Antenna arrays

MODULE 3: ANTENNA ARRAYS 08 Hours

Two element Arrays – different cases, Principle of Pattern

Multiplication, N element Uniform Linear Arrays – Broadside,
End-fire Arrays, EFA with Increased Directivity; Binomial
Arrays, Effects of Uniform and Non-uniform Amplitude
Distributions, Related Problems, Yagi - Uda Arrays.

Flat Sheet and Corner Reflectors. Paraboloidal Reflectors –

Geometry, characteristics, types of feeds.
Nonisotropic but Similar Point Sources and the
Principle of Pattern
Multiplication
Pattern Multiplication
 The field pattern of an array of nonisotropic but
similar point sources is the product of the pattern
of the individual source and the pattern of an
array of isotropic point sources having the same
locations, relative amplitudes, and phase as the
nonisotropic point sources.
 Linear Broadside Arrays with
Nonuniform Amplitude Distributions
 Uniform, binomial, edge and optimum.
 A uniform distribution yields the maximum directivity or gain.

 To reduce the Side-Lobe Level (SLL) of linear in-phase broadside arrays,

John Stone Stone (1) proposed that the sources have amplitudes
proportional to the coefficients of a binomial series of the form
 Applying the binomial distribution to the array of five
sources spaced λ/2 apart, the sources have the relative
amplitudes 1, 4, 6, 4, 1. The resulting pattern,
designated binomial, is shown
 edge distribution in which only the end sources of the array are supplied
with power, the three central sources being either omitted or inactive.
 The relative amplitudes of the five-source array are, accordingly, 1, 0, 0, 0,
1. The array has, therefore, degenerated to two sources 2λ apart and has the
field pattern designated as edge
 If the distribution is between the binomial and the edge type, a compromise
between the beamwidth and the sidelobe level can be made; i.e., the side-
lobe level will not be zero, but the beamwidth will be less than for the
binomial distribution.
 An amplitude distribution of this nature for linear in-phase broadside arrays
was proposed by Dolph (1) which has the further property of optimizing
the relation between beamwidth and side-lobe level
 If the side-lobe level is specified, the beamwidth between first nulls is
minimized; or, conversely, if the beamwidth between first nulls is
specified, the side-lobe level is minimized.
 Dolph’s distribution is based on the properties of the Tchebyscheff
polynomials and accordingly will be referred to as the Dolph-Tchebyscheff
or optimum distribution.
•Applying the Dolph-Tchebyscheff distribution to
array of five sources with λ/2 spacing, we get side-lobe
level 20 dB below the main lobe, i.e., a minor-lobe
amplitude 10 percent of the main lobe.
• The relative amplitude distribution for this side-lobe
level is 1, 1.6, 1.9, 1.6, 1 and yields the pattern
designated optimum
Yagi Uda Antenna
 Antenna Secondary surveillance radar (SSR) 1090 MHz
 Consider a dipole radiating in free space. If a second dipole, with its
terminals short circuited, is brought near the driven dipole element and kept
parallel to it, a current is established on the second dipole due to
electromagnetic induction.

 Since the second dipole gets excited parasitically, it is called a parasitic

element.

 The amplitude and phase of the induced current on the parasitic element
depends on the length and the radius of the element as well as the distance
from the excited dipole
 In the 1926, Dr. Shintaro Uda and Dr. Idetsugu Yagi of the Tohoku imperial
university invented a directional antenna system consisting of an array of
coupled parallel dipoles. This is commonly known as yagi-uda or simply
yagi antenna.

 Yagi-uda antenna is familiar as the commonest kind of terrestrial tv

antenna to be found on the rooftops of houses. It is usually used at
frequencies between 30MHz and 3GHz and covers 40 to 60 km.

 Yagi-uda antenna is an electromagnetic device that collects radio waves.

An antenna tuned to a particular frequency will resonate to a radio signal
of the same frequency.
 The yagi-uda antenna consists of 2 parts:

 The antenna elements

 the antenna boom

 There are three types of elements:

 The reflector (refl)

 the driven element (de)
 the directors (dir)
A typical modern-version 6-elementYagi-Uda antenna
 It consists of a driven element (folded λ/2 dipole) fed by a 300-2-wire
transmission line (twin line), a reflector and 4 directors.

 The antenna provides a gain of about 10 dBi (maximum) with a bandwidth

at half-power of 10 percent.

 By adjusting lengths and spacing appropriately , the dimensions can be

optimized, producing an increase in gain of another decibel The inherently
narrow bandwidth of the Yagi-Uda antenna can be broadened to 1.5 to 1 by
lengthening

 the reflector- to improve operation at low frequencies and shortening the

directors -to improve high-frequency operation. However, this is
accomplished at a sacrifice in gain of as much as 5 dB.
Advantages
 It has a moderate gain of about 7 (db).

 It is a directional antenna.

 Can be used at high frequency.

 Adjustable front to back ratio.

Applications
 A stack of yagi antenna can be used for super gain.

 Yagi–Uda array is the most popular antenna for the reception of terrestrial
television signals in the VHF band (30 MHz–300 MHz).

 fields of RADARs, satellites and RFID applications

Reflectors
 Reflectors are widely used to modify the radiation pattern of a radiating
element.
 The backward radiation from an antenna may be eliminated with a plane
sheet reflector of large enough dimensions.
 In the more general case, a beam of predetermined characteristics may be
produced by means of a large, suitably shaped, and illuminated reflector
surface.
 The characteristics of antennas with sheet reflectors or their equivalent are
considered in this chapter.
Flat sheet reflectors
 Assuming zero reflector losses, the gain in field intensity of a λ/2 dipole
antenna at a distance S from an infinite plane reflector is
 A large flat sheet reflector can convert a bidirectional antenna array into a
unidirectional system.
 Dipole antenna with 2.25λ
flat sheet reflector with 3
regions of radiation
 according to geometric
optics. (b) Field pattern of
dipole and sheet reflector
according to
 geometric optics (heavy
solid line) and according to
geometric theory of
diffraction (dotted line).
 The solid circle indicates
the field from the dipole
alone (in free space) and
the dashed line
 gives the pattern for dipole
with an infinite sheet
reflector. (c) Modification
of edges of sheet to
 reduce diffracted back-side
radiation (in region 3).
Corner reflector antenna
Corner Reflector Design
 Two flat reflecting sheets intersecting at an angle or corner form an effective
directional antenna.
 When the corner angle α = 90◦, the sheets intersect at right angles, forming
a square-corner reflector.
 Corner angles both greater or less than 90◦ can be used although there are
practical disadvantages to angles much less than 90◦.
 A corner reflector with α = 180◦ is equivalent to a flat sheet reflector and
may be considered as a limiting case of the corner reflector
 It consists of a dipole driven element mounted in front of two flat
rectangular reflecting screens joined at an angle, usually 90°.

Fig:Side and
perspective view of
solid and wire-grid
corner reflectors
Simple corner reflector
 Corner reflectors and their images

Included angle =180/n where n is the number of images

.
 In the analysis of the 90◦ corner reflector there
are 3 image elements, 2, 3 and 4, located
 The driven antenna 1 and the 3 images have
currents of equal magnitude.
 The phase of the currents in 1 and 4 is the
same. The phase of the currents in 2 and 3 is
the same but 180◦ out of phase with respect to
the currents in 1 and 4.
 All elements are assumed to be λ/2 long.
 At the point P at a large distance D from
 the antenna, the field intensity is
 E(φ) = 2kI1[cos(Sr cos φ) −cos(Sr sin φ)]
 where
 I1 = current in each element
 Sr = spacing of each element from the corner,
rad=2π(S/λ)
 V1 = I1Z11 + I1R1L + I1Z14 − 2I1Z12
Fig:Square-corner grid-reflector
bow-tie dipole antenna used by the million for
UHF TV reception. It has an 11 to 14 dBi gain
over a 2-to-1 bandwidth.
Array factor of corner reflector
Parabolic reflector
 An antenna that uses a parabolic reflector, a curved surface with the cross-
sectional shape of a parabola, to direct the radio waves.

 The most common form is shaped like a dish and is popularly called a dish
antenna or parabolic dish.

 The main advantages -high directivity, narrow beamwidths, high gain

 It functions similarly to a searchlight reflector to direct the radio waves in a

narrow beam, or receive radio waves from one particular direction only.


 In order to achieve narrow beamwidths, the parabolic reflector must be
much larger than the wavelength of the radio waves used

 so parabolic antennas are used in the high frequency part of the radio
spectrum, at UHF and microwave frequencies, at which the wavelengths
are small enough that conveniently-sized reflectors can be used.
 A typical parabolic antenna consists of a metal parabolic antenna with a
small feed antenna suspended in front of the reflector at its focus, pointed
back toward the reflector.
 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.
 In a transmitting antenna, radio frequency current from a transmitter is
supplied through a transmission cable to the feed antenna , which converts
it into radio waves.
 The radio waves are emitted back toward the dish by the feed antenna and
reflect off the dish into a parallel beam.
 In a receiving antenna the incoming radio waves bounce off the dish and are
focused to a point at the feed antenna, which converts them to electric
currents which travel through a transmission line to the radio receiver
Parabolic reflectors
 Property of a parabolic reflector is that all waves from an isotropic
source at the focus that are reflected from the parabola arrive at a line
AA with equal phase.
 The “image” of the focus is the directrix.
 The reflected field along the line AA appears as though it originated
at the directrix as a plane wave.
 The plane BB at which a reflector is cut off is called the aperture
plane.
 A cylindrical parabola converts a cylindrical wave radiated by an in-
phase line source at the focus, into a plane wave at the aperture.
 A paraboloid-of-revolution converts a spherical wave from
 an isotropic source at the focus into a uniform plane wave at the
aperture.
The Paraboloidal Reflector
 The surface generated by the revolution of a parabola around its axis
is called a paraboloid or a parabola of revolution
 If the distance L between the focus and vertex of the paraboloid is an
even number of λ/4, the direct radiation in the axial direction from
the source will be in opposite phase and will tend to cancel the
central region of the reflected wave.
 If L = nλ/4 the direct radiation in the axial direction from the source
will be in the same phase and will tend to reinforce the central region
of the reflected wave.
 To obtain a more uniform aperture field distribution or illumination,
it is necessary to make θ1 small by increasing the focal length L
while keeping the reflector diameter D constant
 If the source pattern is uniform between the angles the aperture
illumination is more nearly uniform
 Cross sections of cylindrical parabola (a) and of paraboloid-of-
revolution (b).
Full parabolic reflectors
 first, that waves reflected from the parabola back to the primary
antenna produce interaction and mismatching
 Second, the primary antenna acts as an obstruction, blocking out the
central portion of the aperture and increasing the minor lobes.
 To avoid both effects, a portion of the paraboloid can be used and the
primary antenna displaced .This is called an offset feed.
Front-Fed Parabolic Reflector
 The principal characteristics of aperture amplitude, phase, and polarization
for a parabolic cylinder, as contrasted to those of a paraboloid, are as
follows:
 1. The amplitude taper, due to variations in distance from the feed to the
surface of the reflector, is proportional to 1/ρ in a cylinder compared to 1/r2
in a paraboloid.
 2. The focal region, where incident plane waves converge, is a line source
for a cylinder and a point source for a paraboloid.
 3. When the fields of the feed are linearly polarized parallel to the axis of
the cylinder, no cross-polarized components are produced by the parabolic
cylinder.
 That is not the case for a paraboloid.
Beamwidths, directivities and gains of circular and rectangular
apertures with uniform
aperture distributions
 Paraboloidal Reflectors
 It is the conventional and most
commonly used reflector
 It generates a pencil beam required in
tracking radars and in point-to point
communication
 It bears various names such as
parabolic dish/dish reflector
/microwave
 dish/parabolic reflector are simply a
dish antenna
Spherical Reflector
 Wider scanning angle than a paraboloid because of symmetry
 Simple spherical reflector does not produce an equiphase radiation
pattern (plane wave) and the pattern is generally poor
 Contains surface aberrations resulting in degraded pattern.
 These aberrations can be minimized either by:
(i) employing a reflector of sufficiently large radius so that a portion
of sphere can be approximated to a paraboloid
(ii) compensating aberrations with special feeds or correcting lenses
(iii) approximating a sphere by a stepped paraboloid
Cassegrain Antenna
 Widely used in telescope
design and monopulse tracking
 Permits reduction in axial
dimensions of antenna
 Permits greater flexibility in
design of feed system and
eliminates the need for long
transmission lines
 Larger the sub-reflector, nearer
it will be to the main reflector
and shorter will be the axial
dimension of antenna assembly
 Larger the sub-reflector–larger the aperture blocking. Also, smaller
the sub-reflector, lesser is the aperture blocking.
 But since it has to be farther from the main reflector, a compromise
in size and distance of a sub-reflector is to be made
 Losses in the transmission line can degrade the receiver sensitivity
 To reduce aperture blocking, the sub reflector can be made of
horizontal grating of wires. Such a sub-reflector is called a
transreflector
 A transreflector passes the vertically polarized wave with negligible
attenuation and reflects horizontally polarized wave radiated by the
feed
 The main parabolic reflector is often coated with polarization
twisters, also called twist reflectors.
 A twist reflector is equivalent to a quarter-wave plate which produces
a 90° rotation of plane of polarization
 Cassegrain arrangement provides a variety of benefits, such as the
1. ability to place the feed in a convenient location
2. reduction of spillover and minor lobe radiation
3. ability to obtain an equivalent focal length much greater than the physical
length
4. capability for scanning and/or broadening of the beam by moving one of
the reflecting surfaces
F/D Ratio of Parabolic
Reflectors***
 The ratio of focal length to aperture size (ie., f/D)
known as “f over D ratio” is an important parameter of
parabolic reflector.

(a) For deep-dish reflectors, f /D ratio is small and for

shallow-dish reflectors it has to be large
(b) Shallow dishes are mechanically easier to support
and move
(c) Feed has to be farther from the reflector
(d) Farther feed results in narrow primary pattern
(e) Feed has to be larger also,
(f) f /D ranges from 0.3–0.5 in general and 0.5–1.0 for
mono-pulse tracking radar antennas
Reflector Surfaces
 The reflector surfaces may be
made of
 (a) solid sheets which are heavy,
have more wind pressure, costly
 (b) wire screens
 Reflector surfaces listed at (b) to
 (c) metal grating (e) above also have some
 (d) perforated metal negative aspects. These include
 (e) expanded metal sheets  (a) Permit energy leak
(aluminum more popular)  (b) Result in back lobe and side
 Advantages of reflector surfaces lobes
listed at (b) to (e):  (c) As relative intensity of side
 (a) Light-weight lobe (mainly of that adjacent to the
 (b) Low wind pressure main beam) increases, efficiency
 (c) Low cost  decreases
 (d) Easy to fabricate and assemble  The ice deposition on the surface
 (e) Ability to conform to different of a parabolic reflector falling into
shapes the category of (b) to (e) results in
the
Types of feed
Rear Feed Front Feed
(a) Transmission line is not in center (a) Obstructs aperture
and this results in an asymmetrical (b) Impedance mismatch in feed
pattern results
(b) In case transmission line is in (c) Reflections from dish cause
center as in case of dual aperture standing waves in transmission line
feed waveguide is in the center of which again cause impedance
dish and energy is made to bend mismatch and degrade performance
180◦ at the end of waveguide by a of transmitter
properly designed reflecting plate (d) By using impedance matching
(c) It forms a compact system and apex matching plates mismatch
(d) Minimum length of transmission can be reduced, results in lower
line is required resulting in less line gain
loss
Offset Feed
(a) Only half of the parabola is used
(b) Normally hogg horn is employed in place of conventional
pyramidal horn
(c) No aperture blocking
(d) No impedance mismatch
(e) Seriously affects performance
(f) More difficult to scan
Directivity and aperture effeciency
 The antenna directivity in the forward direction

 The factor (πd/λ)2 is the directivity of a uniformly illuminated constant

phase aperture; the remaining part is the aperture efficiency
.
For a given feed pattern (n = constant)
1. There is only one reflector with a given angular aperture or f/d ratio which
leads to a maximum aperture efficiency.
2. Each maximum aperture efficiency is in the neighborhood of 82–83%.
3. Each maximum aperture efficiency, for any one of the given patterns, is
almost the same as that of any of the others.
4. As the feed pattern becomes more directive (n increases), the angular
aperture of the reflector that leads to the maximum efficiency is smaller.
The aperture efficiency is generally the product of the
1. fraction of the total power that is radiated by the feed, intercepted, and
collimated by the reflecting surface (generally known as spillover efficiency
ϵs )
2. uniformity of the amplitude distribution of the feed pattern over the surface
of the reflector (generally known as taper efficiency ϵt )
3. phase uniformity of the field over the aperture plane (generally known as
phase efficiency ϵp)
4. polarization uniformity of the field over the aperture plane (generally
known as polarization efficiency ϵx )
5. blockage efficiency ϵb
6. random error efficiency ϵr over the reflector surface
Antenna gain reduction due to
1.100(1 − ϵs) = percent power loss due to energy from feed spilling past the
Main reflector.
2. 100(1 − ϵt ) = percent power loss due to non-uniform amplitude
distribution over the reflector surface.
3. 100(1 − ϵp) = percent power loss if the field over the aperture plane is not
in phase everywhere.
4. 100(1 − ϵx ) = percent power loss if there are cross-polarized fields over the
antenna aperture plane.
5. 100(1 − ϵb) = percent power loss due to blockage provided by the feed or
supporting struts (also by subreflector for a dual reflector).
6. 100(1 − ϵ r ) = percent power loss due to random errors over the reflector
surface.
 An additional factor that reduces the antenna gain is the attenuation in the
antenna feed and associated transmission line.
 For feeds with
1. symmetrical patterns
2. aligned phase centers
3. no cross-polarized field components
4. no blockage
5. no random surface error
 Two main factors that contribute to the aperture efficiency are
 the spillover and nonuniform amplitude distribution losses.
 Because these losses depend primarily on the feed pattern, a compromise
between spillover and taper efficiency must emerge.
 Very high spillover efficiency can be achieved by a narrow beam pattern
with low minor lobes at the expense of a very low taper efficiency.
Phase Errors
 For a paraboloidal reflector system, phase errors result from
1. displacement (defocusing) of the feed phase center from the focal point
2. Deviation of the reflector surface from a parabolic shape or random errors
at the surface of the reflector
3. departure of the feed wavefronts from spherical shape
 Assuming the maximum radiation occurs along the axis of the reflector, the
maximum phase deviation over the aperture of the reflector can be
represented by

 the maximum fractional reduction in directivity as

 Surface roughness effects on the directivity of the antenna

 Q is the index of smoothness

SPHERICAL REFLECTOR
 the spherical reflector can make an ideal wide-angle scanner because of
 its perfectly symmetrical geometrical configuration
 plagued by poor inherent collimating properties.
 plane waves incident on a spherical reflector surface parallel to its axis do
not converge at the focal point
Fig:Spherical reflector geometry
 maximum path error value

 optimum focal length is

 maximum value of total allowable phase error

Applications
 High gain antenna for point to point communication ,

 microwave links that carry telephone and television signals between

nearby cities

 wireless WAN/LAN links for data communications

 satellite communication and spacecraft communication antennas.

 in radio telescopes

 The other uses are

 for radar antennas, in which there is a need to transmit a narrow beam

of radio waves to locate objects like ships, airplanes , and guided missiles .

 With the advent of home satellite television receivers, parabolic antennas

have become a common feature of the landscapes of modern countries
Aperture blocking
 part of the feed energy is reflected back into the feed antenna and does not
contribute to the main beam due to shadowing by feed, sub reflector and/or
support members.
 Deviations in reflector surfaces cause non-uniform aperture distributions,
resulting in reduced gains Can be reduced by using rear feed or cross feed.
 In cassegrain reflectors aperure blocking can be reduced by
 minimum blocking with simple Cassegrain, and (2) twisting Cassegrains for
least blocking.
Spillover
 A part of the feed antenna radiation misses the reflector
 Some of the radiation from the feed antenna falls outside the edge of
the dish and so doesn't contribute to the main beam
 So the intensity of the beam radiated by a parabolic antenna is maximum
at the center of the dish and falls off with distance from the axis, reducing
the efficiency.
 If the feed pattern extends beyond the reflector’s rim, certain amount of
power is not redirected by the reflector, i.e., it is lost.
 This power-loss is referred to as spillover. T
 he spillover efficiency measures that portion of the feed pattern, which is
intercepted by the reflector relative to the total feed power