ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVE THEORY SYMPOSl

UM

441

A Theoretical Analysis of the Multi-Element End-Fire Array With Particular Reference to the Yagi-Uda Antenna
YASUTO MUSHIAKEt
Summary-Self and mutual impedances of a multi-element antenna system are discussed, and a method of approximation for these impedances is shown. The impedances derived by this method are applied to a theoretical analysis of the multi-element parasitic end-fire array. Various characteristics of the Yagi-Uda antenna computed by the theory are given i charts, and a procedure for n designing the Yagi-Uda antenna is shown. Comparisons between the theory and experimental results are also discussed.

It must be noted here that the value of the impedance in this antenna system is not determined only by the dimensions of the element # 1 itself as in the case of an isolatedantenna.Inotherwords, by definition, Z l l contains the reaction due to the induced current of element # 2 when i t is opened as shown Fig. in 2.
211

INTRODUCTION

single cylindrical antenna not has yet been solved exactly by the theory, whereas the multi\! element end-fire array; e.g.,Yagi-Uda antennal which is much more complicated than the single antenna, has I\ been working in practice for a quarter of a century. In order to fill this large gap between the theory and practice, the author made a theoretical analysis of the multi-elementend-fire arraywithparticular reference to the Yagi-Uda antennas. Although this theory is not Fig. 2-Definition of self-impedance 2 x 1 . exactmathematically,theexperimentalfacts for this kind of antenna can be explained by the theory, and the Similarly, values of the mutual impedances of a threenumerical results of thisanalysis can beappliedfor element antenna system contain someeffects due to the designing the Yagi-Uda antennas. existence of the third element. These facts mean that we must compute the values of these impedances conTHESELF AND MUTUALIMPEDANCES AN OF sidering all dimensions of theantennasystem at the ANTENNA ARRAY same time. Let us consider, a t first, the simplest case of the twoThis causesconsiderableinconvenience in practical element antenna array as illustrated in Fig. 1. For use of these exact impedances because of the large # I number of parameters. For this reason we made several approximations assumptions and for these values of impedances and reduced (1) t o a similar one with simplified coefficients as described below. According to the definition of theimpedanceinan antenna system, 2 1 1 and 2 2 2 can be separated into two components,respectively

VEN THE simplest antenna problem such as a

211 222

=
=

211
222

+ + 222}.
211

(2 1

Fig. 1-Two-element

array.

this system there existwell-known relations between the drivingvoltages VI and V 2 and the input currents Il and I 2 . 2

Vl = ZllIl
v 2

22111

+ ZlZIZ + }.
22212

(1)

Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan. Presently visiting Research Associate at Antenna Lab., Dept. of Elect. Engrg., Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. 1 H. Yagi and S. Uda, Projector of the sharpest beam of electric waves, Proc. Imperial Academy of Japan, vol. 2; 1926. P. S. Carter, Circuit relations in radiating systems and applications to antenna problems, PROC. IRE, vol. 20,pp. 1004-41 June, 1932.

where Zll (or 2 2 2 ) corresponds to the induced voltage due to the current on element # 1 (or # 2), and 2 1 1 (or 2 2 2 ) corresponds t o t h a t of # 2 (or # l),as shown in Fig. 2. Now, let us consider the case where the length of the elements are nearly equal to a half wavelength and the thicknesses are very small compared with their lengths. Then it is possible to assume the following approximate relations.
211
222

E211(O)

2 .2*2(O) 1

(3)

where Z l l ( ) and 2 2 2 ( ) are the input impedance of # 1 and # 2 , when theyare isolated respectively free in

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ELECTROMAGNETIC W A V E THEORY SYMPOSIUM

space. Furthermore, if we assume V Z = 0 and not too close spacing between the elements, then we can make use of the following approximations :3
212

2 z12mm,

Z21

2 zzlnlm2 1

(4)
( 3 (6)

21111 z12m10a2 - n2)Iz , 21

Z22IZ

< < ZZlIl ,

GENERAL EXPRESSIONS THE CHARACTERISTICS FOR OF THE N-ELEMENT PARASITIC LINEAR ARRAY Let u s consider the n-element parasitic linear array whose s-th element is placed at a distance d, from the center of the driven element # 1 as illustrated in Fig. 3. In this case the fundamental equation for the currents of the elements is written as follows:

where z12(= zZ1) = the mutua1 impedance between two ideal half-wave dipoles which are substituted for the elements # 1 and #2. ml , m2 = receivingeffective lengthfactors of # 1 and # 2, respectively, which are defined as the ratio of the receiving voltage of the elements in free space t o t h a t of the idealhalf-wavedipole. nl , n2 = transmitting effective length factors of # 1 and # 2, respectively, which are defined as the ratio of the radiated Fig. 3--n-element parasitic array. field intensities of the elements in the equatorial plane to that of the ideal Using the method described in the preceding section, we half-wave with dipole the same canreducethisequation to one which corresponds to center current. (9) ; i.e., nl, nZ = special values of nl and n2 for the same elements when they are driven at the center in freespaceandby the reciprocity theorem there are the From this equation the input impedance Z can be deterfollowing relations, nl = m l , n2 = m 2 . (7) mined as follows: Introducing (2), (3), (4), ( 5 ) and (7) into (1) and neglecting the term ZZ212compared with ZalIl in accordance with (6), we obtain

V1

Z 1 l ( o ) I 1 z12mln212
(8)

where dl , A2 , etc., are the minor determinants which come out in the following expansion of the determinant Iznl .
b7s1

which can be transformed as follows:

ml 0 2L

E z

d 1

zzlJ1

+ +

s= 1

71

ZIsAs

(15)

z12J2

(9)
~ 2 2 J 2

According tothenumericalcomputation of ml , it is almost real, and so (14) can easily be separated into real and imaginary components and transformed to R(X/4) I rnl(Z1) 12, (16) X(&)E Xll(11) [X(h/4) - X,*(h/4)1 m ( l 1 ) p, (17) where R(Zl) and X(Z1) denotethevalues of the input resistanceandthereactance of the antenna when the length of the driven element is 211 . The power gain of this antenna over that of a halfwave dipole can be calculated by the well-knownproc e d ~ r e and it canbeapproximatedbythe ,~ following expression using (16),

where

R(11)

J 1 = nlI1 = m l I l
J2

nzI2,

t.

(11)

Although the form of (9) is the Same as that of ( l ) ,there is a large difference between two these equations. Namely, a modified self-impedance zll or 2 2 2 is determined only by the dimensions of the element $ 1 or 2 itself, while the value of 2 1 1 or 2 2 2 depends on all the dimensions of the antenna system.

_ _ _ ~

3 S. Uda and Y. Mushiake, Yagi-Uda Antenna, Maruzen Co., p. 65; 1954.

J. D. Kraus, Antennas, RIcGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., New York, N. Y . , pp. 26 and 141; 1950.

ELECTROMAGNETIC W A V ESYMPOSIUM THEORY

where R , = 73.13 and the gain function with respect 0 is assumed to be that of a half-wave dipole. to

443

parasitic elements at convenient any value in our numerical computation. Thus, in the case of a 2-elementend-fire array the TO END-FIRER R ~ P number of parameters is reduced to only two; A APPLICATIOK THE MULTI-ELEMENT i.e., 12 and d z . The characteristics for this case were computed for For the purpose of applying the above theory to the design of the multi-element antenna array i t is desirable all possible values of parameters, and the various charto obtain thenumerical data of the characteristics of the acteristics of the director and the reflector in the Yagiantenna for as many combinations of the parameters as Uda antenna were explained theoretically. By a similarprocedure we computed the characterpossible. Therefore, it becomes important to reduce the number of parameters in numericalcomputationto a istics of a3-elementYagi-Udaantennaandobtained minimum, lvithout reducing applicability the of the many useful results. Examples of these results are shown numerical results. in Fig. 5 , and Figs. 6 and 7 on the next page. The approximate expression (18) shows that thepower gain of this type of anten1;'L is almost independent of d l . Furthermore the variation in the value of the input impedance due to the difference of l I from X/4 is easily obtainedfrom (16) and (17). Accordingly, in ournumerical computation we can assume 211 = X/2, and for this condition, fortunately, the effect of the thickness of f 1 is almost negligible. Next, let us consider the modified self impedance 222 of a parasitic element defined by (10). According to the results of the numerical computation,5theresistance part of the modified self impedance a for parasitic element is almost constant regardless of its length and thickness, while the imaginary part varies remarkably.

0.95

0.9 0
I 0.2
I I I I I

0.85

0.4

0.6

1.0 1.2 0.8 + d3/X 4

1.4

1.5

0.8 0 0.5
I

Fig. 5-Power

gain of the three-element Yagi-Uda antenna.

1 20, 0

,_

Fig. 4-Equivalent

length of a parasitic element.

Thc curves plotted in Fig. 4 show the relation between the thickncss and the length of the parasitic elements which have equal values of the modified reactance. By this chart an equivalent length of a parasitic element with any given thickness reduced to a particular reference thickness can easily be obtained. This means that without losing generality we can fix the thickness of the
~~

Uda and Mushiake, op. cdt., p. 75.

From these results we can design a Yagi-Uda antenna with desired characteristics by the following procedure : Design Procedure of a Yagi-Uda Antenna 1. The lengths and spacings of the directors and the reflector are determined from the chart of powergain (Fig. 5 ) for a reference thickness. 2. The lengths of the parasitic elements are modified for any given thickness from those of a reference thickness by Fig. 4. 3. Input reactance is cancelled by adjusting the length of driven element from the relation (17). 4. The imput impedancecanbeincreased, if necessary, to any value, by replacing the driven element with

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ELECTROMAGNETIC W A V ESYMPOSIUM THEORY

JQ
1.10

\.os
I .oo

0.9 5

0.9a

0.05

0.60

0.75

0
4
Fig. ?--Input reactance of the three-element Yagi-Uda antenna. Fig. 6-Input resistance of the three-element Yagi-Uda antenna.

a folded dipolewhoseimpedancetransformationratio is properly designed according to the chart given by the author.6

CONCLUSION Since the above theory is not mathematically exact, numerousmeasurementsi formore thanonethousand combinations of the various parameters were made in order to verifytheseapproximate expressions. I t was found that there are good agreements between the theory and experimental results, except for a small discrepancy in the input reactances.
Y. Mushiake, "An exact step-up impedance-ratio chart of a folded antenna," TRANS. IRE, vol. 4P-2, no. 4, p. 163;October, 1954. Uda and Mushiake, op. cit., pp. 83-87, pp. 105-111, pp. 128131 and pp. 151-160.

Althoughthesamemethod of computationcanbe applied for any multi-element antenna array, it seems that this method is stillinconvenient for obtaininga general behavior of arrays with four or more elements over the whole range of practicable values of parameters, because of the numerous combinationsof parameters. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The work in the present paper was performed under the supervision of Prof. S. Uda of Tohoku University, Japan, and the chance to present the paper was given through courtesy the of Prof. J. D. Kraus, of Ohio StateUniversity,andProf. K. ILI. Siegel, of the University of Michigan. Acknowledgments are also due to Prof. C. T . Tai, Prof. T. E. Tice and R. E. Webster, of Ohio State University, for their suggestions.