Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Antennas

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Fundamentals of RF and Microwave Techniques and Technologies

  • 1104 Accesses

Abstract

In radio-frequency (RF) circuits, the signal energy is transported along waveguides in the form of a guided electromagnetic wave. Most waveguides rely on currents and charges on metallic structures, and electric and magnetic fields are related to them. On the other hand, the plane wave is a well-known solution of Maxwell’s equations. In a plane wave, electric and magnetic fields interact, and there are no currents nor charges required for the existence of the wave.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    As a professor in Karlsruhe, Germany, Heinrich Hertz (February 22, 1857, to January 1, 1894) demonstrated in 1886 that analogous to light waves, electromagnetic waves can be refracted and reflected and are propagated like light waves. In his experiments, he employed short dipole antennas and small loop antennas to transmit and receive the waves.

  2. 2.

    The use of terms “directional” and “omnidirectional” for describing a radiation pattern with rotational symmetry is ambiguous. A pattern with a sharply focused beam is called directional even though there might be rotational symmetry. Without a single focused beam, but still featuring rotational symmetry, it is called omnidirectional. Note also that the term “isotropic” for a radiation pattern relates to a unique pattern with the same radiated field strength in all directions. An isotropic radiator of electromagnetic waves is physically impossible, but such radiator serves as a hypothetical reference antenna in several definitions, such as directivity, and in the treatment of array antennas.

  3. 3.

    Some older literature may use the unit “dBd”, denoting the reference of the half-wavelength dipole antenna as a reference. Since the maximum directivity of the half-wavelength dipole is 2.16, or 1.76 dBi, numbers in “dBi” are larger than those in “dBd” by 1.76, for the same antenna.

  4. 4.

    In some literature, the efficiency reflects also impedance mismatch between antenna and feedline (causing reflection) and polarization mismatch between antenna and incident wave. These two effects can be seen as due to the system and not due to the antenna, and accordingly, the definition of IEEE reflects conductive and dielectric loss only. Note that the term of “aperture efficiency” describes something completely different, namely the level of compactness or area usage of an aperture antenna, and should not be mistaken with the efficiency discussed here.

  5. 5.

    Exceptions are, for example, antennas close to or including high-loss media, such as biological tissue or salt water, as well as antennas including non-linear or time-variant elements, such as rectifying diodes or switches, as well as antennas including non-reciprocal materials, such as ferrites or plasma.

  6. 6.

    The occasionally used “antenna factor” relates the electric field strength if the incident wave to the output voltage at the antenna feed point when connected to a 50 Ω load. Direction of the incident wave and its polarization are implicitly considered in the scenario.

  7. 7.

    Harald Trap Friis (February 22, 1883 to June 15, 1976) published the equation in 1946 while working as engineer with Bell Labs in Holmdel/NJ.

  8. 8.

    The image principle is applied in a similar way in electrostatics. To calculate the electric field, or the potential, in the half-space above a perfectly conducting plane, caused by a charge placed at some distance above that plane, the charges induced in the perfect conductor need to be calculated first, followed by the superposition of all electric field contributions of all charges (the original chare and all induced charges). It is much simpler to assume an image charge of opposite polarity on the other side of the perfectly conducting plane, then to remove that plane, and finally to superpose the fields of original charge and image charge.

  9. 9.

    Shintaro Uda (June 1, 1896 to August 18, 1976) and Hidetsugo Yagi (January 28, 1886 to January 19, 1976) of Tohoku University, Japan, published the first paper about such directive wire antennas in 1925. An early reference in English is [15] and a recent historic overview provides [16].

  10. 10.

    Laurent Cassegrain (1629 to August 31, 1693), a French priest and college teacher, invented the telescope named after him in about 1671.

  11. 11.

    James Gregory (1638–1675), a Scottish astronomer and mathematician, described the telescope named after him in 1663.

  12. 12.

    Rudolf Karl Luneburg (March 30, 1903, to August 19, 1949), German physicist and mathematician, immigrated to the US in 1935. As a lecturer at Brown University, Providence, RI, he described in 1944 the class of lenses named after him.

References

  1. Antenna standards committee of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation group. IEEE Standard Definitions of Terms for Antennas, pp. 145–1973. IEEE Std.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Kraus, J.D.: Antennas. McGraw-Hill, New York (1950, 1988, 2001)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Tai, C.-T., Pereira, C.: An approximate formula for calculating the directivity of an antenna. IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag. 24(2), 235–236 (1976)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Balanis, C.A.: Antenna Theory—Analysis and Design, 3rd edn. Wiley, Hoboken/NJ (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Friis, H.T.: A note on a simple transmission formula. Proc. IRE. 34, 254-256 (1946)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Friis, H.T.: Introduction to radio and radio antennas. IEEE Spectrum 8(4), 55–61 (1971)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Liebe, H.J.: An atmospheric millimeter wave propagation model. NTIA Report 83-137, US Dept. of Commerce, Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (1983)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Safaai-Jazi, A., Stutzman, W.L.: A new low-sidelobe pattern synthesis technique for equally spaced linear arrays. IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag. 64(4), 1317–1324 (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Hall, P.S., Vetterlein, S.J.: Review of radio frequency beamforming techniques for scanned and multiple beam antennas. Microw. Antennas Propag. IEE Proc. H 137, 293–303 (1990)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  10. Rotman, W., Turner, R.: Wide-angle microwave lens for line source applications. IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag. 11, 623–632 (1963)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  11. Butler, J., Lowe, R.: Beam-forming matrix simplifies design of electronically scanned antennas. Electron. Des. 9, 170–173 (1961)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Blass, J.: Multidirectional antenna—a new approach to stacked beams. IRE International Convention Record, vol. 8 (1960)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Mailloux, R.J.: Phased array antenna handbook, 3rd edn. Artech House, Norwood/MA (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Hesselbarth, J.: Dual-linear polarized antenna module with enhanced transmit-receive isolation. IEE Electron. Lett. 43(4), 196–198 (2007)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  15. Yagi, H., Uda, S.: Projector of the sharpest beam of electric waves. Proc. Imperial Acad. Jpn. 2(2), 49–52 (1926)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Sawaya, K.: Historical review of research and development of linear antennas in Tohoku University. IEICE Trans. Electron. E98-C(7), 616–620 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Schelkunoff, S.A.: A mathematical theory of linear arrays. Bell Syst. Tech. J. 22, 80–107 (1943)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Bacon, J.M., Medhurst, R.G.: Superdirective aerial array containing only one fed element. Proc. IEE 116(3), 365–372 (1969)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Hansen, R.C.: Electrically small, superdirective, and superconducting antennas. Wiley, Hoboken/NJ (2006)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  20. Holtz, R.F.: Characteristics of the pylon FM antenna. FM and Television (1946). Reprinted in: “Frequency Modulation, Vol. 1”, pp. 194–201. RCA Technical Book Series (1948)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Wheeler, H.A.: Fundamental limitations of small antennas. Proc. IRE 35(12), 1479–1484 (1947)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Chu, L.J.: Physical limitations of omni-directional antennas. J. Appl. Phys. 19, 1163–1175 (1948)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Collin, R.E., Rothschild, S.: Evaluation of antenna Q. IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag. 12(1), 23–27 (1964)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Stuart, H.R., Tran, C.: Small spherical antennas using arrays of electromagnetically coupled planar elements. IEEE Antennas Wirel. Propag. Lett. 6, 7–10 (2007)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  25. Psychogiou, D., Hesselbarth, J.: Diversity antennas for isotropic coverage. In: Proceedings of 3rd European Wireless Technology Conference (EuWiT), pp. 101–104 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  26. King, A.P.: The radiation characteristics of conical horn antennas. Proc. IRE 38, 249–251 (1950)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Potter, P.D.: A new horn antenna with suppressed sidelobes and equal beamwidths. Microw. J. 6, 71–78 (1963)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Chu, T.-S., Turrin, R.H.: Depolarization properties of offset reflector antennas. IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag. 21, 339–345 (1973)

    Google Scholar 

  29. Friis, R.W., May, A.S.: A new broad-band microwave antenna system, 97–100 (1958)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Halliday, D.F., Kiely, D.G.: Dielectric-rod aerials. J. IEE—Part IIIA: Radiocommun. 94, 610–618 (1947)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Luneburg, R.K.: Mathematical Theory of Optics. Reprint: University of California Press, p. 187 (1964)

    Google Scholar 

  32. James, J.R., Hall, P.S., Wood, C.: Microstrip Antenna Theory and Design. Peter Peregrinus, Stevenage, UK (1981)

    Google Scholar 

  33. Derneryd, A.: Linearly polarized microstrip antennas. IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag. 24(6), 846–851 (1976)

    Google Scholar 

  34. Pozar, D.M.: Microstrip antennas. Proc. IEEE. 80(1), 79–91 (1992)

    Google Scholar 

  35. Ahmad, Z., Hesselbarth, J.: Dual-polarized antenna with orthomode transducer for 60 GHz communications. In: European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP), Davos, Switzerland (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  36. Gardiol, F.E., Zurcher, J.: Broadband patch antennas—a SSFIP update. In: IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium. Digest, Baltimore, MD (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  37. Hesselbarth, J., Vahldieck, R.: Microstrip patch antennas on corrugated substrates. In: Proceeding of 30th European Microwave Conference, (EuMC) (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  38. Fumeaux, C., Baumann, D., Vahldieck, R.: Finite-volume time-domain analysis of a cavity-backed Archimedean spiral antenna. IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag. 54(3), 844–851 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  39. Parini, C., Gregson, S., McCormick, J., van Rensburg, D.J.: Theory and Practice of Modern Antenna Range Measurements. IET, London, UK (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  40. Boehm, L., Pledl, S., Boegelsack, F., Hitzler, M., Waldschmidt, C.: Robotically controlled directivity and gain measurements of integrated antennas at 280 GHz. In: Proceedings of 45th European Microwave Conference (EuMC) (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  41. Wheeler, H.A.: Fundamental limitations of small antennas. Proc. IRE. 35, 1479–1484 (1947)

    Google Scholar 

  42. Wheeler, H.A.: The radiansphere around a small antenna. Proc. IRE, 47, 1325–1331 (1959)

    Google Scholar 

  43. Ahmad, Z., Hesselbarth, J.: High-efficiency 3-D antenna for 60 GHz band. IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag. 65(12), 6274–6281 (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  44. Geissler, M., Litschke, O., Heberling, D., Waldow, P., Wolff, I.: An improved method for measuring the radiation efficiency of mobile devices. In: IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium. Digest, Columbus, OH, vol. 4, pp. 743–746 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany

    Jan Hesselbarth

Authors
  1. Jan Hesselbarth
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jan Hesselbarth .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Elektrotechnik und Informationstechnik, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

    Hans L. Hartnagel

  2. Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics IAF, Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-WĂĽrttemberg, Germany

    RĂĽdiger Quay

  3. Brandenburgische Technische Universität Cottbus-Senftenberg, Cottbus, Brandenburg, Germany

    Ulrich L. Rohde

  4. Fachgebiet Hochfrequenz- und Mikrowellentechnik, Brandenburgische Technische Universität Cottbus-Senftenberg, Cottbus, Brandenburg, Germany

    Matthias Rudolph

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Hesselbarth, J. (2023). Antennas. In: Hartnagel, H.L., Quay, R., Rohde, U.L., Rudolph, M. (eds) Fundamentals of RF and Microwave Techniques and Technologies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94100-0_6

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation