Antennas

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Types of Antennas
1.Loop antenna
2.Slot antenna
3.Patch or microchip antenna
4.Horn antenna
5.Helical antenna
6.Log Periodic antenna
7.Yagi-Uda antenna
8.Reflector antenna
9.Antennas for ground penetrating radar(GPR)
10.Ultrawide band(UWB) antennas
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Loop antennas
In general the radio waves propagated from the
transmitter follow the circular route to reach the
receiver.
To find the direction of unknown transmitter is nothing
but to find the direction of the radiation of the radio
wave from it. This is known as direction finding(DF).
Since radio waves are used in this method, it is also
called radio direction finding(RDF).
This is used in navigation(eg ships and aeroplanes).
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Loop antennas
This process is useful in determining the unknown
transmitter by taking bearing on the radio waves as two
receiving points.

The direction finders use loop antennas as they are

basic directional antennas.
Loop antenna is a radiating coil of any shape with one
or more turns carrying RF current.

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Loop antennas

They can be of various shapes

as shown and formed on a
ferrite or air core.

When the plane of the loop is

in the direction of the
incoming wave, maximum
emf is induced.

This principle is used for

finding direction of unknown
transmitter.
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Slot antenna
This is an aperature type antenna. Used in high speed
aircrafts.
Basically a slot antenna is nothing but an aperature of
any size and shape made in a conducting metal sheet.

Typically slot antenna are

long and are
2
complimentary to a half-wave 2 dipole antenna

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Slot antenna

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Slot antenna
Horizontal slot produces vertically polarised EM wave
Vertical slot produces horizontally polarised EM wave
Zd Zs

Zo

Where Zd and Zs are terminal impedances of dipole and slot

antenna and Zo is the impedance of free space.
Working principle: Whenever a high frequency field exists
across a very narrow slot an infinitely conducting sheet, the
energy is radiated through the slot.
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Patch or microchip antennas

Antennas made up of metal plates on dielectric and fed
by microchip or co-plane transmission line are called
microchip or patch antenna.
These Are used in microwave integrated circuits.

The metal patch can be of different shapes as shown

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Properties
1.Consists of a very thin metallic strip or patch placed
over a substrate.
2.Thickness is very small (t<<o)
3.The height <<length (l)
4.

o
3

o
2

Best suitable for mobile radio communication devices

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Horn antenna
It is also an aperature antenna.It can be considered as
a waveguide with hollow pipe of different cross
sections which is flattened or tapered into a large
opening when one end of the waveguide is excited
while the other end is kept open, it radiates in space
in all directions.
It is used to properly match the waveguide to a large
radiating aperature.The large aperature is necessary
to improve the directivity and produce efficient
radiation with proper matching with free space.
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Basically, these are of two types-rectangular horn

antenna and circular horn antenna. Rectangular horns
can be classified as sectoral horn(if flaring is in one
direction) and pyramidal horn(if flaring is in two
directions).
Design equation of the horn antenna:
=length of the horn
The electromagnetic horn produces uniform phase
front with a larger aperature compared to the
waveguide. Hence directivity increases.
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images

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Consider an imaginary apex of horn. Assume

there exists a line source which radiated
cyclindrical waves. The uniform wave-fronts are
cylindrical as the wave propagate in direction
radiates outward. At any point on the aperature
the phase is different than that of origin because
the wave traces different distance from apex to
the aperature. Let be the difference in path of
travel. From geometry,
cos
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tan 2

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1
tan
cos
2

1

Also from triangle OBA,

h
2

2

Squaring both sides and neglecting 2 term

2
h
2 h
4
8
2

for

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These two equations are called design equation of

horn antenna. 2 is called the flare angle. When is
small, the aperature area for a specified length
becomes small. Thus at the mouth of the horn, the
uniform phase front is resulted which increases the
directivity with decrease in beam width.
In general the flare angle varies from 15 o to 40 o . For
optimum flare horn, the HPBW can be approximated
as
67 o
56 o
H

aH

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aE
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Where aE and aH are E-plane and H-plane

aperature.
Assuming no loss, the directivity of the horn
antenna is given as
D

4Ae

4 ap Ap

Ae= Effective aperature is m2

Ap= Physical aperature is m2
ap

Ae

is
aperature
efficiency
Ap

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For rectangular horn,

Ap a E a H

Assuming a E , a H , to be atleast 1mm and ap 0.6

The directivity of rectangular horn is given by
D

In terms of dB,

4 (0.6) Ap

7.5 Ap

7.5 Ap
D 10 log 2

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For conical horn antenna same formula applies

for directivity
But, Ap r 2 , r=radian of operator in meters

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Helical Antenna
It is a 3D structure of which linear and loop
antennas are special cases.It is basically a simple
broadband VHF and UHF antenna which
provides circular polarisation. It consists of a
thick copper wire wound in the form of a screw
thread forming a helix. When the wire is
unwounded on a flat surface it becomes a
straight wire. The wire is wounded in such a way
that it is wounded as if on a uniform cylinder.
When it is observed from one end,circular shape
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is observed. Thus the helix of helical antenna

combines three different geometric shapes like
straight line, circle and cylinder. Also, it can be
left handed or right handed.

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The figure above shows the structure of a helical

antenna. It is fed with co-axial transmission line
in which central conductor is connected to the
helix at the feed point and the outer conductor
is attached to the ground plane
Helical antenna can operate in many modes but
two important modes are normal and axial
modes of operation.
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Normal mode-The field radiated by the antenna

is maximum in a plane normal to the axis of the
helix and minimum along the axis.This is also
called broadside mode
Axial mode-The field radiated by the antenna is
maximum in the plane along the axis. In this
mode there is only one major lobe. This is more
practical and also called end fire mode
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Since the dimensions of helix in axial mode are

not critical, it can be used to achieve circular
polaristaion over a wider bandwidth.They fid
applications in space and satellite
communication. Mostly array of helical antennas
are used.

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Consider a helical antenna as shown.the parameters

of helix are:
N-number of turns
D=Diameter of helix (centre to centre)
C=circumference of helix= d
S=Spacing between 2 turns measured center to center
A=axial length
=Pitch angle
D=diameter of the conductor
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tan 1

The pitch angle

The axial length A=N.S length of one complete term is
L.The spacing of helix fron the ground plance is l
For natural helix the total length of the antenna is
N.while the circumference is d.If we unroll one turn
of helix on a plane surface, the circumference(C), the
space between turns(S), turn length(L), the pitch
angle
can be related to each other through the
figure
2
2
2
2
L S C S D

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The pitch angle is defined as the angle between

a line tangential to the helix wire and the
normal to the axis of the helix
S
S
tan
C D

tan 1

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S
D

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Helix with fixed diameter, when S tends to zero,

it turns out to be a loop ( 0)
Helix with fixed S and D tending to zero turns
o
(

90
)
out to be a short dipole

The directivity of helical antenna is given by

G D max D

15 NSC 2

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Reflector Antennas
These are most important in microwave radiation
application. In reflector antenna another antenna is
used to excite it. Dipole, horn, slot which excites the
reflector antenna is called primary antenna while the
reflector is called the secondary antenna. Most often
plane reflector, corner reflector and curved or
parabolic reflectors are used. Using reflectors the
radiation pattern of antenna is improved
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images

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Yagi-Uda Antenna
This is high gain antenna. It consists of a driven
element, one reflector and one or more
directors. Basically, it is an array of one driven
element and one or more parasitic elements.
The driven element is a resonant half-wave
dipole made of metallic rod. The parasitic
elements which are continuous and are
arranged parallel to the driven elements and at
the same line of sight. It was proposed by prof
S.Uda in Japan and described in English by
Prof.H.Yagi. Hence the name.
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images

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The parasitic element receive excitation through

induced emf as current flows in the driven element.
The spacing between the driven and parasitic
element is kept nearly 0.1 to 0.15 . The Yagi-Uda
antenna uses both reflector and director elements.
The element is front of the driven element is the
director which is lowest length in all the three
elements. The length of different elements can be
obtained by using formula
152
meters
Reflector length=
f ( MHz)

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Driven element length=

143
meters
f ( MHz)

137
meters
f ( MHz)

Director length=
Spacing between reflector and Dipole

( DR ) is given by

75
0.25
meters
f ( MHz)

Spacing between dipole ( DR ) an director D1 is given by

0.13

40
meters
f ( MHz)

Spacing between D1 and D2

38

meters
f ( MHz)

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Log periodic antenna

It is a multi-element array antenna that has
impedance at radiation characteristics as
logarithmic function of excitation frequency. The
individual elements are generally dipoles. The
length and spacing of elements vary(increase)
logarithmically from one to other. This is used
for wide range of frequencies with moderate
gain.
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image

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