Resonant Antennas: Wires and Patches

In this chapter we discuss several resonant wire antennas such as straight

wire dipoles, vee dipoles, folded dipoles, Yagi-Uda arrays, and Microstrip
antennas. A resonant antenna is a standing wave antenna (e.g., a dipole)
with zero input reactance at resonance.

Dipole Antennas

For dipoles, we assume that the current distribution is sinusoidal. This is a

good approximation verified by measurements. The current must, of course,
be zero at the ends. We are, in effect, using the current distribution that is
found on an open-circuited parallel wire transmission line. It is assumed that
if the end of such a transmission line is bent out to form a wire antenna, the
current distribution along the bent portion is essentially unchanged.
Although this is not strictly true, it is a good approximation for thin antennas,
for which the conductor diameter is on the order of 0.01λ or smaller.

Straight Wire Dipoles

 A straight dipole antenna is shown in Fig. 1 oriented along the z-axis. It

is fed at the center from a balanced two-wire transmission line, that is,
the currents on each wire are equal in magnitude and opposite in
direction.

Figure 1: The dipole antenna

 The current distribution along the antenna is assumed to be sinusoidal
and can be written as

 The dipole is surrounded by free space, thus, the phase constant is

that of free space, β.

 It is helpful to visualize the current distribution on an antenna. Fig.2

shows the current on a dipole for L < λ/2.

Figure 2 Current distribution on a dipole of length L < λ/2.

 The solid lines indicate actual currents on the antenna and the dotted
lines indicate extensions of the sine wave function.
 The maximum current on the antenna shown in Fig. 2 is at the input
terminals where z = 0 and is of a value I msin (βL/2).
 The arrows in Fig. 2 show the current direction. The currents on the top
and bottom halves of the antenna are in the same direction at any
instant of time, and thus the radiation effects from each half reinforce.
 In Fig. 3, current distributions on various dipoles are plotted together
with the antennas used to generate them.
 The sinusoidal curves superimposed on the antennas indicate the
intensity of the current on the wire—that is, the value of the curve at
 point z is the current value on the wire at the same point z. Again, the
arrows indicate current directions.

Fig .3 Current distributions for various center-fed dipoles. Arrows indicate

relative current directions for these maximum current conditions.

 To construct plots such as these, begin on the z-axis at one end of the
wire where the current is zero and draw a sine wave while moving
toward the feed point.
 The current on the other half is then the mirror image. For dipoles
longer than one wavelength, the currents on the antenna are not all in
the same direction.

 It is assumed that a sinusoidal waveform generator of radian frequency

ω=2πc/c/λ is connected to the input transmission line.
 To obtain the dipole radiation pattern, we first evaluate the radiation
integral

 Substituting the current expression from (6-1) gives

 Evaluating these integrals gives the unnormalized pattern

 Using this in (2-103) and (2-106) leads to the complete far-zone

electric field

 Noting that ωμ/β = η,, we see that this expression simplifies to

 The θ-variation of this function determines the far-field pattern. For L =

λ/2, it is

 This is the normalized electric field pattern of a half-wave dipole. The

half-power beamwidth is 780 and its pattern plot is shown in Fig. 4.
Figure 4 Radiation patterns of center-fed straight dipole antennas of length L.

 For a center-fed dipole with L = λ, the normalized electric field pattern

from (6-6) is

 The half-power beamwidth for this full-wave dipole is 47 0. Its pattern is

shown in Fig. 4b.

 If L = 3/2 λ , the pattern function is

The factor 0.7148 is the normalization constant.

 To obtain the radiation resistance, first the radiated power must be

found.
 Changing the integration variable to τ = cos θ, dτ = - sin θ dθ, gives

where in the last expression the identity

was used. Eq. (6-11) can be evaluated in terms of sine and cosine
integral functions.
 A simpler expression for the special case of the half-wave dipole is
obtainable in terms of a single cosine integral function. Thus, when βL/
2 = πc//2, (11) becomes

 Changing variables again as v = 1 - τ and w = 1 + τ and substituting

into (13)

 Changing the variable of integration to t = πc/v leads to

 where Cin(x) is related to the cosine integral function. In this case,
Cin(2πc/) = 2.44. Using this and η = 120πc/ in (6-l5) leads to the radiation
resistance for a half-wave dipole as

 For the half-wave dipole, the reactance is inductive, and the complete
input impedance is

 Input resistance is related to radiation resistance. Radiation resistance

is defined using the current distribution maximum Im, whether or not it
actually occurs on the antenna. We shall use the symbol Rrm for this
definition.
 It is also useful to refer the radiation resistance to the input terminal
point. In this case, the symbol Rri is used. These definitions can be
related by writing the radiated power as

 For dipoles that are odd integer multiples of a half-wavelength long, I m

= I A and Rrm = Rri . A third radiation resistance, denoted by Rr , is often
used;
 It is the radiation resistance relative to the maximum current that
occurs on the antenna.
 For dipoles less than a half-wavelength long, the current maximum on
the antenna always occurs at the center, and then Rri = Rr for center-
fed dipoles.
 It is related to Rrm for center-fed dipoles by setting Z = 0 in (1), giving
  and substituting into (6-18), which yields

 Finally, the directivity of a half-wave dipole is found from D = 4πc/ U m =

P. The radiated power P was evaluated in (6-15). Using the far-zone
electric field of (6-6) leads to the maximum radiation intensity as

So,

 This is only slightly greater than the directivity value of 1.5 for an ideal
dipole with uniform current.
 So for very short dipoles, the directivity is 1.5 and increases to 1.64 as
the length is increased to a half-wavelength. As length is increased
further, directivity also increases.
 A full-wave dipole has a directivity of 2.41. Even more directivity is
obtained for a length of about 1.25λ. As the length is increased further,
the pattern begins to break up and directivity drops sharply.

The Vee Dipole

 Wire dipole antennas that are not straight also appear in practice. One
such antenna is the vee dipole shown in Fig. 6-9.

Figure 9 The vee dipole antenna.

 This antenna may be visualized as an open-circuited transmission line
that has been bent so that ends of length h have an included angle of
γ.
 The angle γ for which the directivity is greatest in the direction of the
bisector of γ is given by

 Where the resulting angle γ is in degrees. The corresponding directivity

is

 The directivity of a vee dipole can be greater than that of a straight

dipole. This can be seen from the pattern in Fig.10
  Where h = 0.75λ and γ from (23) is 118.5 0 . Notice that the direction of
maximum radiation is φ = 90 0while radiation in the φ = 2700 direction is
about 2 dB less.
 The directivity for the vee dipole of Fig. 10 from (24) is D = 2.94(0.75)
+ 1.15 = 3.355 = 5.26 dB. The directivity of a 1.5 λ long straight wire
dipole is about 2.2, or 3.4 dB.
 The input impedance of a vee dipole antenna is generally less than
that of a straight dipole of the same length.

YAGI-UDA ANTENNAS
Introduction

 One way to obtain more gain out of dipole type antennas is to use
more than one in an array configuration. Usually arrays have all
elements identical and are active, requiring a direct connection to each
element by a feed network.
 The array configuration studied in this section usually has only one
element directly connected to a transmitter and/or receiver while the
other elements are parasitic. Such an array is referred to as a
parasitic array.
 The elements that are not directly driven (called parasitic elements)
receive their excitation by near-field electromagnetic coupling from the
driven element.
 A parasitic linear array of parallel dipoles is called a Yagi-Uda antenna,
a Yagi-Uda array, or simply “Yagi.”
 Yagi-Uda antennas are very popular because of their simplicity and
relatively high gain.
 The basic unit of a Yagi consists of three elements. To
understand the principles of operation for a three-element Yagi, we
begin with a driven element (or “driver”) and add parasites to the
array.
 Consider a driven element that is a resonant half-wave dipole. If a
parasitic element is positioned very close to it, the field incident on the
parasite element is that of the field leaving the driver:

Eincident = Edriver (41)

 The current excited on the parasite and the resulting radiated electric
field, Eparasite, also tangent to the wire, is almost equal in amplitude
and opposite in phase to the incident wave from the driver due to the
small separation distance between them.

 The field radiated by the parasite is such that the total tangential field
on the parasite is zero, or 0 = Eincident = E parasite Combining this fact with
(41) gives

E parasite − E incident = − E driver (42)

 From the two-element array theory, we know that two closely spaced
equal amplitude, opposite phase elements will have an endfire pattern.
 The pattern of this simple two-element parasitic array for 0.04λ
spacing is shown in Fig. 5.

Figure: 5 Two-element array of half-wave resonant dipoles, one a driver and the
other a parasite.

 A feature of the Yagi is that different lengths of parasitic elements

behave in substantially different ways.
 If the parasitic element is longer than resonant length, LR, it acts like a
reflecting element. If the parasitic element is shorter than resonant
length, LD, it can act as a directing element, or director, because it
directs radiation along the z-axis in Fig. 6-19.
 Figure 6-19 Configuration for a general Yagi-Uda antenna.

 These effects can be simulated for the close spacing used in Fig. 6-18
but are better done with more realistic reflector spacing, SR, and
director spacing, SD.
 Fig. 6-20 shows the E-plane pattern for a two-element array consisting
of only the reflector element and driver in Fig. 6-19 with spacings of
0.2λ. The driver length, L, is 0.47λ, and LR is 0.482λ. The radiation
pattern shows the reflecting action of the longer parasitic element.
 Fig. 6-21 shows the E-plane pattern for a two-element array consisting
of only one director element and driver, L = 0.47λ, in Fig. 6-19. The
director length, LD, is 0.42l λ.
 The radiation pattern shows the directing action of the shorter
element. The patterns in Figs. 6-20 and 6-21 suggest that further
enhancement in radiation in the z-direction might be obtained by using
both a reflector element and a director element.
 This is indeed the case. In Fig. 6-22 is the pattern of a three-element
array using the parameters of Figs. 6-20 and 6-21, except that the
director used in Fig. 6-22 is 0.442λ instead of 0.420λ. The 0.442λ
length is near optimum for the three-element array but does not work
very well in the two-element array.
 We will see that yet further enhancement in radiation in the z-direction
can be obtained by using more than one director as in Fig. 6-19.
 Figure 6-20 Two-element Yagi-Uda antenna consisting of a driver of length L =
0.47λ and a reflector of length 0.482λ, spaced 0.2λ apart. The wire radius for both is
0.00425λ.

 The maximum directivity obtainable from a three-element Yagi is

about 9 dBi or 7 dBd. Optimum reflector spacing SR (for maximum
directivity) is between 0.15 and 0.25 wavelengths as Fig. 6-23 shows.
 The gain above an isolated dipole is more than 2.5 dBd, whereas if a
flat plate were used, instead of a simple wirelike element, the gain
would be 3 dBd.
 Thus, a single wire-like reflector element is almost as effective as a flat
plate in enhancing the gain of a dipole.
Figure 6-23 Measured gain [11] in dBd of a dipole and reflector element for different
spacings SR.

 Director-to-director spacings are typically 0.2 to 0.35 wavelength with

the larger spacings being more common for long arrays and closer
spacings for shorter arrays.
 Fig. 6-24 shows. Fig. 6-24 plots the gain versus the number of
elements N in the array (including one reflector and one driver) for an
interelement spacing for all elements of SR = SD = 0.15λ.
 Note that adding one director to increase N from 3 to 4 gives about a
1-dB gain increase, whereas adding one director to increase N from 9
to 10 yields only about an additional 0.2-dB gain.
Figure 6-24 Gain of a typical Yagi-Uda antenna versus the total number of
elements. The element spacings SR = SD = 0.15λ. The conductorλ. The conductor
diameters are 0.0025λ. The conductorλ.

 The Yagi is one of the more popular antennas used in the HF–VHF–UHF
frequency range. It provides moderately high gain while offering low
weight and low cost.
 It has a relatively narrow bandwidth (e.g., a few percent), which may
be improved somewhat by using feeds other than a dipole, such as a
folded dipole.

Microstrip Antennas

 The microstrip antenna is a special type of printed antenna, which is

constructed using methods similar to those used for printed circuits.
 The MSA is usually less than 0.05λ thick, where λ is the free space
wavelength.
 The basic feeds for the patch are a probe feed using a coaxial
transmission line below the ground plane or an edge feed using a
coplanar microstrip transmission line connected to an edge of the
patch.
 The edge-fed patch is a very low profile antenna that also can include
other components using microwave integrated circuit techniques and
the feed network when arrayed.
  This offers the advantage of low-cost, controlled-dimension
construction. Printing on flexible substrates allows the microstrip
antenna to be wrapped conformally onto a vehicle,.
 Because the MSA is a resonant antenna it is narrowband, leading to its
biggest design challenge—achieving adequate bandwidth.
 Other disadvantages include spurious radiation from the feed, poor
cross polarization purity, limited power handling, and adjustment
difficulty after fabrication.

Microstrip Patch Antennas

 A microstrip device in its simplest form is a layered structure with two

parallel conductors separated by a thin dielectric substrate and the
lower conductor acting as a ground plane.
 If the upper metallization is a long narrow strip, a microstrip
transmission line is formed. If the upper conductor is a patch that is an
appreciable fraction of a wavelength in extent, the device becomes a
microstrip antenna, as illustrated in Fig. 5-54.
 The patch antenna belongs to the class of resonant antennas and its
resonant behavior is responsible for the main challenge in microstrip
antenna design-achieving adequate bandwidth.
 Conventional patch designs yield bandwidths as low as a few percent.
The resonant nature of microstrip antennas also means that at
frequencies below UHF they become excessively large.
 They are typically used at frequencies from 1 to 100 GHz. The tradeoff
in microstrip antennas is to design a patch with loosely bound fields
extending into space while keeping the fields tightly bound to the
feeding circuitry.
 This is to be accomplished with high radiation efficiency and with the
desired polarization, impedance, and bandwidth.
The Rectangular Patch Antenna.

 Figure 5-54 shows the most commonly used microstrip antenna, a

rectangular patch being fed from a microstrip transmission line.
 The substrate thickness “t” is much less than a wavelength. The
rectangular patch is usually operated near resonance in order to obtain
a real-valued input impedance.
 The amount of length reduction depends on ϵ r t, and W.
 Formulas are available to estimate the resonant length, but empirical
adjustments are often necessary in practice.
 An approximate value for the length of a resonant half-wavelength
patch is

 where λ is the free-space wavelength, λ d the wavelength in the

dielectric, and ϵ r the substrate dielectric constant.

 We focus our attention here on the half-wave patch antenna.

 The region between the conductors acts as a half-wavelength
transmission-line cavity that is open-circuited at its ends.
 Figure 5-54b shows the electric fields associated with the standing
wave mode in the dielectric. The electric field lines are perpendicular
to the conductors as required by boundary conditions and look much
like those in a parallel plate capacitor.
 The fringing fields at the ends are exposed to the upper half-space (z >
0) and are responsible for the radiation.
 The total fringing fields at the edges are 1800 out of phase and equal in
magnitude.
 Viewed from the top (see Fig. 5-54c), the x-components of the fringing
fields are actually in-phase, leading to a broadside radiation pattern;
that is, the peak radiation is in the +z-direction
 The fields along the edges associated with slots 1 and 2 are constant,
whereas those along the other edges, seen in side view in Fig. 5-54b,
have odd symmetry and their radiation cancels in the broadside
direction and is usually neglected.
  The width of the slots is often taken to be equal to the substrate
thickness, that is, s = t. The patch radiation is linearly polarized in the
xz-plane, that is, parallel to the electric fields in the slots.
 The pattern of a rectangular patch antenna is rather broad with a
maximum direction normal to the plane of the antenna.
 The far-field components

Where

and β is the usual free-space phase constant.

 The first factor is the pattern factor for a uniform line source of width
W in the y-direction.
 The second factor is the array factor for a two-element array along the
x-axis corresponding to the edge slots.
 The patch length L for resonance is given by (1). The patch width W is
selected to give the proper radiation resistance at the input, often 50
Ώ. The principal plane patterns follow from (2) as
  This simple pattern expression neglects substrate effects and slot
width (i.e., fringing).
 Typical input impedances at the edge of a resonant rectangular patch
range from 100 to 400Ώ. An approximate expression for the input
impedance (reactance is zero at resonance) of a resonant edge-fed
patch is

 Thus, the input impedance (resistance) is reduced by widening the

patch. For example, for a dielectric of ε r = 2.2, a width-to-length ratio
of WIL = 2.7 gives a 50 Ώ input impedance.

Techniques for feeding Patch Antenna

Inset Feed
 Previously, the patch antenna was fed at the end as shown. Since this
typically yields high input impedance, we would like to modify the
feed.
 Since the current is low at the ends of a half-wave patch and increases
in magnitude toward the center, the input impedance (Z=V/I) could be
reduced if the patch was fed closer to the center.
 One method of doing this is by using an inset feed (a distance R from
the end) as shown in Figure 1
 Figure 1. Patch Antenna with an Inset Feed.

 Since the current has a sinusoidal distribution, moving in a distance R

from the end will increase the current by cos(pi*R/L) - this is just noting
that the wavelength is 2*L, and so the phase difference is 2*pi*R/(2*L)
= pi*R/L.
 The voltage also decreases in magnitude by the same amount that the
current increases. Hence, using Z=V/I, the input impedance scales as:

 In the above equation, Zin(0) is the input impedance if the patch was
fed at the end. Hence, by feeding the patch antenna as shown, the
input impedance can be decreased.
 As an example, if R=L/4, then cos(pi*R/L) = cos(pi/4), so that
[cos(pi/4)]^2 = 1/2. Hence, a (1/8)-wavelength inset would decrease
the input impedance by 50%.
 This method can be used to tune the input impedance to the desired
value

Fed with a Quarter-Wavelength Transmission Line

 The microstrip antenna can also be matched to a transmission line of

characteristic impedance Z 0 by using a quarter-wavelength
transmission line of characteristic impedance Z1 as shown in Figure 2.
 Figure 2. Patch antenna with a quarter-wavelength matching section.

 The goal is to match the input impedance (Z❑) to the transmission line
( Z 0). If the impedance of the antenna is Z A , then the input impedance
viewed from the beginning of the quarter-wavelength line becomes

 This input impedance Z❑ can be altered by selection of the Z1 , so that

Z❑ = Z 0 and the antenna is impedance matched.
 The parameter Z1 can be altered by changing the width of the quarter-
wavelength strip. The wider the strip is, the lower the characteristic
impedance ( Z 0) is for that section of line.

Coaxial Cable or Probe Feed

 Microstrip antennas can also be fed from underneath via a probe as
shown in Figure 3.
 The outer conductor of the coaxial cable is connected to the ground
plane, and the center conductor is extended up to the patch antenna.
 Figure 3. Coaxial cable feed of patch antenna.

 The position of the feed can be altered as before (in the same way as
the inset feed, above) to control the input impedance.
 The coaxial feed introduces an inductance into the feed that may need
to be taken into account if the height h gets large (an appreciable
fraction of a wavelength).
 In addition, the probe will also radiate, which can lead to radiation in
undesirable directions.

Coupled (Indirect) Feeds

 The feeds above can be altered such that they do not directly touch
the antenna. For instance, the probe feed in Figure 3 can be trimmed
such that it does not extend all the way up to the antenna.
 The inset feed can also be stopped just before the patch antenna, as
shown in Figure 4.
 Figure 4. Coupled (indirect) inset feed.

 The advantage of the coupled feed is that it adds an extra degree of

freedom to the design.
 The gap introduces a capacitance into the feed that can cancel out the
inductance added by the probe feed.

Aperture Feeds

 Another method of feeding microstrip antennas is the aperture feed.

 In this technique, the feed circuitry (transmission line) is shielded from
the antenna by a conducting plane with a hole (aperture) to transmit
energy to the antenna, as shown in Figure 5.
 Figure 5. Aperture coupled feed.

 The upper substrate can be made with a lower permittivity to produce

loosely bound fringing fields, yielding better radiation.
 The lower substrate can be independently made with a high value of
permittivity for tightly coupled fields that don't produce spurious
radiation.
 The disadvantage of this method is increased difficulty in fabrication.

Microstrip Arrays

 As with any array, the array geometry can be linear, planar, or

conformal and the feed system can be parallel, series, or hybrid.
Parallel fed, planar microstrip arrays are examined here.
 We illustrate microstrip array design using a broadside-beam planar
array of N = 4n elements, where n is a positive integer.
 The goal is to achieve maximum gain, so uniform amplitude and phase
to each element are required.
 This design problem illustrates impedance- and phase-matching
techniques using a microstrip feed network.
 Figure 5-57a shows the fundamental 2 X 2 subarray unit that can be
used to build up very large arrays.
 Four patches are fed at their edges by microstrip lines that are of equal
length from the subarray center (point C) to preserve equal excitation
phase.
 The operatin....8 frequency is 10 GHz (A = 3 cm) and the substrate has
Sr = 2.2, so Ad = Alv'sr = 2.02 cm.
 The element spacing in both principal directions is d = O.BA = 2.4 cm.
The length of each half-wave patch from (5-72) is L = 0.49Ad = 0.99
cm.
 The desired input impedance is 200 0, so (5-75) can be used to solve
for the patch width:

 Impedance matching is accomplished by connecting a 200-0

characteristic impedance microstrip line to a patch.
 The parallel feed network shown in Fig. 5-57a uses two divide-by-two
operations to reach each element, yielding the desired 50-0 input
impedance at point C.
 For example, for the upper two elements, since ZA = 200 0 is matched
to the lines with Zol = 200 0, the left and right lines present
impedances of 200 0 at point B.
 Their parallel combination yields 100 0, which is matched to the line
Zo2 = 100 O. This line impedance at point C is still 100 O.
 Combining this in parallel with the lower two elements gives 50 O. A
probe could be connected from the ground plane backing the subarray
at point C. Or, as shown in Fig. 5-57b, another microstrip line can be
used to connect to other similar subarrays to build up a large array.
 A quarter-wave transformer of Z~3 = YZCZ04 = V50' 100 = 70.7 0 is
used for impedance matching; this, of course, introduces bandwidth
limitations. Arrays similar to the one shown in Fig: 5-57 have been
constructed and measured for N = 16, 64, 256, and 1024 elements.
 The gain of the array with spacings of d = O.BA is easily computed
using

 Since the array is uniformly excited, if there were no losses, sap would
be close to 100%. However, there are losses due to radiation from the
transmission lines, surface waves, and dissipation in the lines that
reduce the aperture efficiency.
 Measured gain was close to that computed using (5-BO) with sap = 0.5
for arrays up to 1024 elements.
 This is competitive with a conventional aperture antenna such as a
reflector of the same area. However, arrays with many more than 1024
elements experience significant dissipative loss in the feed network,
resulting in efficiencies less than 50%.

Figure 11-7 A planar microstrip array with a feed network that produces equal
amplitude and phase element excitations.