Effects of Wheeler Cap Loss on Wideband Antenna Efficiency Measurement Results

Y. Lu, Y. Huang, and H. T. Chattha

Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics

The University of Liverpool, L69 3GJ, UK
Luyang@liv.ac.uk, Yi.Huang@liv.ac.uk

ABSTRACT:
Recently, Wheeler cap method was extended to measure wideband antennas. This paper presents an investigation on the
effects of the loss of Wheeler cap on antenna efficiency measurement results. Two caps/cavities (one large and one
small) are employed for this study and numerical simulation is also conducted to aid the analysis. Both the experimental
and numerical results show the loss due to the imperfection of the cavity can cause a serious problem for obtaining an
accurate result. How to eliminate the effects of the cavity loss and improve the measurement accuracy for the Wheeler
extended method is an issue to be resolved.

1. INTRODUCTION

The antenna radiation efficiency (or antenna efficiency) is one of the most important antenna parameters. It is defined as
the ratio of the total power radiated to the power accepted by the antenna [1]. For many wireless applications, including
RFID and UWB systems, people are very interested in obtaining the antenna efficiency, in order to estimate the system
performance. There is a growing interest in this area. This is mainly because antenna efficiency is actually not easy to
obtain. Theoretical value is normally not reliable because the antenna material properties may not be ideal, sometime
supporting or housing structures are involved. Just like the antenna gain, in practice people prefer to obtain it by
measurement.
There are a number of ways to measure antenna efficiency. The conventional one is by integrating the
measured radiated field to obtain the total radiated power Pt, since the input power accepted by the antenna Pin can also
be measured (= the input power - the reflected power), the antenna efficiency can therefore be calculated by:
P
η= t (1)
Pin
However, this could be a very time-consuming process since the antenna field/pattern measurement should be done in
3D, the results are of high uncertainty (>10%). Further more, when the frequency is relatively low, it is not possible to
obtain its radiated field pattern (a large test site would be required). Thus Whleeler proposed a new method in 1959 [2],
now known as Wheeler cap method, it provides a convenient way to measure the efficiency of the antenna. The basic
idea is to use a conducting cap, which should be smaller than λ / 2π , to cover the antenna and stop it radiating. Thus
the power consumed by the antenna in this case is considered the antenna power loss Pcap. While the antenna is placed
in free space (or anechoic chamber), the power consumed by the antenna Pfree is viewed as the combination of the loss
and radiation. Linking the power and resistance of the antenna we have:
Pt P free − Pcap I 2 R free − I 2 Rcap R free − Rcap
η= = = = (2)
Pin P free I 2 R free R free
Thus we just need to measure the resistance of the antenna in free space and the antenna inside the wheeler cap and then
use equation (2) to calculate the antenna efficiency. This has been proven to be a convenient and relatively accurate
method. It is particularly suitable for low frequency applications (complimentary to the field integration method). One
major condition for this method is that the cap size should be small enough to ensure that there are no resonant modes
generated inside the cap, thus the current distribution on the antenna can be considered unaffected by the cap. Also the
loss of the cap can be neglected. Since the frequencies for many new wireless systems are at higher frequencies now
and the antenna size are comparable with the operating wavelength, the condition for the conventional Whleeper cap
method cannot be met. However we enjoy the advantages of the Wheeler method, such as the cost-effectiveness,
convenience and accuracy. Some attempts have been made to use the Wheeler cap system to measure these not
electrically small antennas, such as UWB and PIFA. Resonant problems have been identified. For example, in reference
[3], this matter was examined by simulating and measuring dipole and monopole antennas inside a rectangular cavity. It
is concluded that using a sliding wall to change the cavity mode can greatly alleviate this problem. It was shown that the
efficiency can still be obtained but using a newly derived equation [4, 5]:

978-1-4244-4396-3/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE

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 2 2
( S11cap − S11 free )
Efficiency = (3)
2 2 2
(1 − 2 × S11 free + S11cap × S11 free )
Where S11cap and S11free are the reflection coefficients measured using the cap and without using the cap, respectively.
It will show that, in this case, we cannot get accurate antenna efficiency at all frequencies, especially at the resonant
frequencies. One important issue people have failed to discuss is the effects of the loss of the cap on the measurement
results. This paper is aimed at addressing this problem.

2. THE INVESTIGATION

In this study we use two caps for comparison: a large spherical aluminium cap (radius = 125mm) and a smaller
cylindrical tin cap (radius = 37mm, height = 127mm). A newly designed stacked patch antenna from 3 to 5GHz is
employed. The configuration and the return loss of this antenna are given in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, respectively. Since this
antenna is built using high performance RT/Duroid 5880 ( ε r = 2.2, tan δ = 0.0009 ) and low loss dielectric material
(layers 1 and 2 are foam with ε r = 1.07, tan δ = 0.0009 ) thus more than 95% efficiency is expected through out the
operating frequency 3 – 5 GHz. We are going to evaluate the new equation by comparing the results from the numerical
simulation and measurement. Besides, we believe that the loss of the cavity is not only due to the resonance but also the
finite conductivity and the imperfection surface of the cap itself which is not negligible in the measurement especially
for this kind of wideband antennas. The setup of the whole measurement is shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 1 Geometry of a stacked patch

Return Loss of the stacked patch antenna
0
Simulated
Measured

-10

-20
Magnitude (dB)

-30

-40

-50
2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Frequency(GHz)

Fig. 2 Simulated and measured return loss of the stacked patch

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 Fig. 3 Radiation efficiency measurement setup

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Fig 4 and Fig 5 show the simulated efficiency of the stacked patch inside the large spherical cap and the small
cylindrical cap using HFSS and it is assumed that the material of the cap be perfect conductor. It is apparent that there
are more dips in Fig 3 than that in Fig 4, which means that there are more resonant modes inside the larger cap; the
higher the frequency, the more the modes, as expected. Both figures indicate high antenna efficiencies over the
operational frequencies: linking all peaks and it is around 97% which agrees well with our prediction.
Simulated Efficiency inside large pec spherical Cap
1

0.9

0.8

0.7

0.6
efficiency

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5
frequency (GHz)

Fig. 4 Simulated efficiency of the stacked patch inside a perfect conducting spherical cap
Simulated Efficiency inside small pec cylindrical Cap
1

0.9

0.8

0.7

0.6
efficiency

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5
frequency (GHz)

Fig. 5 Simulated efficiency of the stacked patch inside a perfect conducting cylindrical cap

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 Fig 6 and Fig 7 show the measured results using both caps which are very different from the theoretical ones in Figs. 4
and 5, where the caps have no conducting loss. When the Wheeler cap method was applied to electrically small
antennas, the cap loss had little effects on the results. Using the same cap for higher frequencies or larger antennas (not
electrically small), we can see that the effects of the cap loss is significant on the measured results: the larger the cap,
the more serious the effects are. This is surely due to the field resonance and the coupling between the antenna and cap.
Carefully comparing these figures, we can see that the frequencies at the dips between the numerical and measured ones
are well correlated. But the measured efficiencies are much smaller.
Measured Efficiency inside large Aluminium spherical Cap
1

0.9

0.8

0.7

0.6
efficiency

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5
frequency (GHz)

Fig. 6 Measured efficiency of the stacked patch inside the spherical aluminum cap
Measured Efficiency inside small Tin cylindrical Cap
1

0.9

0.8

0.7

0.6
efficiency

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5
frequency (GHz)

Fig. 7 Measured efficiency of the stacked patch inside the cylindrical tin cap
CONCLUSION

It has been shown that the effects of the loss of the cavity are significant when the Wheeler cap method is extended to
measure the antenna efficiency for antennas which are not electrically small. The results are not as good as some people
reported in the literature. How to eliminate the effects of the loss of the cavity and resonant modes inside the cap to
improve the measurement accuracy is currently under investigation at the University of Liverpool.

REFERENCES
[1] IEEE Standard Test Procedures for Antennas (IEEE Std 149-1979), (New York: IEEE, 1979), p.112
[2] H. A. Wheeler, “The radiansphere around a small antenna”. Proc IRE, pp. 1325-1331,1959
[3] Y. Huang, R. M. Narayanan and G. R. Kadambi, “Electromagnetic Coupling Effects on the Cavity Measurement of Antenna
Efficiency” IEEE Trans. AP Vol 51 No.11 November 2003.
[4] M. Huynh, “Wideband compact antennas for wireless communication applications,” PhD Thesis, Virginia Pol Inst and State
Univ., 2004
[5] G.L. Fur, C. Lemoine and P. Besnier, “Performances of UWB Wheeler Cap and Reverberation Chamber to carry out
efficiency measurements of narrow band antennas”, IEEE APS letters, 2008

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