Antenna Gain Computation

Carlo Bencivenni
2013-Apr-17

Fields in time and frequency domain

The electric and magnetic field E(r, t) and H(r, t), respectively, are vector fields and a
function of both space and time coordinates. Accordingly, the power P(t) flowing through
a closed surface S is defined, as [1, Sec. 2.3]
W(r, t) = E(r, t) H(r, t)
ZZ
ZZ
P(t) =
W(r, t) ds =
W(r, t) n
da.
S

(1)
(2)

While time domain probably is the most natural representation, for linear systems, frequency domain analysis is generally very convenient and efficient and often used in engineering. In the frequency domain, a steady state oscillating sinusoidal EM field with
angular frequency can be represented in phasor notation as E(r) and H(r), according
to
E(r, t) = Re[E(r)ejt ]

(3)

H(r, t) = Re[H(r)ejt ]

(4)

Using the relation Re[a] = 12 (a + a ) the Poynting vector can also be expressed in frequency
domain as
W(r, t) =

1
1
Re[E(r) H (r)] + Re[E(r) H(r)ej2t ]
2
2

(5)

While the first term is constant in time, the second oscillates sinusoidally at twice the
frequency of the phasor, therefore the time-average Poynting vector and power are
1
W avg (r) = W (r) = Re[E(r) H (r)]
ZZ 2
1
Re[E(r) H (r)] ds
Pavg = Prad =
2
S

(6)
(7)

Far Field Radiation

The electric and magnetic fields propagating far from their source are mutually orthogonal
with respect to the direction of propagation r and related through the wave impedance
of a homogeneous medium. In the far field, where H(r) = 1 r E(r), the Poynting vector
can be rewritten as
W (r) =

1
1
Re[E(r) H (r)] = |E(r)|2 r .
2
2

(8)

This expression is rigourous for an infinite distance from the source, but constitutes also a
valid approximation for the whole far field region. The boundary where this region starts is
dependent on the geometry of the source and on the wavelength but antennas are typically
designed to operate in such a regime.
Also, a wave propagating away from a finite sized source, at a sufficiently large distance
from the origin, will spread spherically. As the total power through any arbitrary far field
sphere must be constant, the power density must decrease as 1/r2 as the total area grows
as r2 . Therefore, when assuming far field propagation, the radial dependence from a source
is only given by the decaying term 1/r and by a phase delay. For this reason it is useful
to introduce the far field complex function G to describe the far field characteristics of a
radiator in the angular directions only, as it de-embeds the known radial behaviour. Hence,
in spherical coordinates [2, Sec. 2.3.3],
1
1
E(r) = ejkr G(
r ) = E(r, , ) = ejkr G(, )
(9)
r
r
where the direction vector r = sin cos
x + sin sin
y + cos
z . Note that G(, ) is only
dependent on the direction. Similarly, the radiation intensity U (, ) is only a function of
direction and defined defined as
U (, ) = r2 W (r, , ) r =

r2
1
|E(r, , )|2 r r = |G(, )|2
2
2

(10)

The total radiated power in (7) can therefore be rewritten as

ZZ
ZZ
Prad =
W (r, , ) r da =
W (r, , ) r r2 sin d d
4

far field sphere

ZZ
=

1
U (, ) sin dd =
2

ZZ
4

|G(, )|2 sin d d. (11)

 and
components in the
It is pointed out that E, H and G are vectors which only have
far field. Accordingly, the power density has only a radial component, i.e., W (r, , )|r =
Wr (r, , )
r and is therefore fully described by a scalar value, as U in (10).
In the same way as the fields, also the far field pattern can be decomposed into the two
and ,
or more generally, in co-polar co
and cross-polar xp
components, [2,
components,
Sec. 2.3.14], that is,
+ Gxp (, )xp.

G(, ) = Gco (, )co

(12)

The two components are orthogonal and therefore contribute independently to the power
as [2, sec. 2.3.3]
U (, ) =

1
1
|G(, )|2 = [|Gco (, )|2 + |Gxp (, )|2 ].
2
2

(13)

For the numerical analysis and implementation it is convenient to use a more compact
matrix notation. Using some basic properties of complex matrix calculus, the radiation
intensity in (10) and the radiated power in (11) can be rewritten, respectively, as
1
1
|G(, )|2 = GH (, )G(, )
2
2
ZZ
ZZ
1
1
2
|G(, )| sin d d =
GH (, )G(, ) sin d d
=
2
2

U (, ) =

(14)

Prad

(15)

Transmitting Situation

An antenna will generally be part of a transmitting or receiving system and therefore

should be studied in a such a context. In the transmitting situation, a single port antenna
can be seen as a one-port device, characterised by an input impedance, connected to the
rest of the system, usually modelled by an equivalent circuit, for example Norton. As the
absorbed power by the antenna input impedance is the radiated power, this power depends
on the supplied power. The radiated fields will be therefore proportional to the supplied
current, i.e., G(, ) I [2, sec. 2.6], so that the effect of the source current can be
separated as
G(, ) = Ig(, )
3

(16)

where g(, ) is the far field pattern defined for a unity source current.
A beamforming antenna array is a set of radiating antenna elements designed to synthesize a given far field pattern. The total far field pattern is the combined result of the
contribution and interaction of each antenna element.
In the presence of antenna mutual coupling, and for the transmitting situation, the total
far-field pattern G can be obtained as a superposition of the N embedded far field patterns
N
{g n (, )}N
n=1 excited by the respective input currents {In }n=1 as
G(, ) =

N
X

In g n (, ) = G(, )I

(17)

n=1

where matrix G(, ) is the the column-augmented representation of the embedded element
far fields defined for the unit input current and I is a column vector of excitation currents,
i.e.,
G(, ) = [g 1 , g 2 , . . . , g N ]
I = [I1 , I2 , . . . , IN ]T .

(18)
(19)

The far field pattern is a complex-valued vector function containing information about the
phase shift experienced by the relative positions of the elements. Once G(, ) is defined,
one can rewrite the radiation intensity in the more convenient form
U (, ) =

1
1
1
|G(, )|2 = |G(, )I|2 = [G(, )I]H [G(, )I]
2
2
2
1
= IH GH (, )G(, )I = IH B(, )I (20)
2

where the matrix element are Bmn =

1 H
g (, )gn (, ).
2 m

Similarly, the total radiated power can be written as

ZZ
ZZ
1
1
2
Prad =
|G(, )| sin d d =
|G(, )I|2 sin d d
2
2
4
4

ZZ
1
= IH
GH (, )G(, ) sin d d I = IH AI (21)
2
4

where the matrix element Amn =

1
2

RR

gH
m (, )gn (, ) sin d d is the pattern overlap

integral for the patterns gm (, ) and gn (, ).

4

Receiving Situation

A receiving antenna can be modelled by a Thevenin equivalent circuit through an equivalent

source voltage and internal input impendence. The equivalent open-circuit voltage obtained
is related to the incident field E 0 and the antenna pattern g(, ) as [2, Sec. 2.6.3]
Voc =

2j
G(
r) E 0
Iat

(22)

where E 0 (, ) = E(r = 0, , ) is the incident field at the global origin where the far-field
function G is defined. The output voltage of an array in the receiving situation is formed
by applying a set of N complex conjugate weights {w }N
n=1 to the element outputs and
summing the result. In matrix-vector notation, the overall array response vo for signals
incident from the particular direction (, ) can be expressed as
vo (, ) = wH v(, )

(23)

where v(, ) = [v1 (, ), v2 (, ), . . . , vN (, )]T is the voltage vector containing the output
open-circuit voltages of each antenna element. Hence, from equation (22), and by using
the relation vn (, ) = E 0 (, ) g n (, ),
v(, ) = [E 0 g 1 , E 0 g 2 , . . . , E 0 g N ]T .

(24)

defines an uniform impinging plane wave; in this condition the

Note that E 0 (, ) = co,
voltage vector in (24) is also referred to as steering vector in the array signal processing
community [3].
The total received power for a plane wave incident from one specific direction (, ) in
impedance matching condition is
1
1
1
Prec (, ) = |vo (, )|2 = vo (, )voH (, ) = wH v(, )vH (, )w,
4
4
4

(25)

while the total accepted power from a set of L plane waves incident each from direction
(` , ` ), for ` = 1, 2, ..., L:
L

Ptot =

1X
1X H
|vo (` , ` )|2 =
w v(` , ` )vH (` , ` )w
4 `=1
4 `=1
1
= wH
4
5

"

L
X
`=1

#
v(` , ` )vH (` , ` ) w (26)

Receiving and Transmitting Equivalent Situation

Directivity is a key parameter of merit for radiators and describes the ability of the antenna
to focus the waves in a specific direction. The directivity is defined as the ratio of the radiation intensity in a given direction (or, if omitted, in the direction of maximum radiation)
with respect to the power density of an isotropic radiator with same total power [1, Sec.
2.6]
D = D(, )|max =

4U (, )
,
Prad

(27)

where D|db = 10 log10 D is the directivity expressed in decibel. The directivity is defined
for the transmission situation, following equations (20) and (21), equation (27) can be
rewritten as
IH B(, )I
Prad (, )
= 4
D(, ) =
Ptot /4
IH AI

(28)

We aim here at establishing the equivalence between the receiving and transmit situation
in terms of directivity, in fact, in virtue of antenna reciprocity, the antenna behave in a
reciprocal manner in transmission and receive situations. As in the transmission situation
we want to define a performance parameter that describe the ability of the antenna to
emphasize the received signal from a specific direction respect to the average.
We therefore consider a uniform omnidirectional excitation incident on the receiving antenna and obtain the expression for the received power in a specific direction and the aver + xp).

age one. In this hypothesis, the incident field can be expressed as E 0 (, ) = E0 (co
Accordingly with the previous chapter, equation (25) can be rewritten together following
the incident field expression as
1
|E0 |2 H
Prec (, ) = wH v(, )vH (, )w =
w g(, )gH (, )w = wH Dw
4
4
where the matrix element Dmn =

(29)

|E0 |2
gm (, )gH
n (, ).
4

The total power received by the antenna for the uniform omnidirectional excitation is,

accordingly to equation (25), such as

Ptot

ZZ
1
= wH
v(, )vH (, ) sin d d w
4
4

ZZ
2
|E0 | H
w
g(, )gH (, ) sin d d w = wH Cw (30)
=
4
4

where the matrix element Cmn =

|E0 |2
4

RR

g(, )gH (, ) sin d d.

From the above expression we can define a new performance parameter describing the directional behaviour of the antenna receiver as the power received from a particular direction
respect to the average as
(, ) =

Prec (, )
wH D(, )w
= 4
Ptot /4
wH Cw

(31)

Comparing the obtained expression for the receiving situation and the directivity for the
transmit situation (31)
D(, ) = 4

IH B(, )I
wH D(, )w
,

(,
)
=
4
wH Cw
IH AI

(32)

show the parallelism between the two, with the weighting coefficients being the dual of the
current excitations in the transmit configuration.

References
[1] C. A. Balanis, Antenna Theory: Analysis Design.
Inc., 2013.

New York: John Wiley and Sons,

[2] P.-S. Kildal, Foundations of Antennas: A unified Approach for Line-Of-Sight and Multipath, 2013.
[3] C.-Y. Tseng and L. J. Griffiths, Modeling and analysis of a long thin conducting
stripline, IEEE Trans. Signal Process., vol. 40, no. 11, pp. 27372746, 1992.