Tuning stubs for microstrip-patch antennas

A practical method for the simultaneous tuning, of both the resonant frequency and reflection coefficient, of a coaxially fed rectangular-microstrip patch is described. The use of two tuning stubs allows independent adjustment of the effective patch length and the effective position of the feed point. The effective length determines the resonant frequency of the patch, while the effective position of the feed point determines the input impedance. It is demonstrated that the method allows the adjustment of the feedpoint reflection coefficient of a patch to less than -60 dB, at a frequency which is within 0.005% of specification     

Design of small-size wide-bandwidth microstrip-patch antennas

Several designs for small-size wide-bandwidth microstrip antennas are examined through simulation and experiment. Designs are presented based on two wideband patch antennas: the U-slot patch antenna, and the L-probe-fed patch antenna. Several techniques are utilized to reduce the resonant length of these wideband microstrip-patch antennas: increasing the dielectric constant of the microwave substrate material, the addition of a shorting wall between the conducting patch and the ground plane, and the addition of a shorting pin between the conducting patch and the ground plane. Simulation and experimental results confirm that the size of the antennas can be reduced by as much as 94%, while maintaining impedance bandwidths in excess of 20%.     

Inverted-F antennas with wideband match performance

Novel inverted-F antennas, double-wire (DW-IFA) and double-strip (DS-IFA) were developed for f₀ = 2.45 GHz, and a 0.8λ ₀ in size square ground plate. The antennas are distinctive for their wideband match performance, 12% (numerical) for DW-IFA and 18% (numerical)/17% (experimental) for DS-IFA, and radiation characteristics suitable for the mobile environment scenario     

Design and performance of small printed antennas

Electrically small microstrip patches incorporating shorting posts are thoroughly investigated. These antennas are suitable for mobile communications handsets where limited antenna size is a premium. Techniques to enhance the bandwidth of these antennas are presented and performance trends are established. From these trends, valuable insight to the optimum design, namely broad bandwidth, small size, and ease of manufacturing, is given     

High-efficiency FET/microstrip-patch oscillators

The author discusses class-C FET/patch oscillators; in these, the microstrip-patch antenna serves multiple purposes: the patch radiates energy, acts as a resonant load, and as a feedback network. These integrated antenna/oscillators are capable of efficiencies which approach conventional non-radiating oscillator designs     

Constrained optimization of the performance indices of arbitrary array antennas

The solution to the optimization of performance indices of array antennas such as directive gain, efficiency index, and signal-to-noise ratio, do not provide information regarding the sidelobe region of the radiation pattern. It is shown that, with proper constraints on the sidelobes, a given performance index can be optimized to give a radiation pattern with desired sidelobe levels. As most of the performance indices of an array antenna can be expressed as a ratio of two Hermitian quadratic forms, an eigenvalue method is used for the constrained optimization. This method gives explicit expressions for the excitation vector and constrained values of the performance indices. An iterative technique is used to ensure that the specified field values occur at the sidelobe peak positions. The element excitations obtained by this technique for maximum gain and uniform sidelobe level are similar to these obtained by the Dolph-Chebyshev technique.     

On the capture performance of smart antennas in a multicellularenvironment

In this letter, we present a study of the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) and throughput efficiency achievable on the uplink of a multicellular environment in the presence of smart antennas at the base station receivers. Both intracell and intercell interferers are explicitly taken into account, as is the SINR gain yielded by optimal beamforming. Different cases are compared, and in particular the tradeoff involved in choosing the frequency reuse plan is considered. It is seen that the system operates most efficiently with full frequency reuse, even though this requires intercell synchronization     

Design and performance of four buried UHF antennas

As a result of a 10-month study by the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences, four UHF antennas were designed and fabricated, and their absolute power gains for elevation angles from1degto45degand azimuthal patterns at5degelevation angle were measured with each antenna buried beneath 1 m of refractory concrete. Relative response of the four antennas, placed in solid granite, to a signal transmitted from an aircraft at ranges up to 300 km were recorded. The performance of the best buried antenna was comparable to that of alambda/4monopole fed against a1lambdadiameter ground plane resting on the ground surface near the buried antenna.     

Acquisition performance of CDMA systems with multiple antennas

This paper discusses the code-acquisition problem for preamble search in the code-division multiple-access (CDMA) uplink when multiple antennas are employed for signal reception. The multiple antennas are used either in the form of antenna array for beamforming or in the form of antenna diversity. The performance of a maximum-likelihood (ML) code-acquisition technique utilizing beamforming is analyzed by considering the detection, miss, and false-alarm probabilities. This analysis is based on the statistics of the CDMA noncoherent demodulator and beamformer output. In the case of a code-acquisition scheme utilizing antenna diversity, the probability density function of a decision variable is analytically derived for multiple antennas. The expressions for the probabilities of detection, miss, and false alarm are also presented. The acquisition performance and mean acquisition time for both code-acquisition techniques are numerically evaluated and compared. The code-acquisition approaches with multiple antennas are shown to provide much better performance than the corresponding scheme with a single antenna in a frequency-selective fading channel.     

Far-field performance of linear antennas determined from near-fielddata

The main plane far-field radiation pattern of an antenna under test from the corresponding main plane near-field data, using a circular-line acquisition, is presented. The method is based on the reconstruction of equivalent magnetic currents (EMCs) using decoupled integral equations and one-dimensional source components. The resultant fast procedure is applicable to linear and quasilinear array antennas. Experimental data results and comparison with complete spherical acquisition and center-line acquisition are presented     

Improving MIMO capacity with directive antennas for outdoor-indoor scenarios

MIMO systems are usually associated with high scattering isotropic propagation while the use of directive antennas is associated with free space conditions. We found outdoor-indoor channels to be in between these two extremes, in the sense that we observed directivity - and - MIMO gain, for the same ensemble of channels. Our observation is based on measurements with directive (8 dB) and dipole antennas. Median MIMO capacities were found to be about 80% of the ideal (Rayleigh i.i.d.), at 5 dB Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), for both types of antennas. Using properly aimed directive antennas, the SNR was found on average to be 5.4 dB above that obtainable with dipoles, somewhat less than the 7 dB antenna gain difference. Thus, isotropic propagation, which would have negated directivity gains, cannot be justified in general. We empirically established that aiming for largest received power is the best array pointing strategy with directive antennas. Combining MIMO processing and angular search resulted on average in gains of 70% over the median capacities obtained with dipoles. Therefore it may in some cases be convenient to arrange subgroups of antennas for beamforming, and then process the thus reduced number of radio channels for MIMO gain.     

Performance of probe-fed microstrip-patch element phased arrays

The performance trends for large phased arrays with probe-fed microstrip-patch elements are discussed, with primary consideration given to single-probe (unbalanced) feed for rectangular grid arrays with rectangular patch geometry. The effects of substrate thickness and permittivity, patch dimensions, and element spacing are examined. Pronounced surface- and leaky-wave effects that tend to limit the scan volume are found. Interaction between the patch resonance at broadside scan and the leaky-wave resonances leads to an E-plane scan-bandwidth tradeoff. In the H-plane scan a transverse electric (TE)-type guided wave resonance is found that becomes pronounced when the H-plane dimension is a large fraction of the H-plane element spacing. This leads to a limitation of the H-plane patch dimension in the rectangular grid arrays. An element design procedure is proposed and illustrated for an element suitable for wide-angle scan over a ±5% frequency band     

Linearly polarized radial-line slot-array antennas with improvedreturn-loss performance

The standard linearly polarized radial-line slot-array (RLSA) antenna exhibits poor return loss as seen by its coaxial feed. This paper describes techniques that improve the poor return-loss performance of this antenna, by using two interchangeable methods: i) reflection-canceling slots on the front and back surface of the antenna, and ii) beam squinting. A series of 550 mm diameter linearly polarized Ku-band prototype antennas were constructed to experimentally investigate the efficiency of each of these methods. In order to cut experimental costs, initial radiation-pattern modeling was performed theoretically, and then prototypes were developed using inexpensive aluminum foil. Measurements of the developed prototypes indicated that both the reflection-canceling and beam-squinting methods provided a substantial improvement in return loss over the desired frequency band     

Bounds on the optimum performance of planar antennas for pulse radiation

The general problem of optimizing the design of planar electromagnetic pulse radiators is discussed. It is shown that bounds on the performance of such radiators can be determined by formulating field quantifies as inner products and solving a variational problem. Results of a simple example are given where the bound on the peak electric field is round for a finite-sized radiator having a current distribution which is frequency band-limited. The bound on the peak electric field component along an arbitrary orientation of direction in the radiator's far field is also presented. These results provide insight into the synthesis of electromagnetic pulse radiators, but further work is necessary if the technique discussed here is to lead to the design of improved electromagnetic pulse antennas.     

Improved radiation pattern performance of Gaussian profiled horn antennas

A new horn antenna profile is presented. This new profile based on Gaussian techniques offers the best solution when the requirements related to the radiation pattern are very stringent. Short-horn antennas with high-conversion efficiency to a fundamental Gaussian beam, and therefore, very low sidelobe and cross-pol levels in a wide-frequency band, could be obtained by using the design technique presented here. Once the theoretical principles of the Gaussian profiled horn antennas (GPHA) are presented, some other possibilities involving Gaussian profiles are studied and compared with their conventional counterparts. Finally, as an example of the design technique proposed, a particular design of a GPHA for HISPASAT 1C and now also valid for the new HISPASAT 1D satellite is presented, showing the excellent agreement between the theoretical and experimental results.     

The performance of transistor fed monopoles in active antennas

The performance of radiating elements in the form of monopoles and driven by transistors is examined theoretically and experimentally. A single element comprising a printed monopole over a ground plane and fed at its terminals by a microwave transistor is shown to have superior frequency characteristics compared to the passive element. Using a two-element array configuration, it is verified that the mutual impedance values are suppressed. The improved individual characteristics of the active elements together with their mutual behavior combine to produce a significantly improved frequency performance of the array. The results presented suggest that the transistorized array principle offers a means both of maintaining directivity of a transmitter, and discriminating against interfering sources by a receiver, over a greater frequency band.     

改善微带贴片相控阵天线轴比的方法研究

通过对微带贴片天线单元的仿真与优化,得出了法向轴比小于3 dB的右旋圆极化微带贴片天线单元;用所得的天线单元组阵得到9元相控阵天线,仿真得到其S11参数小于-16 dB、增益大于13 dB和轴比小于3 dB.针对微带贴片相控阵天线的轴比特性,提出了降低轴比的几种布阵方法,得到0.2 dB的轴比,最后分析并总结了改善微带贴片相控阵天线轴比的一般方法.