Frequency

The basics of sinusoids (sine and cosine waves), wavelength, frequency and the speed of light.

More Advanced Frequency Information

A discussion on how all waveforms in the universe are made up of the sum of sinusoids (simple waves) This helps explains why in antenna theory we always discuss wavelength and frequency no matter what signal (information) we want to transmit.

Frequency Bands
No discussion on antenna fundamentals is complete without a real-world list of frequency bands.

Radiation Pattern
The radiation pattern for an antenna is defined on this page. We have 3D graphs of real antenna radiation patterns, with a discussion on isotropic, omnidirectional and directional radiation patterns. Radiation patterns are of the utmost importance in the discussion of antenna basics.

Field Regions
The introduction to antennas continues with a discussion of Field Regions. The Far Field, Near Field and Fresnel Regions for an antenna is presented.

Directivity
Directivity is fundamental to antennas. It is a measure of how "directional" an antenna's radiation pattern is.

Efficiency and Antenna Gain

An antenna's efficiency is a measure of how much power is radiated by the antenna relative to the antenna input power. The subject of Antenna Basics also includes a discussion of Antenna Gain, which is real power radiated in a particular direction.

Beamwidths and Sidelobes

An antenna's radiation pattern in the far field is often characterized by it's beamwidth and sidelobe levels. This introduction to antenas illustrates this with an example.

Impedance
Antenna Impedance is presented as the ratio of voltage to current at the antenna's terminals. Low- and High-Frequency models are presented for transmission lines. The fundamentals of antenna theory requires that the antenna be "impedance matched" to the transmission line or the antenna will not radiate. The concept of VSWR is introduced as a measure of how well matched an antenna is.

Bandwidth
The bandwidth of an antenna is the frequency range over which the antenna radiates. The bandwidth can be defined in different ways; this page presents an introduction to antenna bandwidth.

Polarization of Waves
All electromagnetic plane waves have an associated polarization. The antenna concepts of Linear, Circular and elliptical polarization are presented.

Polarization of Antennas
Antennas are also classified by their polarization; this defines the type of plane wave polarization the antenna is most sensitive to. This is a fundamental antenna concept.

Effective Aperture
Effective aperture is a basic antenna concept that is a measure of the power captured by an antenna from a plane wave. Effective aperture can be expressed as a function of the antenna gain and the wavelength of interest.

Friis Transmission Equation

Friis Transmission Formula is the most fundamental equation of antenna theory. This equation relates transmit power, antenna gains, distance and wavelength to received power. This page is a must-read for those interested in antenna theory.

Antenna Temperature
Antenna Temperature is a property of an antenna and the environment it operates in. It is a measure of the noise received by the antenna due to thermal (or temperature) effects.

Why do Antennas Radiate?

The antenna basics section concludes with a discussion of Why Antennas Radiate. The idea here is to explain the physical concepts that produce radiation in terms of electrons flowing on a wire.

Antenna Factor
The Antenna Factor is used by RF or EMC antenna engineers to describe the required electric field strength that produces 1 Volt at the terminals of an antenna. Alternatively, the Antenna Factor concept specifies what the received voltage is in the presence of an electric field. It is defined mathematically as:

Technically, the above definition is a little ambiguous. For instance, if the terminals of the antenna are short circuited, the received voltage is always zero, so the Antenna Factor is not defined. Hence, the Antenna Factor has an implied impedance associated with the antenna terminals, most commonly 50 Ohms. However, sometimes an "open circuit" antenna factor is discussed, which is the available voltage for an antenna with an open circuit (no receiver or load attached). The basic concept of antenna factor with a terminal (port, receiver or load) impedance is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Graphical Illustration of Antenna Factor, with Antenna Terminated in a Load (which represents the Receiver). In the above Figure, the E-field is shown as part of a propagating wave (which isn't neccessarily the case). The antenna receives the field at a voltage shows up at its terminals, the circles shown in Figure 1. The receiver impedance (or the load, or a measuring device such as a network analyzer) is shown connected to the antenna terminals. The ratio of the incident field strength to the output voltage is the Antenna Factor. The above equation for the Antenna Factor assumes that the polarization of the E-field and the antenna are matched (no polarizatoin mismatch loss). The axial ratio is the ratio of orthogonal components of an E-field. A circularly polarized field is made up of two orthogonal E-field components of equal amplitude (and 90 degrees out of phase). Because the components are equal magnitude, the axial ratio is 1 (or 0 dB).

Axial Ratio
The axial ratio for an ellipse is larger than 1 (>0 dB). The axial ratio for pure linear polarization is infinite, because the orthogonal components of the field is zero. Axial ratios are often quoted for antennas in which the desired polarization is circular. The ideal value of the axial ratio for circularly polarized fields is 0 dB. In addition, the axial ratio tends to degrade away from the mainbeam of an antenna, so the axial ratio may be indicated in a spec sheet (data sheet) for an antenna as follows: "Axial Ratio: <3 dB for +30 degrees from mainbeam". This indicates that the deviation from circular polarization is less than 3 dB over the specified angular range.

Baluns
A Balun is used to "balance" unbalanced systems - i.e. those where power flows from an unbalanced line to a balanced line (hence, balun derives from balance to unbalanced). As an example, consider a coaxial cable connected to a half-wave dipole antenna shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. An unbalanced transmission line (coaxial cable) connected to a dipole antenna. In Figure 1, a coaxial cable is connected to a dipole antenna. For a dipole antenna to operate properly, the currents on both arms of the dipole should be equal in magnitude. When a coaxial cable is connected directly to a dipole antenna however, the currents will not neccessarily be equal. To see this, note that the current along a transmission line should be of equal magnitude on the inner and outer conductors, as is typically the case. Observe what happens when the coax is connected to the dipole. The current on the center conductor (the red/pink center core of the coax, labeled IA) has no where else to go, so must flow along the dipole arm that is connected to it. However, the current that travels along the inner side of the outer conductor (IB) has two options: it can travel down the dipole antenna, or down the reverse (outer) side of the outer conductor of the coaxial cable (labeled IC in Figure 1).

Ideally, the current IC should be zero. In that case, the current along the dipole arm connected to the outer conductor of the coax will be equal to the current on the other dipole arm - a desirable antenna characteristic. Because the dipole wants equal or balanced currents along its arms, it is the balanced section. The coaxial cable does not necesarily give this however - some of the current may travel down the outside of the outer coax, leading to unbalanced operation - this is the unbalanced section. The solution to this problem, however you come up with it, is a balun. A balun forces an unbalanced transmission line to properly feed a balanced component. In Figure 1, this would be done by forcing IC to be zero somehow - this is often called choking the current or a current choke. There are many baluns that have been developed to choke off the outer current and restore balanced operation. Some of the most popular methods are described in the following pages.

Bazooka Baluns
The principle of operation of a Bazooka Balun is presented on this page. This balun adds a short-circuited sleeve around the coaxial cable, which somewhat resembles a bazooka, giving it the name. The fundamental features of a Bazooka Balun are shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Bazooka or Sleeve Balun. An equivalent diagram of this balun is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Equivalent Representation of Sleeve Balun. The green sleeve in Figures 1 and 2 acts as a transmission line, that is short circuited at the end. From Gauss's law, it is (basically) true that the current on the inside of the outer arm of the bazooka (green line) must be the opposite of that flowing on the outside of the coax (grey line). Hence, the current IC actually sees a short-circuited transmission line. If the length L of the sleeve is chosen to be a quarter-wavelength (at the desired frequency of operation), then the impedance that the current IC sees is infinite (this is the principle of a short-circuited quarter-wave transmission line - see the impedance page for a brief introduction to transmission line theory). Since the impedance is infinite for traveling down outer side of the coaxial cable, the current flowing out of the inner conductor (red/pink line) must be equal to the current flowing out of the outer conductor (grey line). Consequently, we have balanced operation, and the sleeve has successfully given balanced operation to an inherently unbalanced transmission line.

Cross Polarization
Cross polarization (sometimes written X-pol, in antenna slang) is the polarization orthogonal to the polarization being discussed. For instance, if the fields from an antenna are meant to be horizontally polarized, the cross-polarization in this case is vertical polarization. If the polarization is Right Hand Circularly Polarized (RHCP), the crosspolarization is Left Hand Circularly Polarized (LHCP). See also Polarization. This term arises because an antenna is never 100% polarized in a single mode (linear, circular, etc). Hence, two radiation patterns of an antenna are sometimes presented, the co-pol (or desired polarization component) radiation pattern and the cross-polarization radiation pattern.

The cross polarization may be specified for an antenna as a power level in negative dB, indicating how many decibels below the desired polarization's power level the x-pol power level is.

Decibels (dB)
Many parameters related to antennas are measured in decibels; for instance, gain is often specified in decibels, written as 10 dB. Or maybe the minimum received power for an antenna system to work is specified as -70 dBm (decibels relative to a milliWatt). Or the transmit power of your cell phone is given as -3 dB. Why is this? Why don't they just tell you how much power is transmitted in Watts or the gain of an antenna in regular (linear) units? The decibel system is used when quantities can vary by massive amounts. The Richter scale for earthquakes is also on a scale similar to decibels, because the magnitude of earthquakes can vary from barely perceptible with sophisticated equipment to earthquakes that demolish vast amounts of land. As an example, lets look at power received by an antenna relative to power transmitted. Suppose we have an antenna transmitting 50 Watts of power, with a gain of 2 (=3 dB) in the direction of a receive antenna with a gain of 2 (=3 dB). Suppose the antennas are separated by 20,000 kilometers (as is the typical orbit of a gps satellite). The GPS satellites operate at a frequency of 1.575 GHz. How much power is received? Using the Friis Transmission Equation and the fact that wavelength equals c/f, we can calculate the received power to be:

Of the 50 Watts transmitted, about 2.3e-16% of that power gets through. Incidentally, this might seem frighteningly small, but yes, antenna systems can operatte with this much power. So be patient with the GPS unit in your car, it is doing a good job.

Antenna engineers (all engineers actually) don't like to use linear units when the quantities can vary by such large amounts. Its real tough to picture in your head the difference between 1e17 and 1e18. To work around this, we use the decibel system. Its a simple logarithmic transformation - units in linear are easily converted via: Hence, the above quoted value of 1.149e-16 Watts is equal to -159.4 decibels, written -159.4 dB. To give a cemented idea on the conversions, a table of linear to decibel levels is presented. Table I. Conversion between Linear Units and Decibels.
Linear Value 1e-10 1e-9 1e-6 1e-3 1e-1 0.5 1 10 100 1e3 1e6 dB Value -100 dB -90 dB -60 dB -30 dB -10 dB -3 dB 0 dB 10 dB 20 dB 30 dB 60 dB

Another common unit is dBm. This means "decibels relative to a milliWatt". In this case, we are talking about power, and the power is just specified in milliWatts instead of Watts. So: 1 W = 1000 mW = 0 dB = 30 dBm Or 0 dBm = -30 dB = 0.001 W = 1 mW Another common variation on dB in antenna theory is dBi which means "decibels relative to an isotropic antenna". This just specifies the gain of an antenna relative to the isotropic gain, which is 1. So really nothing changes...: Gain of 10 dB = Gain of 10 dBi

The reason people specify dBi sometimes is that other relative values are sometimes specified, like dBd. This means "decibels of gain relative to a standard half-wave dipole antenna". The gain of a half-wave dipole is 2.15 dBi. So: Antenna with a gain of 10 dBi = 10 dB = 7.85 dBd Gain of half-wave diple antenna = 2.15 dBi = 0 dBd Another nice feature of decibels is they make multiplication problems become addition, as seen on the decibel math page.

Desense
Desense is the degradation in sensitivity due to noise sources, typically which are generated by the same device the radio is in. An example will make this clear. Suppose we are looking at a certain frequency (let's say UMTS Band V, channel 9162) and the sensitivity of the receiver is -110 dBm. For illustration, we will assume we are talking about a smartphone, with memory chips, an LCD display, a camera, etc. This means that a reliable data link can be maintained when the receive power is -110 dBm and higher. If the received power is lower (-111 dBm for instance), the bit-error-rate (BER) will not be acceptable. You should read the page on Total Isotropic Sensitivity (TIS). TIS is basically the sensitivity of the receiver-antenna system, integrated over all possible angles. Now, let's say we connect an antenna to the receiver, and the antenna efficiency is -3 dB. What do you think the Total Isotropic Sensitivity should be? You would expect the measured TIS (average sensitivity) to be -110 dBm - (-3 dB) = -107 dBm. Let's say you measure a TIS of -107 dBm when no other processes on your phone are running (so the camera is off, the screen (display) is off, no background applications are running). To see how the receiver is affected by other electronics, let's say you turn on a memory intensive application. This application is having the memory send signals back and forth to the CPU during your measurement. You again run the sensitivity measurement, and this time you measure TIS = -97 dBm. What happened? You just lost 10 dB of sensitivity. This 10 dB loss is known as desense. How did this happen? Well, the electric signals between the CPU and the memory are operating at a relatively low frequency (maybe a few hundred MHz), but a harmonic of these signals will be at the same frequency as where we are measuring sensitivity. The electric signals to the memory are on transmission lines, but even transmission lines act as

(very poor) antennas. And, we now have a very clean path to the receiver: that is the smartphone's own antenna, the job of which is to collect as much energy as possible. Hence, the antenna receives energy, even if it is the onboard noise source we don't want it to receive. And because the sensitivity of the receiver is so low (-100 dBm means 10^-10 mW sensitivity), the small power from the transmission lines to the memory will be noticed. This effectively increases the noise level - and since the sensitivity is a function of the Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), we have a loss in sensitivity. This is illustrated in Figure 1:

Figure 1. Illustration of Noise Power Collected By the Receiver Sources of Desense The desense discussed above pertained to the memory. This is a common source of WIFI noise in computers. Desense can come from pretty much anything your computer, smartphone or whatever does: Hard Drive Camera Screen (LCD, monitor, whatever) Memory Peripherals plugged into your device: USB, ethernet, whatever In military aircraft, other out-of-band transmitters cause desense

In general, any process or feature on a device can be checked for desense by ensuring it is off during the initial sensitivity (TIS) measurement, and then re-running the sensitivity measurement with the process on.

Mitigation of Desense Desense mitigation is a must-do for modern devices. Desense can be reduced by finding how the noise energy is being radiated, and then doing everything possible to reduce that. For instance, in memory, there are pins that go up to the memory chip, and these act as small inefficient antennas. By shielding the pins or reducing their length, the radiation efficiency (and hence the radiated power) of the lines can be reduced. Another technique is to try to keep lines symmetric. That is, if a signal is travelling one way on a wire, the return path should be near the forward path and a mirror image of the first line. This will help to cancel the radiated fields from the current flowing on the wire. If you kill the antenna (by reducing the antenna efficiency), you will reduce the noise power to the receiver. However, since you are interested in maintaining a wireless link (and therefore want to maximize the SNR), killing the antenna will reduce your signal as much as the noise so nothing gained. In general, the process of desense mitigation is (1) trying to find the noise source (which often is a harmonic of a lower frequency noise source), and (2) finding the mechanism for radiation or coupling to the antenna (which directs the noise power to the receiver). If one or both of these links can be reduced, the desense will be improved. Acceptable levels of desense are application specific. Sometimes 10 dB of desense is good, other times, 3 dB is considered too much.

E-plane
The E-plane is any plane that contains the E-field and the direction of maximum radiation from the antenna. As an example, consider a short dipole, the electric fields are given by: This states that in the x-y plane, the E-fields are vertically oriented (negative z-direction). See Figure 1 below.

Figure 1. Fields at a point along the y-axis from a short dipole. The fields at a point along the y-axis are shown in Figure 1. The E-field is oriented in the negative z-direction, the direction of propagation at the point is the +y-direction (also the direction of maximum radiation in this case), and the H-field is oriented in the negative xdirection. The E-plane is any plane that contains the E-field and the direction of maximum radiation. Hence, the E-plane in this case is any plane that contains the z-axis (xz plane, yz plane, etc). The E-plane cut is not unique in this case, but a plot of the radiation pattern given in the E-plane would be a function of the polar angle ( axis. See also H-plane. ), which is measured off the z-

H-plane
The H-plane is a plane that contains the H-field and the direction of maximum radiation from the antenna. As an example, consider a short dipole, the magnetic fields are given by: This states that in the x-y plane, the H-fields are horizontally oriented (in the x-y plane). See Figure 1 below.

Figure 1. Fields at a point along the y-axis from a short dipole. The fields at a point along the y-axis are shown in Figure 1. The E-field is oriented in the negative z-direction, the direction of propagation at the point is the +y-direction, and the H-field is oriented in the negative x-direction. The direction of maximum radiation is broadside from the antenna. The H-plane is any plane that contains the H-field and the direction of maximum radiation. Hence, the H-plane in this case is the x-y plane. See also E-plane.

Effective Isotropic Radiated Power (EIRP)

EIRP is Effective Isotropic Radiated Power, also called the Equivalent Isotropic Radiated Power. In antenna measurements, the measured radiated power in a single direction (that is, for a fixed and ) is known as the EIRP. Typically, for an antenna radiation pattern measurement, if a single value of EIRP is given, this will be the maximum value of the EIRP over all measured angles. EIRP can also be thought of as the amount of power a perfectly isotropic antenna would need to radiate to achieve the measured value.

As an example, suppose the radiated power is measured for an arbitrary antenna. Suppose the peak power is measured at = =90 degrees, and the value is EIRP = 20 dBm = -10 dB = [0.1 W = 100 mW]. Then a perfectly isotropic antenna radiating 20 dBm would produce the same measured power for the peak angles of our antenna. The EIRP can be related to the power transmitted from the radio (P_t), the cable losses (possibly including antenna mismatch) L, and the antenna gain (G) by: [Equation 1] Often the cable losses L can be neglected, as they are generally a small fraction of a dB. Total (full 3D) Measurements from a Single-Point (single-direction) Measurement If the peak EIRP and the directivity (D) are known for an antenna, then the Total Radiated Power (TRP) can be found from the equation: TRP = EIRP - D [Equation 2]

In this manner, if the directivity and peak angle for an antenna are known in advance, the measurement time can be greatly reduced by using equation [2]. See also Effective Isotropic Sensitivity (EIS).

Effective Isotropic Sensitivity (EIS)

EIS is the Effective Isotropic Sensitivity. In antenna measurements, the measured sensitivity in a single direction (that is, for a fixed and ) is known as the EIS. Typically, for an antenna system (antenna + transmission line + receiver + associated electronics) sensitivity measurement, if a single value of EIS is given, this will be the minimum value of the EIS over all measured angles. If the EIS value was measured for an antenna system with an isotropic antenna, then the EIS would be the same as the Total Isotropic Sensitivity (TIS). Total (full 3D) Measurements from a Single-Point (single-direction) Measurement If the minimum EIS and the directivity (D) are known for an antenna, then the TIS can be found from the equation:

TIS = EIS + D

[1]

In this manner, if the directivity and peak angle for an antenna are known in advance, the measurement time can be greatly reduced by using equation [1]. This is particularly important for sensitivity measurements, which take much longer than power measurements. See also Effective Isotropic Sensitivity (EIRP) and TIS.

Electric Field (E-Field)

Electromagnetic waves are made up of Electric Fields (often called the E-field) and magnetic fields. What is an E-field? Technically, the E-field at a point in space is a measure of how strong the force would be on a unit point charge (a small sphere with an electric charge of 1 Coulomb on it). Hence, the units of the E-field are Newtons/Coulomb [N/C]. These units are equivalent to Volts/meter [V/m], which is what the E-field is commonly quoted in (for instance, 10 V/m). The E-field is a vector quantity - this means at every point in space it has a magnitude and a direction. For instance, lets say an E-field exists in space given by:

This is the E-field of a plane wave travelling in the +z-direction, and the E-field is linearly polarized and 'points' in the y-direction (k is the wavenumber). The amplitude of the wave is A Volts/meter. At time t=0 and z=0, the E-field is A Volts/meter in the +y-direction. This means that a unit point charge (1 Coulomb) at this location would experience a force of A Newtons in the +y-direction. The electric field also relates to voltage - a stronger E-field incident upon an antenna will induce a larger voltage difference across the antenna's terminals. However, except for low frequencies, the relationship between E-fields and Voltage is not simple (the voltage is a potential which is subject to different definitions). At d.c., when the fields are static (no variation with time), the E-field and voltage V are related to each other by:

The electric field associated with a point charge with a positive charge point away from it at every location; the fields associated with a pont charge with a negative charge point towards it.

Electric Flux Density (D-Field)

The Electric Flux Density (usually written as the vector quantity D) is often used in electromagnetics. While we won't give it a rigorous definition here, it can be sufficiently understood for the purposes of antenna theory as being proportional to the Electric Field. The proportionality constant depends on the medium being analyzed, and is known as the permittivity:

The electric flux density has units of charge/area (Coulombs/meter-squared or [C/m^2]). The permittivity is often frequency-dependent, and is sometimes anisotropic (implying the permittivity depends on which direction the fields are in):

In the most general case the E-field is related to the the electric flux density by a 3x3 matrix, which is also frequency-dependent. The only other major result in relation to the electric flux density involves the continuitiy of fields across boundaries. Consider two materials as shown in the figure below.

The normal component of the electric flux density will be discontinuous at the boundary by an amount equal to the surface charge density , which has units of charge/area (Coulombs/meter-squared). This can be written mathematically as:

This relation holds at every point along the interface of a material discontinuity (medium change).

Folded Baluns
The principle of operation of a Folded Balun is presented on this page (this balun is sometimes called the quarter-wavelength balun). This balun draws a cancelling current from the central arm of the coax that cancels any current that travels down the outer sleeve of the coaxial cable - thus eliminating the unbalanced condition. This balun is tricky to understand. Personally, I had to stare at it, then go to sleep, wake up, think about it some more, then it made sense. I will attempt to describe the operation here. Note that the current on inner conductor of the coaxial cable contributes to the current that flows on the outer conductor. This could be cancelled by tying the inner conductor to the outside of the coaxial cable (because the current on the inner conductor is 180 degrees out of phase), which would cancel any net flow of current down the outer side of the coaxial cable. However, this would short-circuit any antenna connected to the coaxial cable, and thus we would have no radiation. The goal however, is to find a way to tie the current from the center cable of the coax to the outer shield such that the outer current is cancelled. The folded balun is shown in Figure 1. The green line (which will be made of a cylindrical tube of the same dimensions and material as the main coax) is connected from the red dipole arm (that is connected to the center conductor) to the outside of the coaxial cable, a distance L from the end. If L is chosen to be a quarter-wavelength at the frequency of

operation, then just as is the case for the bazooka balun, the impedance seen by this arm is infinite (due to the properties of transmission line theory and the quarter wavelength line). Hence, the first thing we need to note is that adding this balun does not affect the impedance of the dipole antenna - this means that if we can get the correct voltage to the antenna, it will radiate properly.

Figure 1. Folded Balun - the green line represents a cylinder of the same dimensions as the grey (main) coax. Now, lets try to figure out why this will achieve balanced operation. Enlarging Figure 1 and showing all of the currents on the coaxial cable and balun (and getting rid of the other half of the dipole antenna because it does not need to be illustrated here), we have Figure 2. I've introduced another current, ID, which travels along the balun.

Figure 2. Zoomed In on a Folded Balun with all Currents Shown. We are going to have to understand all of the currents shown in Figure 2. The current IA is what travels down the center of the coaxial cable and onto the red arm of the dipole. The current IB is what flows on the inside of the outer shield of the coaxial cable and feeds the other dipole arm (not shown). The coaxial cable is a lossless transmission line this means that the currents IA and IB are equal in magnitude but 180 degrees out of phase. That is, IA = - IB. The current IC is what travels down the outside of the coaxial cable - this is the current that we would like to choke off. How large is IC? To determine this, we note that when the current IB travels to the end of the coaxial cable, it can either travel down the grey dipole arm (of Figure 1) or down the outside of the coaxial cable. The current IC will depend on what the impedance is looking down the outside of the coaxial cable relative to the impedance of the dipole arm. Lets call the impedance of the path on the outside of the coaxial cable as Zg. The current ID must travel in the opposite direction to that of the current IC, because it is fed by the current IA, whereas IC is fed by IB. Here is the important observation. What is the magnitude of ID? The answer is - it must be equal to IC. Why? The answer lies in the following two observations: First, note that the voltage on the inner conductor (pink line) is out of phase with the voltage on the outer conductor (grey line) - but they are of equal magnitude. Hence, if the attachment point of the balun to the red dipole arm (green to red connection in Figure 2), is made close to the center conductor, then the voltage at the balun connection point and

the voltage at the connection between the outer conductor and the grey dipole arm are equal in magnitude but out of phase. Second, at the point of attachment of the balun (the green-red connection in Figure 2), the impedance viewed down towards the outside of the coaxial cable must be equal to Zg. This is because the balun is made of the same shape and material as the main coaxial cable. Consequently, the impedance viewed down the balun and onto the main coax must be the same as that for the current IC. Hence, if the voltages are equal in magnitude and out of phase, then the currents will cancel in the region below the balun. Consequently, balanced operation is restored. This concept will probably take a few reads to make sense. Draw yourself some diagrams and work through it, and you will understand what is going on. Note that because this balun requires a quarter-wavelength section to work properly, it is inherently narrowband. Away from the design frequency, the balun will no longer be a quarter-wave long and the properties described here will degrade.

Fractional Bandwidth (FBW)

The fractional bandwidth of an antenna is a measure of how wideband the antenna is. If the antenna operates at center frequency fc between lower frequency f1 and upper frequency f2 (where fc=(f1+f2)/2), then the fractional bandwidth FBW is given by:

The fractional bandwidth varies between 0 and 2, and is often quoted as a percentage (between 0% and 200%). The higher the percentage, the wider the bandwidth. Wideband antennas typically have a Fractional Bandwidth of 20% or more. Antennas with a FBW of greater than 50% are referred to as ultra-wideband antennas.

Front-to-Back Ratio
The Front-to-Back Ratio is a parameter used in describing directional radiation patterns for antennas. If an antenna has a unique maximum direction, the front-to-back ratio is the ratio of the gain in the maximum direction to that in the opposite direction (180 degrees from the specified maximum direction). This parameter is usually given in dB.

The Infinite Balun

In the case of a coaxial cable feeding an antenna, a balun is used to choke (eliminate or reduce) the currents flowing on the outside shield of the coaxial cable. The idea of an Infinite Balun is to use the currents flowing on the outside of the coaxial cable as part of the antenna. In this case, we won't need to choke the current at all; we just need to align the cable with where we want the current to flow on our antenna. As an example, consider the spiral antenna. The spiral antenna has two equal arms, which needs fed in the center (center conductor of the coaxial cable to one arm, and the ground or shield of the cable to the second arm of the spiral). For spiral antennas to work properly, we need balanced currents on either arm of the spiral. Suppose we try to run the cable up to the spiral antenna from below, as in Figure 1:

Figure 1. A Spiral Antenna Fed With a Coaxial Cable from Below.

In Figure 1, the spiral has two arms the blue and the green. The center conductor of the coaxial cable (red wire) is attached to the blue arm. The outer conductor of the coaxial cable (black) is attached to the green arm of the spiral antenna. For the antenna of Figure 1 to work properly, the current on the outside of the coaxial cable (black region) must be choked. This could be done with a bazooka balun; however, this balun is farely narrow bandwidth. Since spiral antennas are extraordinarily wideband, a better balun needs used. The solution is to use the coaxial cable's outer conductor as one arm of the spiral antenna. In this sense, the current can flow on the outside of the coaxial cable, so that the unbalanced operation becomes desirable (current flows on both arms). Remember: current exiting a coaxial cable views the outside of the coaxial cable as a comletely independent surface from the inside surface (where the current is flowing in the transmission line mode). Hence, when the coaxial cable "opens up" (i.e. begins to feed an antenna), the current has no problem flowing on the outside of the coaxial cable. The infinite balun uses the coaxial cable as one arm of the spiral, as shown in Figure 2:

Figure 2. The Infinite Balun Used With The Spiral Antenna. In Figure 2, the black coaxial cable leaves the radio (transmitter and receiver). The coaxial cable wraps around and forms one arm of the spiral antenna. The center conductor of the coax (shown in red) attaches to the other arm of the spiral antenna (shown in Blue). Why does this work? Imagine current flowing down the transmission line, a forward travelling wave on the inner conductor and the opposite on the inside surface of the outer shield of the coaxial cable. Once the coaxial cable ends (the center conductor is exposed and connected to the blue arm), the current on the center conductor of the coaxial cable must travel to the blue arm of the spiral antenna. Now, when the current flowing on the inside of the outer shield of the coaxial cable is exposed (where the shield is broken at the feed point), the current has nowhere to flow except the outside of the coaxial cable. Hence, the current must travel down the outside of the coaxial cable, which happens to double as the black arm of the spiral antenna. This balun works wonderfully. It has no bandwidth problems and is a very clever design. In addition, since the spiral antenna is a good radiator, the currents die off quickly as the spiral winds away from the center. Hence, terminating one arm of the spiral (the coaxial cable) to the radio does not affect the performance. This balun can be used whenever a separated ground region is available to merge the coaxial cable outside shield with one region of the antenna. Care must be taken when exiting the coaxial cable from

the structure, so that the lead of the coaxial cable to the radio (transmitter/receiver) does not detune or negatively affect the antenna.

Intrinsic Impedance
The intrinsic impedance is a property of a medium - an area of space. For a vacuum (outer space) or for wave propagation through the air around earth (often called 'free space'), the intrinsic impedance (often written as or Z) is given by: = This parameter is the ratio of the magnitude of the E-field to the magnitude of the H-field for a plane wave in a lossless medium (zero conductivity):

This relation can be derived directly from Maxwell's Equations. For a general medium with permittivity and permeability given by impedance is given by: , the intrinsic

For a medium with a conductivity by:

associated with it, the intrinsic impedance is given

When the conductivity is non-zero, the above intrinsic impedance is a complex number, indicating that the electric and magnetic fields are not in-phase. The intrinsic impedance of free-space has nothing to do with the electrical impedance of an antenna. Also, there is no reason to have the impedance of an antenna match the intrinsic impedance of free space (no mismatch loss occurs).

Magnetic Field (H-Field)

Electromagnetic waves are made up of Electric Fields (often called the E-field) and Magnetic fields (also known as H-fields). What is an H-field? The H-field is a vector quantity (has a magnitude and direction) and is measured in Amps/Meter [A/m]. Recall that the E-field points away from a positive point charge. An H-field curls (or wraps) around a wire of moving charge, as shown in Figure 1. Hence, Hfields are associated with moving electric charges.

Figure 1. H-field associated with a static current. There are no isolated magnetic charges as of 2008, so an H-field can't be defined as a force per unit magnetic charge in the way an E-field can be defined. However, magnetic dipoles do exist (magnets) which have a positive and negative end (or North and South). The magnetic field lines travel away from the North side and terminate on the south side.

Figure 2. H-field lines associated with magnetic dipole. The H-field is orthogonal to the direction of propagation in a plane wave, as well as perpendicular to the E-field. It is the interaction of the E-field with the H-field in space that allows for wave propagation.

Magnetic Flux Density (B-Field)

The Magnetic Flux Density (or B-field) is related to the magnetic field (H) by the permeability (written as of the medium where the fields are observed: The magnetic flux density has units of magnetic charge/area (Webers/meter-squared or Wb/m^2, also known as a Tesla (T)). The permeability is often frequency-dependent, and is also sometimes anisotropic (which means the permeability is a function of which direction the fields are in):

In the most general case the H-field is related to the the magnetic flux density by a 3x3 matrix, which is also frequency-dependent. Recall that the electric field can be defined in terms of a "force per unit electric charge". Further, note that magnetic fields are associated with moving electric charges. The

magnetic flux density can be defined in terms of a force per unit charge moving at unit velocity. An emperical law relating the speed of an electric charge (u), the magnitude of the charge in Coulombs (q), the magnetic flux density B), and the associated magnetic force (F) can be written as:

In the above equation, the represents the cross product for vectors. This shows that if the charge is moving in the +x-direction, and the magnetic flux density is in the +ydirection, the charge will experience a force in the +z-direction. If the charge is moving in the same direction as the magnetic field, no force will be felt by the charge.

Maxwell's Equations
Maxwell's Equations are a set of four vector-differential equations that govern all of electromagnetics (except at the quantum level, in which case we as antenna people don't care so much). They were first presented in a complete form by James Clerk Maxwell back in the 1800s. He didn't come up with them all on his own, but did add the displacement current term to Ampere's law which made them complete. The four equations (written only in terms of E and H, the electric field and the magnetic field), are given below.

In Gauss' law, is the volume electric charge density, J is the electric current density (in Amps/meter-squared), is the permittivity and is the permeability. The good news about this is that all of electromagnetics is summed up in these 4 equations. The bad news is that no matter how good at math you are, these can only be solved with an analytical solution in extremely simple cases. Antennas don't present a very simple case, so these equations aren't used a whole lot in antenna theory (except for numerical methods, which numerically solve these approximately using a whole lot of computer power).

The last two equations (Faraday's law and Ampere's law) are responsible for electromagnetic radiation. The curl operator represents the spatial variation of the fields, which are coupled to the time variation. When the E-field travels, it is altered in space, which gives rise to a time-varying magnetic field. A time-varying magnetic field then varies as a function of location (space), which gives rise to a time varying electric field. These equations wrap around each other in a sense, and give rise to a wave equation. These equations predict electromagnetic radiation as we understand it.

Multipath
Multipath is the arrival of a transmitted signal at a receive antenna from multiple paths due to reflections. The reflections can occur from the ground, trees, buildings, people, or whatever is around. As an example, see Figure 1. The dominant signal is often the Line of Sight (LOS) signal, which is the direct path from the receiver to the transmitter. The other arriving signals (due to reflections) are known as multipath. In some situations (particularly in urban environments), there is no line of sight signal, and all received rays are from multipath. Multipath causes significant variation in received signal - sometimes the multipath reinforces the received signal, but often it subtracts from it (a phenomenon known as fading). See also diversity reception.

Figure 1. Example of multipath.

Permeability
Permeability is a property of a medium or a region of space. On this page, I'm going to give its meaning as it relates to antenna theory, with only a small explanation on the physics behind it. The permeability, as we saw relates the magnetic flux density to the electric field. The permeability is given in units of Henries/meter; since Henries relates to inductance, a material with a higher permeability can be thought of as storing more magnetic energy. The permeability of a vacuum (or free space) is given by:

This is roughly the permeability of air on Earth. Suppose now we are looking at a magnetic material (for instance, iron). This material will affect the magnetic field because the magnetic moments of the molecules that make up the material align themselves in the direction of an external magnetic field. In addition, these magnetic moments tend to remain even after the external field is turned off, leading to a permanent magnetization of some materials. The permeability of a medium is typically specified by a relative permeability:

Materials are characterized as diamagnetic (relative permeability slightly less than 1.0), paramagnetic (relative permeability slightly more than 1.0), and ferromagnetic (high value for relative permeability, that also exhibits hysteresis). A table of common materials and their relative permeabilities is presented below.
Material Gold Mercury Water Air Aluminum Cobalt Nickel Steel Iron Relative Permeability 0.999996 0.999997 0.99999 1.000004 1.00002 255 600 2000 4500

Finally, as mentioned on the page on permittivity, the permeability also affects the speed of propagation of an electromagnetic wave in a medium with a relative permeability given as , and also its corresponding wavelength:

In the above, c is the speed of wave propagation in the medium and is the speed of light in free space (or a vacuum); also is the wavelength of a wave at

frequency f in the medium, the wavelength at the same frequency in a vacuum would be .

Permittivity
Permittivity is a property of a medium or a region of space. On this page, I'm going to give its meaning as it relates to antenna theory, with only a small explanation on the physics behind it. The permittivity, as we saw relates the electric flux density to the electric field. The permittivity is given in units of Farads/meter; since Farads relates to capacitance, a material with a higher permittivity can be thought of as storing more electrical energy. The permittivity of a vaccum (often called free space) is given by:

The above is roughly the permittivity of air on earth. Suppose we have some other dielectric medium (glass, rubber, wax or other non-conducting material). The permittivity describes how an electric field is affected within a medium. The E-field tends to polarize the molecules within the material, which make up a net electric field that opposes the applied E-field. As a result, the total E-field is less than it would be in a vacuum. This effect is quantized in terms of the permittivity - which can be anisotropic (direction dependent) and frequency dependent. As an antenna engineer, the permittivity affects the speed of propagation of a wave through a medium and also its wavelength. The permittivity of a medium is most often given as a relative permittivity:

The speed of wave propagation in a given medium is given as:

Hence, if a medium has , then the speed of wave propagation in the medium will be half as fast as in free space (1.5*10^8 m/s). As a result of the speed being slowed, the wavelength of a plane wave decreases in size as well (the frequency remains constant):

The above fact is often used in antenna-miniaturization: since resonant antennas are often a half-wavelength in size, if they are placed in a medium with a higher permittivity the required length decreases and hence the antenna will be smaller. Permittivity alters the direction of travel of a wave incident upon a medium through snell's law. In addition, the reflection and transmission coefficients of a wave travelling from one medium to another is influenced by the permittivity.

Reciprocity
reciprocity is one of the most useful (and fortunate) property of antennas. Reciprocity states that the receive and transmit properties of an antenna are identical. Hence, antennas do not have distinct transmit and receive radiation patterns - if you know the radiation pattern in the transmit mode then you also know the pattern in the receive mode. This makes things much simpler, as you can imagine.

Antenna Q
The Q of an antenna is a measure of the bandwidth of an antenna relative to the center frequency of the bandwidth. If the antenna operates over a band between f1 and f2 with center frequency fc=(f1+f2)/2, then the Q is given by:

Antennas with a high Q are narrowband, antennas with a low Q are wideband. The higher the value of Q, the more sensitive the input impedance is to small changes in frequency.

Resonant
An antenna is said to be resonant if its input impedance is entirely real, i.e. Zin = R + j*0. In this case the voltage and current are in phase at the antenna's terminals. This property makes the impedance matching of an antenna to a transmission line and receiver easier, as the imaginary part of the impedance does not need tuned out. In addition, when viewing the frequency plot of S11 for an antenna, there is often a large decrease in the magnitude of S11 around the resonanct frequency, indicating that power is radiated well around this frequency.

S-Parameters
S-parameters describe the input-output relationship between ports (or terminals) in an electrical system. For instance, if we have 2 ports (intelligently called Port 1 and Port 2), then S12 represents the power transferred from Port 1 to Port 2. S21 represents the power transferred from Port 2 to Port 1. In general, SNM represents the power transferred from Port N to Port M in a multi-port network. As an example, consider the following two-port network:

In the above Figure, S21 represents the power received at antenna 2 relative to the power input to antenna 1. For instance, S21=0 dB implies that all the power delivered to antenna 1 ends up at the terminals of antenna 2 (which isn't physically possible). If S21=-10 dB, this implies that 1 Watt delivered to antenna 1 (or 0 dB), ends up as -10 dB at antenna 2, or 0.1 Watts. In practice, the most commonly quoted parameter in regards to antennas is S11. S11 represents how much power is reflected from the antenna. If S11=0 dB, then all the power is reflected from the antenna and nothing is radiated. If S11=-10 dB, this implies that if 3 dB of power is delivered to the antenna, -7 dB is the reflected power. The rest was "accepted" by the antenna. This accepted power is either radiated or absorbed as losses within an antenna. Since antennas are typically designed to be low loss, the majority of the power delivered to the antenna is radiated. As an example, consider the plot of S11 in the following figure:

The above would typically be measured using a network analyzer, which can plot S11. The above figure shows that the antenna radiates best at 2.5 GHz, where S11=-10 dB. Further, at 1.5 GHz the antenna will radiate virtually nothing, as S11 is close to 0 dB. The bandwidth can also be determined from the above figure. If S11 is to be <-6 dB, then the bandwidth would be roughly 1 GHz, with 3 GHz the high end and 2 GHz the low end of the band.

Specific Absorption Rate (SAR)

Specific Absorption Rate (or SAR) is a measure of how transmitted RF energy is absorbed by human tissue. SAR is a function of the electrical conductivity ( , measured in Siemens/meter), the induced E-field from the radiated energy (measured in Volts/meter), and the mass density of the tissue ( , in kg/cubic-meter). The SAR is calculated by averaging (or integrating) over a specific volume (typically a 1 gram or 10 gram area): [1]

The units of SAR are W/kg, or equivalently, mW/g. The SAR limit in the US for mobile phones is 1.6 W/kg, averaged over 1 gram of tissue. In Europe, the SAR limit is 2.0 W/kg averaged over 10 grams of tissue. It is typically harder to achieve the US specification than the Europe spec, so if the phone meets the US spec it will typically also meet the European spec. Measuring SAR To obtain official SAR measurements, the DASY system by SPEAG is used. This is shown in Figure 1:

Figure 1. The DASY SAR Measurement System. In Figure 1, there is a hollow tub that the yellow robot moves the measuring probe into. The tub is formed in standardized shapes, which replicate the shape of the human head. The tub that the probe is measuring for Figure 1 simulates the left side of the human head. The DUT is the device-under-test (the mobile phone) is placed directly on the edge of the tub, and transmits at maximum power continuously. The probe is moved through the head region by the yellow robot arm, performing the averaging in Equation [1]. To simulate the conductivity and density correctly, the tub is filled with a fluid that has similar properties to human tissue. The fluids are frequency-dependent, so a standardized

fluid for a measurement at 1800 MHz will be different from the correct fluid for measuring SAR at 900 MHz. The SAR must be measured on both the left and right side of the head as shown in Figure 1. Even though geometrically the measurements are fairly similar, the results can be very different due to the chaotic nature of the near field. The SAR values quoted for a mobile phone are the highest value of SAR measured for any frequency the phone operates in, from both the left and right side of the head. Lowering SAR SAR is critical to antenna design, because if the SAR is too high the antenna must be changed. Typically, if the SAR is too high the transmit power is lowered, which directly yields lower SAR. However, since there are minimum transmit power specifications for mobile devices, the SAR cannot be dropped indefinitely. As a result, the antenna positioning is critical. The antennas for mobile phones are typically on the bottom of the phone, to keep the radiating part of the phone as far as possible from the brain region. Other methods for dropping the SAR include impedance matching changes and parasitic resonators which will disturb the antenna's radiation pattern (hopefully lowering SAR).

Spherical Coordinates
Understanding Spherical Coordinates is a must for the practicing antenna engineer. You are probably familiar with Cartesian Coordinates - a position (point P) can be specified by a triplet like (x,y,z) where x is the distance from the origin to the point along the X-axis, and so on (see Figure 1). Spherical coordinates use a different coordinate system, one with spherical symmetry, which makes it very useful in engineering and physics in certain problems.

Figure 1. A point P defined in the Cartesian Coordinate System.

The point P could be specified relative to the same origin in a different coordinate system. Spherical coordinates utilize three distinct coordinates: R - the magnitude of the distance between the origin and the point (always positive) - angle between the z-axis and the vector from the origin to the point (ranges from 0 to 180 degrees) - angle between the x-axis and the projection of the point onto the x-y plane (ranges from 0 to 360 degrees) Any point specified in Cartesian coordinates as (x,y,z) can be re-expressed in spherical coordinates via the following transformation:

The above might look complicated, but after you've worked with it for a while it makes a lot of sense. The point P=(0,6,5) can be evaluated in spherical coordinates as:

The coordinates are illustrated in Figure 2:

Spherical coordinates are popular for antennas, because we often are only interested in the antennas response in a particular direction, not how far away something is (radiation patterns die off as 1/R^2 for all antennas in the far field). In Cartesian coordinates, 3 variables need specified to determine the direction from the origin, and it is not intuitive. For spherical coordinates, once it is understood, the polar angle and the azimuth angle can be readily used. For practice, make sure the following table makes sense. I give a set of rectangular coordinates on the left, and the corresponding spherical coordinates on the right. Table I. Conversion of Cartesian Coordinates to Spherical (these should all make sense).
Cartesian (X,Y,Z) (1, 0, 0) (0, 1, 0) (-1, -1, 0) (0, 0, 1) (1, 1, 1) (0, 0, -1) (0, 0, 0) (-5, 0, 0) (2, -4, -4) (1, 0, 0) [note: Spherical (R, , ) [angles in degrees] (1, 90, 0) (1, 90, 90) (1.414, 90, 225)

not unique here - could be anything. Why is that?] (1.73, 45, 45) (1, 180, 0) [ not unique again] and could be any number!] (5, 90, 180) (6, 153, -135)

(0, 0, 0) [

That is an overview of spherical coordinates. They come up a lot in the study of electromagnetics and physics, and can aid in understanding and solving of certain problems. They arise in antenna engineering most often in regards to radiation patterns, which specify how an antenna radiates vers

Total Isotropic Sensitivity (TIS)

Total Isotropic Sensitivity (TIS) is a commonly quoted specification in the mobile phone industry. This, like Total Radiated Power (TRP) is a parameter that depends on the antenna and the receiver (or radio) that make up the communication link. To define TIS, we will start by understanding receiver sensitivity. Sensitivity The sensitivity of a receiver is the smallest amount of power that can be input to the receiver, such that the receiver can still maintain reliable communication. As an example, suppose the threshold Bit-Error Rate (BER) is 2.0%. This means that data can be transmitted reliably as long as the BER<2%. To determine this sensitivity, a known data signal is input to the receiver, and the BER is recorded. The first data signal typically has a high power, to ensure that the BER is lower than the threshold BER. The power on the data signal is gradually dropped until the BER reaches the threshold. As an example, and to make things concrete, consider the broadcom wireless module in Figure 1:

Figure 1. Broadcom Wireless Receiver. The pink arrows point to the receiver terminals. The receiver connections are pointed to with the pink arrows. These connectors happen to be UFL-type, if you wanted to know. A device known as a CMU (which for some reason stands for Universal Radio Communications Tester) is hooked directly to the receiver ports. The tester will start by sending some known data signal, at which point the receiver under test transmits it back, and the CMU can determine the BER.

Suppose the initial power was -60 dBm (dBm=decibels relative to a milliWatt) and the resultant BER was 0.001%. We will again take the BER threshold to be 2%. The power would be lowered, say to -61 dBm, and the process repeated. At -90dBm suppose the BER was 1.9%. The power would then be dropped to -90.5 dBm, and suppose the BER was 2.03%. The resultant sensitivity of the receiver would be recorded as -90 dBm, because this is the lowest power at which reliable communication was measured. Since the sensitivity is measured via wires instead of over the air as described below, this type of receiver sensitivity measurement is known as the conducted sensitivity of the receiver. Total Isotropic Sensitivity Total Isotropic Sensitivity, or TIS, is a measure of the average sensitivity of a receiverantenna system, when averaged over the entire 3-dimensional sphere. The result will be strongly related to the antenna's radiation pattern, as we will see. To determine the TIS, the system under test (the receiver/antenna package) is placed in an anechoic chamber, and the chamber antenna transmits at the system under test. The power is lowered until the BER reaches the threshold. Suppose that we did this for a fixed angle, , and for a fixed polarization, say the . What we have just found is the effective isotropic sensitivity (EIS) for that specific angle and wave polarization. The EIS is written as:

The units of EIS are the same as that for sensitivity (i.e. power, typically measured in dBm). To determine the Total Isotropic Sensitivity, we need to also measure the phi component of the polarization, which for this specific angle would be written as:

The Total Isotropic Sensitivity is the EIS components averaged over the entire sphere of angles:

[1]

The averaging in equation [1] may seem slightly peculiar. Some reflection on this will clear things up. Since the EIS should be very small to contribute to the integral, we need terms such as 1/EIS contributing to the integration. If we were integrating over the sphere without taking the reciprocal, the angles for which the sensitivity was very poor (high values for sensitivity) would dominate the integration. As a result, the equation is inverted so that the smaller numbers (good sensitivity) are weighted correctly. As you can imagine, since the sensitivity measurement is an iterative measurement, and since we must measure both polarizations over the entire sphere, this measurement tends to take a very long time. Because of how long the measurement takes, you might ask if we can simply use the receiver sensitivity along with the antenna's radiation pattern in order to simplify this process. Since when we change polarizations or angles, the only variable is the antenna, it seems we should be able to account for this using just the antenna's radiation pattern? Well, the answer is no. The first, and primary reason is that the antenna is picking up noise from all the electronics that make up the system under test that the receiver wouldn't otherwise be exposed to. As an example, on mobile phones, the antenna receives energy from the memory and the phone's screen, which is delivered directly to the receiver. This desensitization of the receiver is known as desense. Since the antenna picks up added noise that the receiver otherwise wouldn't be exposed to, and since the antenna's efficiency is always less than 1, the TIS will always be worse (higher) than the receiver's conducted sensitivity. Also, as noted on the TRP page, the non-ideal impedance of the antenna will also affect the receiver. Commonly this causes a further degredation to the receiver's performance. It should be clear from this page that the TIS is a function of the antenna, the receiver module, and the noise environment in which the measurement is performed in (the noise environment includes the ambient noise [thermal], and the self-generated noise from the associated electronics). See also Effective Isotropic Sensitivity (EIS).

Total Radiated Power (TRP)

Total Radiated Power (TRP) is a measure of how much power is radiated by an antenna when the antenna is connected to an actual radio (or transmitter). TRP is an active measurement, in that a powered transmitter is used to transmit through the antenna. The total received power is calculated, and the result is the Total Radiated Power.

As an example, suppose that a transmitter outputs 20.0 dBm of power (or 100 mW, see decibels) when connected to a 50 Ohm load. Suppose the total received power in the far field is measured to be 17.0 dBm (which can be measured in an anechoic chamber, see measuring radiation pattern. The resultant TRP is 17.0 dBm. Now the above paragraph might seem so stupid that you are asking yourself "isn't this just the same thing as measuring the antenna efficiency? Why can't we just figure out the transmit power of the radio, and then substract out the antenna efficiency to get the Total Radiated Power?" The above objection is a good point. The answer is that TRP measures the radiation in an actual live system. As a result, it is a function of not just the antenna, but also the radio/transmitter and the connection between the radio and the antenna. As an example, let's consider the previously mentioned radio that outputs 20.0 dBm of power when connected to a 50 Ohm load. We actually do not know how much power the radio will output when connected to our antenna, because the antenna impedance is not actually 50 Ohms. In fact, even though we try to design the antenna to be 50 Ohms, it will never be exactly 50 Ohms, and can be significantly different from 50 Ohms, particularly if the antenna must work over a larger range of frequencies (large bandwidth). The loss of power due to the antenna being away from 50 Ohms is not just related to mismatch loss (i.e. non-matching impedance between radio and antenna) in this situation, but rather because the radio will not put out the same power for every impedance that it connects to. Taken to the extreme, if an open circuit or short circuit is applied across a radio terminals, the radio will output zero power. For an antenna with a VSWR of 3:1, the power output could typically swing by 3 dB (can range between 17 and 23 dBm - yes, the power can actually be higher for a mismatched antenna!). As a result, the only way to know how the antenna and radio system will perform as a whole is to measure the Total Radiated Power (TRP). In fact, when a cell phone is certified by a wireless carrier (such as AT&T, Verizon, China Mobile, T-Mobile, etc), they do not specify the antenna efficiency, but rather the TRP for the cell phone as a whole. In practical use, this is the parameter that is important, and is strongly dependent upon both the antenna and the radio. See also Total Isotropic Sensitivity (TIS) and Effective Isotropic Radiated Power (EIRP).

VSWR (Voltage Standing Wave Ratio)

For a radio (transmitter or receiver) to deliver power to an antenna, the impedance of the radio and transmission line must be well matched to the antenna's impedance. The

parameter VSWR is a measure that numerically describes how well the antenna is impedance matched to the radio or transmission line it is connected to. VSWR stands for Voltage Standing Wave Ratio, and is also referred to as Standing Wave Ratio (SWR). VSWR is a function of the reflection coefficient, which describes the power reflected from the antenna. If the reflection coefficient is given by , then the VSWR is defined as:

The VSWR is always a real and positive number for antennas. The smaller the VSWR is, the better the antenna is matched to the transmission line and the more power is delivered to the antenna. The minimum VSWR is 1.0. In this case, no power is reflected from the antenna, which is ideal. Often antennas must satisfy a bandwidth requirement that is given in terms of VSWR. For instance, an antenna might claim to operate from 100-200 MHz with VSWR<3. This implies that the VSWR is less than 3.0 over the specified frequency range. This VSWR specifications also imples that the reflection coefficient is less than 0.5 (i.e., <0.5) over the quoted frequency range. Physical Meaning of VSWR VSWR is determined from the voltage measured along a transmission line leading to an antenna. VSWR is the ratio of the peak amplitude of a standing wave to the minimum amplitude of a standing wave, as seen in the following Figure:

Figure 1. Voltage Measured Along a Transmission Line. In industry, VSWR is sometimes pronounced "viz-wer". When an antenna is not matched to the receiver, power is reflected (so that the reflection coefficient, , is not zero). This causes a "reflected voltage wave", which creates standing waves along the transmission line. The result are the peaks and valleys as seen in Figure 1. If the VSWR = 1.0, there would be no reflected power and the voltage would have a constant magnitude along the transmission line. VSWR, Reflected Power, and s11 Is a VSWR of 3 bad? How bad is a VSWR of 12? Well, there are no hard rules. In this section, we'll try to put the VSWR number in context. Below is a table showing the relationship between VSWR, total reflected power, and (also known as s11), and total reflected power. Note that the reflected power is simply the reflection coefficient ( ) squared. Table I. VSWR, Reflected Power, and (s11)
VSWR 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 (s11) 0.000 0.200 0.333 0.429 0.500 0.556 Reflected Power (%) Reflected Power (dB) 0.00 4.0 11.1 18.4 25.0 30.9 -Infinity -14.0 -9.55 -7.36 -6.00 -5.10

4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0 10.0 15.0 20.0 50.0

0.600 0.667 0.714 0.750 0.778 0.800 0.818 0.875 0.905 0.961

36.0 44.0 51.0 56.3 60.5 64.0 66.9 76.6 81.9 92.3

-4.44 -6.02 -2.92 -2.50 -2.18 -1.94 -1.74 -1.16 -0.87 -0.35

In the above table, a VSWR of 4 has 36% of power delivered by the receiver reflected from the antenna (64% of the power is delivered to the antenna). Note that a reflected power of 0 dB indicates all of the power is reflected (100%), whereas -10 dB indicates 10% of the power is reflected. If all the power is reflected, the VSWR would be infinite. Note that VSWR is a highly non-linear function of the reflection coefficient . That is, there is very little difference in reflected power when the VSWR increases from 9 to 10; however there is an 11% change in reflected power when the VSWR changes from 1 to 2. In general, if the VSWR is under 2 the antenna match is considered very good and little would be gained by impedance matching. As the VSWR increases, there are 2 main negatives. The first is obvious: more power is reflected from the antenna and therefore not transmitted. However, another problem arises. As VSWR increases, more power is reflected to the radio, which is transmitting. Large amounts of reflected power can damage the radio. In addition, radios have trouble transmitting the correct information bits when the antenna is poorly matched (this is numerically defined in terms of another metric, EVM - Error Vector Magnitude). VSWR Specs for Antennas Often in industry, antennas are screened (pass/fail criteria) based on VSWR specifications (VSWR specs). This is a method of measuring the antennas passively to determine if they are properly tuned in a quick manner. The antenna is measured with a network analyzer, and the VSWR as a function of frequency is recorded. As an example, consider this situation where the VSWR of 5 antennas are measured and plotted, along with 4 lines that represent the VSWR specs for this antenna (in blue):

Figure 2. Plot of 5 antennas VSWR versus Frequency. The VSWR specs in Figure 2 are defined by: (1) VSWR < 3.8 for 825MHz < f < 910 MHz (2) VSWR > 4.0 for 1200MHz < f < 1400 MHz (3) VSWR > 3.0 at f = 1.7 GHz, linearly reduced to VSWR > 2.0 at f = 1.8 GHz (4) VSWR < 3.0 for 1860MHz < f < 2000 MHz In Figure 2, the red

VSWR curve antenna would fail the second spec, and the light
illustrated in Figure 3:

blue VSWR curve antenna would (marginally) fail the fourth specification. This is

Figure 3. VSWR specs and the VSWR Curves. Setting VSWR specs is a somewhat tricky job for antenna engineers. The idea is to fail the outliers (detuned antennas or antennas with broken connectors, etc). However, it is difficult in practice to determine what the acceptable variance is, particularly in highvolume industries where a tight spec could fail thousands of good antennas. Note that VSWR is a measure of how much power is delivered to an antenna. This does not mean that the antenna radiates all the power it receives. Hence, VSWR measures the potential to radiate. A low VSWR means the antenna is well-matched, but does not necessarily mean the power delivered is also radiated. An anechoic chamber or other radiated antenna test is required to determine the radiated power. VSWR alone is not sufficient to determine an antenna is functioning properly.

Wave Number
The wavenumber is a scalar quantity that only depends on the frequency in question, and specifies the phase change per meter for a wave. The quantity (often denoted k or sometimes as ) is given in radians/meter:

In the above, is the wavelength of operation, f is the frequency and c is the speed of light in the given medium. The wavenumber k shows up everywhere in antenna theory and physics. For free space calculations, it is basically another way to represent frequency. However, because the wavelength is smaller in dielectric materials with a permittivity or dielectric constant greater than 1, or for a material with a permeability greater than 1, the wavenumber succinctly represents the phase change of a propagating plane wave in terms of radians/meter, with 2*PI radians being one complete cycle, in all mediums. The wave number can also be written as:

See also the wave vector.

Wave Vector
The Wave Vector (or wavevector) refers to a vector that describes the phase variation of a plane wave, in 3-orthogonal directions (x, y, and z-axes typically). The magnitude of the wavevector is the wavenumber. For a wave propagation in a direction described by the spherical coordinates wavevector k is given by: , the

The x-component of the wavevector, , determines the rate of change of the phase of a propagating plane wave in the +x-direction. The same definitions apply for the y- and zdirections. The wave vector is a property of plane waves. The phase variation for a plane wave will always be .

Hence, the magnitude of the wave vector will be equal to the wavenumber. Therefore:

If

, then the other two components of the wave vector (ky and kz) must be zero.

2.4 GHz Antenna

Its kind of funny actually. Makers of cordless phones often advertise these devices with the main feature being "operates at 900 MHz". That is completely irrelevant from an operational or end-user viewpoint. What does specifying the frequency in GigaHertz or MegaHertz mean? A 2.4 GHz antenna or system is simply a device that transmits and receives at the frequency 2.4 GHz. All devices are required to operate in a narrow frequency band. Wireless routers are forced (by government regulation) to work at 2.4 GHz. If the government had said they have to work at 2.9 GHz or 1.3 GHz, it would not have mattered at all. The wireless propagation environment is different for 2.4 GHz or 1 GHz, but for home personal wireless communications it would not matter significantly. The only thing 2.4 GHz really tells you is that the wavelength is c/f = (3e8 m/s)/(2.4e9 1/s) = 0.125 meters = 4.92 inches When you plug in your home wireless router, the antennas will probably be dipole antennas, because they receive information uniformly in the horizontal plane, and the router won't know where your computer is located. Since dipole antennas work great when they are a half-wavelength long, you could guess the antennas should be about 2.5 inches long, as is roughly the case if you look at your typical router:

There are two antennas primarily for diversity reception. If you are trying to get free wireless internet, you could look around for a high-gain directional antenna at 2.4 GHz. To get this to work, you'll need to attach your router to a high gain antenna that is pointed towards a McDonalds or somewhere that is giving out free Wi-Fi from their wireless LAN (or steal it from one of your neighbors who is not using encryption - by the way, its worth taking the few minutes required and set up your routers encryption for this reason). A high gain antenna is simply an antenna that has a very directional radiation pattern, in that it receives energy most strongly from particular directions and suppresses them from other directions. Bluetooth devices also use the 2.4 GHz band, in addition to some cordless phones and radio controlled toys. The IEEE 802.11 wireless standard specifies WLAN computer communication at 2.4 GHz.

Antenna Theory History

What is the origin of the antenna? I'm ruling out such early devices as compasses, because while they in some sense receive a magnetic field, it is not an electromagnetic field. Ben Franklin's kite experiment wasn't quite an antenna, as that captured lightning discharge, which is a direct current path where the energy is not transferred independent of the medium it travels. The human eye of course receives high frequency electromagnetic

waves (light, to the layman). Technically the eye could be classified as an antenna; however since it can't transmit waves, it is really a sensor, so I'll exclude that as well. The first experiments that involved the coupling of electricity and magnetism and showed a definitive relationship was that done by Faraday somewhere around the 1830s. He slid a magnetic around the coils of a wire attached to a galvanometer. In moving the magnet, he was in effect creating a time-varying magnetic field, which as a result (from Maxwell's Equations), must have had a time-varying electric field. The coil acted as a loop antenna and received the electromagnetic radiation, which was received (detected) by the galvanometer - the work of an antenna. Interestingly, the concept of electromagnetic waves had not even been thought up at this point.

A painting of Michael Faraday. Being a great experimentalist, he naturally dabbled in chemistry, shown here. Heinrich Hertz developed a wireless communication system in which he forced an electrical spark to occur in the gap of a dipole antenna. He used a loop antenna as a receiver, and observed a similar disturbance. This was 1886. By 1901, Marconi was sending information across the atlantic. For a transmit antenna, he used several vertical wires attached to the ground. Across the Atlantic Ocean, the receive antenna was a 200 meter wire held up by a kite [1]. In 1906, Columbia University had an Experimental Wireless Station where they used a transmitting aerial cage. This was a cage made up of wires and suspended in the air, resembling a cage [2]. A rough outline of some major antennas and their discovery/fabrication dates are listed: Yagi-Uda Antenna, 1920s Horn antennas, 1939. Interesting, the early antenna literature discussed waveguides as "hollow metal pipes". Antenna Arrays, 1940s Parabolic Reflectors, late 1940s, early 1950s? Just a guess. Patch Antennas, 1970s. PIFA, 1980s. Current research on antennas involves metamaterials (materials that have engineered dielectric and magnetic constants, that can be simultaneously negative, allowing for interesting properties like a negative index of refraction). Other research focuses on making antennas smaller, particularly in communications for personal wireless

communication devices (e.g. cell phones). A lot of work is being performed on numerical modeling of antennas, so that their properties can be predicted before they are built and tested. References [1] Balanis, Constantine. "Antenna Theory: A Review", Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 80, January 1992. [2] W2AEE Antenna History. Arthur M. Kay (?), scanned by Alan Crosswell. http://www.w2aee.columbia.edu/history/antenna-history.html