YAGI-UDA ANTENNA DISCUSSION

A Yagi-Uda Antenna is a beam antenna where it focuses on a specific

direction. It is developed by Shintaro Uda and Hidetsugu Yagi. It is directional
and also a highly gain antenna. It operates above 10 MHz. It consists of Active
Elements and Parasitic Elements. The Active Elements are connected to a feed
line where its driven element is the dipole. The Parasitic Elements depends on
the dipole these are the Reflector and the Director.
A Yagi-Uda Antenna can have more than one Director. The addition of
the Reflector and the Director increases its directivity. Directivity means the
gain of the antenna at 100% efficiency or its gain under lossless condition.
Some applications are the use in Satellite Communication, Radar, TV
Receiving Antenna, Amateur Radio, and Microwave Communication (also
called as Point-to-point Communication or Terrestrial Communication).
The design of the antenna relates to the radiation pattern which refers to
the polar diagram which indicates how well the antenna transmits or receive
in different direction. Most of the Yagi-Uda Antennas are determined in the
field of region and it is the function of directional coordinates. A Directional or
Beam Antenna radiates greater power in one, or more directions allowing for
increased performance on the transmit and receive with interference being
reduced. Directional Antennas like a Yagi-Uda allows increased performance
over a Dipole Antenna when a greater concentration of radiation in a specific
direction is desired.
The arrangement of the arrays are: Reflector, Dipole, and Director,
respectively. If the antenna is used as a transmitting antenna, the Parasitic
Elements (Reflector and Director) were not directly connected to the feed line,
the dipole is the one only connected to the transmission line, whereas the
dipole element drives the current which therefore makes it the driven element.
Both the directors and the reflectors obtains their power from the dipole and
re-radiate it.
A Parasitic Array consists of a basic antenna which is then connected to
a transmission line plus one or more additional conductors that are not
connected to a transmission line. In a parasitic array, typically the driven
element is a half wave dipole or some variation. The elements are slightly
longer than and slightly less than one-half wavelength long. The elements of
the antenna are all mounted on a common boom.
The Driven element where the power is applied since it is directly
connected to the feed line is the Dipole. It is normally a half wave dipole or
often a folded dipole. A folded dipole is a popular variation of the half wave
dipole. Like a standard dipole, its length is one-half wavelength yet it consists
of two parallel conductors connected at the ends with one side open at the
center for connection to the transmission line. The spacing of the conductors
is not that critical, although it is normally inversely proportional to the
frequency. The radiation pattern and gain of a folded dipole are the same as
those of a standard dipole nevertheless it usually offers a greater bandwidth.
The Reflector is a parasitic element that is typically about 5% longer than
the half-wave dipole driven element. It is spaced from the dipole by a distance
of 0.15 λ to 0.25 λ. When the signal radiated from the dipole reaches the
reflector, it induces a voltage into the reflector and the reflector produces some
radiation of its own. Because of the spacing, the radiation of the reflector is
mostly in phase with the radiation of the driven element which is the dipole.
Thus results into the reflected signal added to the dipole which then creates a
stronger and more highly focused beam in the direction of the driven element.
The reflector minimizes the radiation to the right of the driven element and
augments the radiation to the left of the driven element. In the Yagi-Uda
Antenna, the reflector is placed at the back of the dipole. It generally only has
one reflector. Typically, a reflector will add around 4 or 5 dB of gain in the
forward direction.
The Director is approximately 5% shorter than the half-wave dipole
driven element and is mounted in front of the driven element. It is placed in
front of the dipole and is spaced by some distance which is approximately one-
tenth and two-tenths of a wavelength from the dipole. The signal from the
driven element causes a voltage to be induced into the driven element
resulting to an increased focusing of the signal, narrower beam width, and
higher antenna gain in the direction of the director. Typically, each director
will add around 1 dB of gain in the forward direction, although this level
reduced as the number of director increases.
The Yagi-Uda Antenna produces a directional pattern consisting of a
main forward lobe and a number of spurious lobes to the rear and the side.
The antenna elements are commonly made up of Aluminum tubing and is
mounted on an aluminum cross member which is the boom. The centers of
the Parasitic elements are electrically neutral therefore these elements can be
directly connected to the boom. For protection, the boom can then be
connected to a metal mast and electrical ground. When the antenna is
configured or is designed like this, it is often referred to as a beam antenna
because it is highly directional and has very high gain.
The three element of the Yagi-Uda Antenna has a gain of about 8 dB
when compared to a half-wave dipole. The simplest Yagi-Uda is a driven
element and a reflector with a gain of about 3 dB over a dipole. Most Yagi-Uda
Antennas have a driven element, a reflector, and a 1 to 20 directors. The
greater the number of the directors, the higher the gain and therefore the
narrower the beam angle. Also, additional gain and directivity can be obtained
when two or more Yagi-Uda Antennas are combined and thus forming an
array.
The phase is in a manner where it now affects the whole properties of the
Yagi-Uda Antenna causing power to be more focused in a certain direction and
removed from others. The gain and the directivity of the antenna enables to
improve the reception by enabling better levels of Signal-to-Noise ratio needed
to achieve and reducing interference by only picking up signals in a particular
direction. The Yagi-Uda Antenna is a narrow-band antenna. When optimized
for gain, its usable bandwidth is only about two percent of the operating
frequency. Wider bandwidth can be obtained by varying the length of the
directors, making them shorter as the distance from the driven element
increases. Another point is that a Yagi antenna has a power limitation which
prevents the radiation of many kilowatts. Hence the antenna is not suitable
for example short wave high power broadcasting transmission though it can
be used for reception.
Some advantages of using a Yagi-Uda Antenna when it comes to the
directivity are that it is directional enabling interference levels to be minimized
for receiving and transmitting. When it comes to the gain, the Yagi-Uda
Antenna has gain allowing lower strength signals to be received. In
construction, it is straightforward when compared to other designs. It can be
constructed using straight rods which are simple to use and robust for most
instances. The construction enables the antenna to be mounted easily on
vertical and other poles with standard mechanical fixings.
It also has some disadvantages, some are that Gain is limited to around
20dB or so for a single antenna otherwise it becomes too large and beam
width narrows. In low frequency antennas, the physical size means that the
maximum number of elements and therefore the gain is much lower than
20dB. For high gain antennas, it requires that the antenna is more longer.