohm's Law starts to break down quickly. As a
rule of thumb if the ratio between wavelength and circuit size is greater
than 0.1 then you need to apply Maxwell's Equations to understand how
that circuit is going to work.
Conclusion

 Whatever it is, we need to know that it works! As

engineers, to design antennas and work with it, it
suffices.

 But there are definitely some facts, like ohm’s law

cannot be applied here!

Your assignment: Filtering the facts from the ocean of

debates going on!