DIRECTIONAL ANTENNA

A directional antenna is an antenna which radiates greater power in one or more directions allowing
for increased performance on transmit and receive and reduced interference from unwanted sources.
Directional antennas like yagi antennas provide increased performance over dipole antennas when a
greater concentration of radiation in a certain direction is desired.

All practical antennas are at least somewhat directional, although usually only the direction in the
plane parallel to the earth is considered, and practical antennas can easily be omnidirectional in one
plane.

The most common types are the yagi antenna, the log-periodic antenna, and the corner reflector, which
are frequently combined and commercially sold as residential TV antennas. Cellular repeaters often
make use of external directional antennas to give a far greater signal than can be obtained on a standard
cell phone.

For long and medium wavelength frequencies, tower arrays are used in most cases as directional
antennas.

OMNIDIRECTIONAL ANTENNA
An omnidirectional antenna is an antenna system which radiates power uniformly in one plane with a
directive pattern shape in a perpendicular plane. This pattern is often described as "donut shaped"

The only 3 dimensional omnidirectional antenna is the isotropic antenna, a theoretical construct
derived from actual antenna radiation patterns and used as a reference for specifying antenna gain and
radio system effective radiated power. Antenna gain (G) is defined as antenna efficiency (e) multiplied
by antenna directivity (D) which is expressed mathematically as: G = eD. A useful relationship
between omnidirectional radiation pattern directivity (D) in decibels and half-power beamwidth
(HPBW) based on the assumption of a sinbθ / bθ pattern shape is:[1]

Practical antennas approach omnidirectionality by providing uniform radiation or response only in one
reference plane, usually the horizontal one parallel to the earth's surface.

Common low gain omnidirectional antennas are the whip antenna, a vertically orientated dipole
antenna, the discone antenna, and the horizontal loop (or halo) antenna (Sometimes known colloquially
as a 'circular aerial' because of the shape).

Higher gain omnidirectional antennas are the Coaxial Colinear (COCO) antenna[2] and Omnidirectional
Microstrip Antenna (OMA)[3].

Omnidirectional antennas are generally realized using colinear dipole arrays. These arrays consist of
half-wavelength dipoles with a phase shifting method between each element that ensures the current in
each dipole is in phase[4]. The Coaxial Colinear or COCO antenna uses transposed coaxial sections to
produce in-phase half-wavelength radiatiors. A Franklin Array uses short U-shaped half-wavelength
sections whose radiation cancels in the far-field to bring each half-wavelength dipole section into equal
phase.

PARABOLIC ANTENNA
The parabolic antenna is a high-gain reflector antenna used for radio, television and data
communications, and also for radiolocation (RADAR), on the UHF and SHF parts of the
electromagnetic spectrum. The relatively short wavelength of electromagnetic (radio) energy at these
frequencies allows reasonably sized reflectors to exhibit the very desirable highly directional response
for both receiving and transmitting.

A typical parabolic antenna consists of a parabolic reflector illuminated by a small feed antenna.

The reflector is a metallic surface formed into a paraboloid of revolution and (usually) truncated in a
circular rim that forms the diameter of the antenna. This paraboloid possesses a distinct focal point by
virtue of having the reflective property of parabolas in that a point light source at this focus produces a
parallel light beam aligned with the axis of revolution.

The feed antenna is placed at the reflector focus. This antenna is typically a low-gain type such as a
half-wave dipole or a small waveguide horn. In more complex designs, such as the Cassegrain antenna,
a sub-reflector is used to direct the energy into the parabolic reflector from a feed antenna located away
from the primary focal point. The feed antenna is connected to the associated radio-frequency (RF)
transmitting or receiving equipment by means of a coaxial cable transmission line or hollow
waveguide.

SHAPE \* MERGEFORMAT

Considering the parabolic antenna as a circular aperture gives the following approximation for the
maximum gain:

or
where:

is power gain over isotropic

is reflector diameter in same units as wavelength
is wavelength

Practical considerations of antenna effective area and sidelobe suppression reduce the actual gain
obtained to between 35 and 55 percent of this theoretical value. For theoretical considerations of
mutual interference (at frequencies between 2 and c. 30 GHz - typically in the Fixed Satellite Service)
where specific antenna performance has not been defined, a reference antenna based on
Recommendation ITU-R S.465 is used to calculate the interference, which will include the likely
sidelobes for off-axis effects.

Applying the formula to just one of the 25-meter-diameter VLA antennas shown in the illustration for
a wavelength of 21 cm (1.42 GHz, a common radio astronomy frequency) yields an approximate
maximum gain of 140,000 times or about 50 dBi (decibels above the isotropic level).

With the advent of TVRO and DBS satellite television, the parabolic antenna became an ubiquitous
feature of urban, suburban, and even rural, landscapes. Extensive terrestrial microwave links, such as
those between cellphone base stations, and wireless WAN/LAN applications have also proliferated this
antenna type. Earlier applications included ground-based and airborne radar and radio astronomy. The
largest "dish" antenna in the world is the radio telescope at Arecibo, PR, but, for beam-steering
reasons, it is actually a spherical, rather than parabolic, reflector.

Structure

The reflector dish can be solid, mesh or wire in construction and it can be either fully circular or
somewhat rectangular depending on the radiation pattern of the feeding element. Solid antennas have
more ideal characteristics but are troublesome because of weight and high wind load. Mesh and wire
types weigh less, are easier to construct and have nearly ideal characteristics if the holes or gaps are
kept under 1/10 of the wavelength.

Feeding parabolic antennas

SHAPE \* MERGEFORMAT

The actual 'antenna' in a parabolic antenna, that is, the device that interfaces the transmission line or
waveguide containing the radio-frequency energy to free space, is the feed element. The reflector
surface is entirely passive. This feed element should usually be at the center of the reflector at the focal
point of that dish. The focal point is the point where all reflected waves will be concentrated, this point
is calculate with the following equation.
where:

is the Focal Point of the reflector

is reflector diameter in same units as wavelength
is depth of the reflector

The radiation from the feed element induces a current flow in the conductive reflector surface which,
in turn, re-radiates in the desired direction, perpendicular to the directrix plane of the paraboloid. The
feed element can be any one of a multitude of antenna types. Whichever type is used, it must exhibit a
directivity that efficiently illuminates the reflector and must have the correct polarization for the
application -- the polarization of the feed determining the polarization of the entire antenna system.
The simplest feed is a half-wave dipole which is commonly used at lower frequencies, sometimes in
conjunction with a closely coupled parasitic reflector or "splash plate". At higher frequencies a horn-
type becomes more feasible and efficient. To adapt the horn to a coaxial antenna cable, a length of
waveguide is used to effect the transition.

RHOMBIC ANTENNA
A rhombic antenna is a broadband directional antenna, mostly commonly used in HF (high
frequency, also called shortwave) ranges.

It is named after its "rhombic" diamond shape, with each side typically at least onewavelength or
longer in length. Each vertex is supported by a pole, typically at least one wavelength tall. It is fed at
one of the sharp angles through a balun transformer, and is terminated at the opposite sharp angle with
a non-inductive resistor. It is directional towards the resistor end, so it points towards the region of the
world it is designed to serve.

The rhombic antenna can radiate at elevation angles close to the horizon or at higher angles depending
on its height above ground relative to the operating frequency. Likewise, its beam can be narrow or
broad, depending primarily on its length. A proper combination of size, height, and operating
frequency make it fit for medium or long range communication.

Due to its considerable size, it is not very practical as the sole antenna of a radio station if geographic
coverage requirements are expected to change rapidly. Moreover, it plainly requires a lot of land—
especially if several must be combined to serve a variety of geographic regions at different distances
and on widely different frequencies.

On the other hand, it is one of the best options for sustained long distance communications over point-
to-point circuits. Its size gives it substantial gain, and allows it to capture energy from a wide area, thus
making it a little less susceptible to sharply localized fading than smaller antennas.

Advantages of Rhombic Antennas

• Its input impedence & radiation pattern are relatively constant over a 2:1 range of frequencies.
• Multiple rhombic antennas can be connected in an end-to-end fashion to form MUSA (Multiple
Unit Steerable Antenna). MUSA arrays can receive long distance, short wave, horizontally
polarized down coming waves.
 MULTIPLEXING
In electronics, telecommunications and computer networks, multiplexing (short muxing) is a term
used to refer to a process where multiple analog message signals or digital data streams are combined
into one signal. The aim is to share an expensive resource. For example, in electronics, multiplexing
allows several analog signals to be processed by one analog-to-digital converter (ADC), and in
telecommunications, several phone calls may be transferred using one wire. In communications, the
multiplexed signal is transmitted over a communication channel, which may be a physical transmission
medium. The multiplexing divides the capacity of the low-level communication channel into several
higher-level logical channels, one for each message signal or data stream to be transferred. A reverse
process, known as demultiplexing, can extract the original channels on the receiver side.

A device that performs the multiplexing is called a multiplexer (MUX), and a device that performs the
reverse process is called a demultiplexer (DEMUX).

The two most basic forms of multiplexing are time-division multiplexing (TDM) and frequency-
division multiplexing (FDM).

In optical communications, FDM is referred to as wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM).

Variable bit rate digital bit streams may be transferred efficiently over a fixed bandwidth channel by
means of statistical multiplexing, for example packet mode communication. Packet mode
communication is an asynchronous mode time-domain multiplexing, which resembles but should not
be considered as, Time-division multiplexing.

Digital bit streams can be transferred over an analog channel by means of code-division multiplexing.

In wireless communications, multiplexing can also be accomplished through alternating polarization

(horizontal/vertical or clockwise/counterclockwise) on each adjacent channel and satellite, or through
phased multi-antenna array combined with a Multiple-input multiple-output communications (MIMO)
scheme.

A multiplexing technique may be further extended into a multiple access method or channel access
method, for example TDM into Time-division multiple access (TDMA) and statistical multiplexing
into carrier sense multiple access (CSMA). A multiple access method makes it possible for several
transmitters connected to the same physical medium to share its capacity.

Multiplexing is provided by the physical layer of the OSI seven layer model or TCP/IP five layer
model, while multiple access also involves a media access control protocol, which is part of the data
link layer.

Inverse multiplexing (IMUX) has the opposite aim as multiplexing, namely to break one data stream
into several streams, transfer them simultaneously over several communication channels, and recreate
the original data stream.

Multiplexing and multiple access

In telecommunications, multiplexing refers to a set of techniques that enable the sharing of the usable
electromagnetic spectrum of a telecommunications channel (the channel passband) among multiple
users for the transfer of individual information streams. It is assumed that the user information streams
join at a common access point to the channel. The term “multiple access” is usually applied to
multiplexing schemes by which multiple users who are geographically dispersed gain access to the
shared telecommunications facility or channel. Various methods of multiplexing and multiple access
are in common use.

In frequency-division multiplexing (FDM) and frequency-division multiple access (FDMA), the

passband of a channel is shared among multiple users by assigning distinct and nonoverlapping
sections of the electromagnetic spectrum within the passband to individual users. The information
stream from a particular user is encoded into a signal whose energy is confined to the part of the
passband assigned to that user.

Time-division multiplexing (TDM) and time-division multiple access (TDMA) permit a user access to
the full passband of the channel, but only for a limited time, after which the access right is assigned to
another user. Normally the access rights are assigned in a cyclical order to the competing users.
However, statistical time-division multiplexing assigns time on the channel on a demand basis, which
typically increases the number of users who may be accommodated on the same channel, but may
result in delays in accessing the channel during periods when the demand exceeds the supply.

In code-division multiple access (CDMA), all users are assigned the entire passband of the channel and
are permitted to transmit their information streams simultaneously. To maintain the ability to recover
the individual signals at the receiver, at the transmitter each signal has impressed on it a characteristic
signature.

Space-division multiple access (SDMA) refers to the use of the same portion of the electromagnetic
spectrum over two or more spatially distinct transmission paths. In most applications of space-division
multiple access, the paths are formed by multibeam antennas, in which each beam is directed toward a
different geographic area..

In wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) schemes, transmission systems that employ the optical
portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, such as those using fiber-optic cables as the transmission
medium, share the total available passband of the medium by assigning individual information streams
to signals of different wavelengths or colors.