Antennas and Propagation – 2007 – Lecture 2.

Today we want to reinforce and build on many of the ideas from the first
Lecture.

We are talking about the various ways of getting high radio frequency
energy from one point to another. The basic thing about high frequencies
is that they want to ‘escape’ and leak out into space. We have seen that
transmission lines are all about ‘containing’ these fields within their
structure.
The sequence of transmission lines is:
• Parallel wire
• Coaxial
• Waveguide
• Optical fibre
There are variants like ‘stripline’ or ‘microstripline’ transmission lines
which are made on circuit board material – but they are just another ‘variety’
which we will touch on down the track.

To give an idea of the fields situation, first for the parallel wire line:

And then for the coaxial line:

Where red lines show electric field lines and green the magnetic. At
EVERY point E and H are at right angles and have the “Plane Wave” form:

And at ANY point if we take the ratio E/H = (volts/meter)/(amps/meter) = Ω

and this must also equal the ‘Characteristic Impedance’ that we have already
discussed.

Now our whole study of antennas is all about ‘shaping’ the way an antenna
radiates – controlling the ‘pattern’ and doing that efficiently.

ALL em waves in space have a ‘plane’ wave form. Space is then a

transmission line where we can still take the ratio of E/H and we find that
the value of the characteristic impedance = 120π = 377 Ω..

We revisited the idea of an ‘accelerated’ current causing a ‘radiated kink’

which we met in the first lecture – which has a maximum to the side and
nulls off the ends – looks the same all the way round and will have some
kind of ‘donut’ pattern:
ANY antenna pattern which we ever draw is ALWAYS a pattern of the
ELECTRIC field. Now it isn’t easy for you to sketch this sort of 3 – D
result so instead we sketch 2 – D cuts of this in this case as:

You need to relate these to the 3 – D picture. The “E plane” pattern is the
pattern of the Electric field in line with the wire. H lines always encircle
the wire which gives us the ‘H plane’ but in that plane we sketch an E field
result!

We revisited the idea of bending up λ/4 lengths at the ends of a parallel wire
transmission line to form a very useful ‘Half wave’ dipole:

Current at each end must always be zero (nowhere to go!) and we can
exactly fit in a half wave distribution of current as seen in the previous
sketch. We will formally analyse the performance of this particular dipole
in the next lecture.

As we shall see this λ is vital to everything in antennas and is related to the

frequency and the velocity of light by: f * λ = c.

We then revisited the idea of ‘imaging’ or ‘mirroring’ which can be analysed

by considering images as:

Or:

In each case the dipole is above a ground plane conductor. There can be
NO actual radiation below that ground plane in either case BUT we can
imagine the image to be there for all analysis purposes.

We make use of ‘antenna imaging’ ideas extensively – partly because they

are a fact of life in the real world and also because they provide a “free”
second image. The most common usage is the ‘negative’ image case as
shown in the next sketch:

Next we show the same arrangement from the side:

Envisaging the usual donut pattern as shown here it is clear that each dipole
is in the maximum signal of the other and they are not far apart at all! In
fact we will get serious “mutual” coupling effects as summarized in the
following sketch:

The values for Z12 are presented in the following diagrams ( we will be
coming back later to understand how these are evaluated):
You simply need to read off the (complex) value of Z12 and it is
straightforward to evaluate the mutual coupling equations – there will be an
example shortly.

The mutual curves in the following simply show this same information in a
different way:
This is all background material for your first laboratory exercise. The lab
includes the use of a 900 corner reflector and as you can see from the
following this can be analysed by using 3 images:
The result of the analysis will then ive you the fields in the left hand ‘open’
900 corner reflector segment.

We can even do this with a 600 corner reflector which can be analysed with
5 images. Obviously in both of these cases there will be significant mutual
coupling effects to deal with which we will learn to cope with as we
progress.

We have met the idea of ‘imaging’ over a ground plane and you should be
comfortable with the idea that with a vertical dipole above a ground plane
can be analysed by introducing a positive image as we see here:

When you look back at the antenna from a (plane!) horizon (far away!) you
see the dipole and its image as being equal and ‘in phase’ so you would
expect a maximum there. This would be the case if the ground was a
PERFECT conductor – but of course, nothing is a perfect conductor so in
reality there will be a null right at the ground as shown here.
We now look at a very real application which makes use of horizontal
dipoles above a ground plane – we then analyse with negative images!

THE INSTRUMENT LANDING SYSTEM GLIDEPATH.

Because there are so many useful things to be learned from the way it works
we then proceeded to look at the Instrument Landing System (ILS) glidepath
which is in use at all major airports throughout the world for the final
approach phase of a landing aircraft.

We start by considering a horizontal dipole placed some 4.777λ above the

ground as shown in the following sketch:

We have found that a horizontal dipole produces a ‘Negative’ image in the

ground ‘mirror’ so if we look back at this antenna from the horizon (and far
away) we must see a complete null as the field from the driven antenna and
its image directly cancel.
We take our phase reference as the ground point “O” because it is the
‘centre’ of the antenna. Then as we move our observation (far field)
point upwards at a constant radius we can see from the lower part of this
sketch that the radiated ‘ray’ from the upper (driven) dipole leads the point
“O” while the image contribution ‘lags’ by exactly the same amount. The
phase changes by 3600 or 2π radians every wavelength. The sequence of
events is shown in the following sketch which shows the development as we
move up in elevation by 10 intervals.
You must see that 2π/λ * 4.777 * λ * sin ( 10 ) = π/6 (equivalent to 300 )

For each 10 change in elevation the component phases change by 300 and
this progression is shown in the following sketches up to an elevation angle
of 80 . At the 00 angle I have shown the “Reference” phase as being
vertical ( that is the number of 2π (or 3600 ) phase lags from “O” ) just for
neatness! That reference phase does not change provided we move our
observation point upwards on an arc of constant radius.
You need to observe clearly that up to an elevation angle of 60 the phase of
the resultant is always constant and at the same phase to the left. At 60
there is a null in the pattern and then above this angle the phase instantly
‘flips’ by 1800 . Higher than 60 the pattern builds up again to another
maximum at 90 followed by a null again at 120 .

This business of the phase flipping by 1800 across a null ( AT A

CONSTANT RADIUS!) is a quite fundamental property of ALL antenna
patterns.

The simplest Glidepath system employs a second horizontal dipole which is

located a further 4.777λ above the first as shown in the following sketch.
Because this second dipole is twice as high as the first it will have nulls
occurring twice as fast! In other words the first null of the upper dipole
now occurs at 30 also shown in the following sketch. The glidepath
system works at around a frequency of 330 MHz and is modulated with 90
Hz and 150 Hz audio tones as shown in the lower part of the sketch here:
In to the lower antenna is fed Carrier (at 330 MHz) plus in-phase sidebands
(CSB) at 90 and 150 Hz while in to the upper antenna is fed NO carrier but
Sidebands Only (SBO) with sidebands which have opposite phase. The
upper antenna has a null at 30 so at that angle in the sky the 90 and 150 Hz
tones will be equal. Below 30 you will see that the 90 Hz tones ADD while
the 150 Hz tones tend to CANCEL. Because of the phase flip at the 30
null at an angle above 30 the 90 Hz tone sidebands then tend to CANCEL
while the 150 Hz tones reinforce. The aircraft receives the 330 MHz signal
demodulates it and compares the size of 90 Hz and 150 Hz tones. This ends
up providing a + and – (virtually linear) path of more than ½0 each side of
30 which can be used by a landing aircraft. Way back in time these
demodulated tones were fed directly to the pilots earphones!!!

There is also a separate azimuth guidance path to keep the aircraft on

‘azimuth’ centerline which is provided by another antenna (located past the
stop end of the runway) – that system is called the “Localizer” and it
operates at around 110 MHz – it provides azimuth signals (which are very
similar to the elevation ones we have just considered) to give a linear
azimuth path over at least + and - 2½0 about the runway centerline.

Copyright © Godfrey Lucas

Updated 5 August 2007.
`