Progress In Electromagnetics Research B, Vol.

33, 135–151, 2011

RESEARCH ON A NEW KIND OF HIGH DIRECTIVITY

END-FIRE ANTENNA ARRAY

G. Yao, Z. Xue* , W. Li, W. Ren, and J. Cao

School of Information and Electronics, Beijing Institute of Technology,
5 South Zhongguancun Street, Haidian District, Beijing 100081, China

Abstract—In this paper, a new kind of end-fire array was built by

employing high directivity plate end-fire antenna as the basic element
based on electromagnetic surface wave theory. Being different from
normal end-fire array, in the new array, high directivity plate end-
fire antenna elements were arranged end to end along the end-fire
direction, and the interelement spacing and uniform progressive phase
were carefully adjusted to achieve high directivity. The simulations and
measurements showed that the whole array achieved 19.2 dB directivity
with four elements at 14.7 dB directivity each.

1. INTRODUCTION

End-fire array is widely adopted in many applications for its excellent

characteristics such as simple structure, easy fabrication, low cost and
low aerodynamic profile. Especially for airborne electronic equipment
where the low aerodynamic drag is urgently required, the end-fire array
is suitable to be used as the antenna, and it has already been used in
some applications, such as Boeing 737 AEW&C Wedgetail Airborne
Early Warning and Control Aircraft [1].
Some previous papers discussed the plate end-fire antennas and
end-fire arrays which used end-fire antenna as the elements. But on
the whole, the technical papers focused on this topic are far fewer than
those on the broadside arrays [2–19]. In [2], plate end-fire antennas
were used to make a circular array, in which the metal plate for every
element was connected to be a whole circular ground plane. In [3],
end-fire array was used as a surface wave radar antenna, in which the
sea surface was taken as the ground plane, and the end-fire antennas
Received 28 March 2011, Accepted 6 July 2011, Scheduled 29 July 2011
* Corresponding author: Zhenghui Xue ([email protected]).
136 Yao et al.

were arranged side by side as the elements. [4] discussed the idea
of building an end-fire array along end-fire direction, the preliminary
experiment, and simulation results, but it did not explore the theory
for the results. The work in this paper is partly based on [4], and some
further discussion and simulations were presented.
It is usually difficult to adopt traditional end-fire array in the fields
requiring high directivity, such as airborne AEW&C radar application.
So for a long time, the end-fire antenna and end-fire array are often
used as broadcasting and communication antennas where only middle
directivity is needed.
To improve the directivity, people usually choose between the
following two methods — using high directivity antenna as the
elements and modifying the array structure, and this paper will explore
both of them.
Section 2 of this paper explains the basic theory of end-fire antenna
by analyzing Yagi-Uda antenna and plate end-fire antenna. Section 3
describes the design approach of a new high directivity plate end-
fire antenna based on the surface wave theory. Section 4 discusses
the problems of building arrays on three different directions with the
high directivity plate end-fire element introduced in Section 3. The
emphasis of this part is to build a new kind of end-fire array, in which
elements were arranged along elements’ end-fire direction. After the
interelement spacing and uniform progressive phase were optimized
through electromagnetic (EM) simulation, this new end-fire array
achieves a high directivity, which is also proved by the measurements.
The works in Section 3 and Section 4, especially the second one building
the new structure end-fire array with end-fire element, are different
from previous research works and might be regarded as the novelty of
this paper.

2. BASIC THEORY EXPLANATION OF END-FIRE

ANTENNA

Generally speaking, end-fire antenna is not a scientific and exact name

of an antenna type. Only when some antennas are constituted to be
an array, may they have the characteristics of broad-side radiation or
end-fire radiation. But for a special kind of antenna structure made
up of one driven dipole and several parasitic dipoles, such as Yagi-Uda
antenna and others similar ones, their maximum radiation points to
the structure’s axis direction that is the ‘end’ direction. Even though
this kind of antenna looks like an array, it only has one exciting dipole.
So, it can be called an end-fire antenna in order to be distinguished
from the end-fire array.
Progress In Electromagnetics Research B, Vol. 33, 2011 137

Under the definition above, Yagi-Uda antenna is treated as an end-

fire antenna. As well known, this antenna is made up of one driven
dipole and several parasitic dipoles. All these dipoles are arranged one
by one with the same polarization and certain spacing. Among all
parasitic dipoles, there is one dipole which is longer than the driven
dipole and arranged at one side of the driven dipole; the other parasitic
dipoles of the same length are shorter than the driven dipole and
aligned on the other side of the driven dipole. According to EM
coupling theory [6], the phase of the induced current on the longer
parasitic dipole will lead the phase of the current on the driven dipole,
and the ones of shorter dipoles’ currents will be reverse. Then the
currents’ phase of all dipoles will lag in turn from longer dipole to
the last shorter dipole. This current distribution produces the beam
pointing to the structure axis direction, so the longer dipole is called
a reflector and the shorter dipoles are called directors. Because the
velocity of the equivalent EM wave around the Yagi-Uda antenna from
the reflector to the last director is slower than the velocity of light,
we call this wave ‘slow wave’ [5, 20]. The slow wave is indispensable
for the end-fire radiation, and the detailed equations derivation can be
found in [5] and [6].
If Yagi-Uda antenna is used as an airborne antenna, it should
have small cross section for low aerodynamic profile and be easy to
be mounted on the aeroplane’s surface. To achieve these, a metal
plate with smooth surface was introduced to mount Yagi-Uda antenna.
Because of the mirror image effect of the metal plate, all the dipoles
of Yagi-Uda antenna should be cut down to about half of the previous
length and become monopoles, then this structure has smaller cross
section than traditional Yagi-Uda antenna. The structure is shown in
Figure 1. This structure can also result in end-fire radiation just as
Yagi-Uda antenna and can be called plate end-fire antenna.
According to EM surface wave theory [7], there is surface wave

z
y
Beam Direction

Figure 1. The structure of the plate end-fire antenna.

138 Yao et al.

propagating along the metal plate’s surface under this structure

condition, which also has the characteristics of slow wave, just as the
EM wave around the Yagi-Uda antenna. Those monopoles also act
as the exciter and guide for the surface wave. So, the plate and the
monopoles are radiating together.
The surface current amplitudes and phases of monopoles on the
plate end-fire antenna were calculated by EM simulation software.
Compared with the corresponding Yagi antenna, the amplitude of
each monopole on the plate end-fire antenna was larger, but the
phase distributions of two antennas were almost the same (Figure 2).
Because the surface current was enhanced by the conduction of mental
plate, whereas the phase relationship between dipoles was not changed,
the whole end-fire radiation had been enhanced compared to the
corresponding Yagi antenna.

Figure 2. Amplitude and phase distribution along end-fire direction

for plate end-fire antenna element shown in Figure 1.
Progress In Electromagnetics Research B, Vol. 33, 2011 139

3. HIGH DIRECTIVITY PLATE END-FIRE ANTENNA

Just as Yagi-Uda antenna, the directivity of the plate end-fire antenna

is enhanced by increasing the number of directors. On the other hand,
if all the directors have the same length just as the ones of Yagi-
Uda, the directivity of the plate end-fire antenna will reach the limit
when the directors exceed certain number. The typical number of
directors for this phenomenon was observed as about 20 for plate end-
fire antenna, which is also the same for its predecessor — Yagi-Uda
antenna.
Based on the surface wave theory [7], for breaking through
the directivity limit and increasing the antenna directivity further
by increasing the directors, the antenna structure from excitation
monopole to the last director can be divided into three subzones:
feeding point zone, transmit zone and terminal zone (see Figure 3).
The lengths of monopoles in the feeding point zone and terminal zone
are step gradient to improve the efficiency of feeding point and to
decrease the terminal reflect energy. Usually the number of monopoles
in the feeding point zone is 30% of the total number, and the terminal
zone usually includes three monopoles [8]. According to [9, 10, 12, 13]
and [18], the lengths for each monopole in these three subzones can be
optimized.
Beam Direction

Feeding point zone Transmit zone Terminal zone

Figure 3. The structure of a high directivity plate end-fire antenna.

Three S-band plate end-fire antennas with 10, 15 and

20 monopoles respectively were designed. The interspacing between
adjacent monopoles within the three antennas were all 0.2λ.
Simulation results showed that the directivities of these three plate
end-fire antennas were 12.31 dB, 13.74 dB and 14.91 dB, respectively.
Antenna simulation models and simulation results are shown in
Figure 4 to Figure 6.
There was only one driven monopole and one reflector in each of
these three plate end-fire antennas. But the numbers of directors of
the three antennas were different. The simulation results also showed
that the slow wave’s average phase velocities and optimal lengths
of monopoles for three antennas were varied, which led to different
directivities, and generally the directivity increased along with the
140 Yao et al.

Figure 4. 10 monopoles plate end-fire antenna’s simulation model and

results.

Figure 5. 15 monopoles plate end-fire antenna’s simulation model and

results.
Progress In Electromagnetics Research B, Vol. 33, 2011 141

director’s increase.
With the same approach, a plate end-fire antenna including
120 monopoles was designed whose director number was much larger
than 20, and the 22.92 dB directivity was obtained.

4. HIGH DIRECTIVITY END-FIRE ARRAY

As the main part of the paper, this section presents detailed procedures
of building end-fire arrays taking high directivity plate end-fire
antennas as the elements.
The name of ‘end-fire array’ hereafter generally means antenna
arrays with the end-fire antennas as the elements.

4.1. Y-direction Array

The array axis for most traditional end-fire arrays is Y direction-
elements being arranged side by side along the Y axis (Figure 7).
Actually this kind of array is a broadside array, and it differs from
typical broadside array only in which it utilizes the plate end-fire
antenna as the element.

Figure 6. 20 monopoles plate end-fire antenna’s simulation model and

results.
142 Yao et al.

z y

Beam Direction

Figure 7. The Y -direction array using the plate end-fire antenna as

the element.

Before constituting this kind of array, we supposed that the

characteristics of this array might be the same as typical broadside
array’s, which means that the main beam of this array should be
compressed relative to the element’s beam in XY -plane and remained
the same as the element’s beam in XZ-plane according to classical
array theory.
But our practical experiment results were absolutely inconsistent
with the hypothesis above.
Taking 120 monopoles plate end-fire antenna as the element, an S-
band eight elements array along Y axis with 0.6λ interelement spacing
was fabricated and measured, which were shown in Figures 8 and 9.

Figure 8. Eight elements end-fire array using the 120 monopoles plate
end-fire antenna as the element.

The measurement results indicate that the main beam width of

array is narrower than element’s in H-plane (XY -plane) as expected
but is unexpectedly extended to a large scale in E-plane (XZ-plane),
and the 3D far field pattern just looked like a vertical ‘fan’.
Progress In Electromagnetics Research B, Vol. 33, 2011 143

Figure 9. Measurement field patterns for the eight elements array

compared with the field patterns for the element.

Investigating this phenomenon from qualitative perspective, we

found that the radiation of the plate end-fire antenna elements must
depend upon the surface wave propagating on the surface of the
plate. If the interelement spacing is small, typically smaller than one
wavelength, there will be strong mutual coupling between elements,
which affects the performance of the array. Because the surface
wave surrounds every element’s structure, this coupling effect is
much stronger than that in a broadside array. This unique feature
of broadside array with this kind of end-fire elements seems worth
quantitative investigation but will not be further explored here.

4.2. Z-direction Array

Correspondingly, the effort to build an end-fire array along Z axis
(Figure 10) was also unsuccessful. It was also a broadside array
utilizing the plate end-fire antenna as the elements actually.
Research indicated that the main lobe was narrowed in E-plane
but extended in H-plane.
In conclusion, utilizing this kind of plate end-fire antenna as the
elements to build a broadside array faces a series of new theoretical
and technical problems which need to be solved. In this paper,
only the phenomenon was introduced, but the theory interpretation
and technique steps to eliminate the end-fire coupling effect were not
investigated, which would be the next research focus of our group in
the future.
144 Yao et al.

z
y

Beam Direction

Figure 10. The Z-direction array using the plate end-fire antenna as
the element.
z

Beam Direction
y
d d

Figure 11. The X-direction array using the plate end-fire antenna as
the element.

4.3. X-direction Array

Finally, a new kind of end-fire array along X axis was built. The array
structure was shown in Figure 11. In this array, the elements were
arranged end to end along the X axis with the constant d spacing.
Here d does not denote the interelement spacing which was defined as
the distance between two driven monopoles of the adjacent elements
as usual, but was the distance between the last director of an element
and the reflector of the next element. The array axis and end-fire beam
direction were all in X-direction, and this kind of end-fire array was
an end-fire array in the real sense.
On the other hand, because of using high directivity plate
end-fire antenna as the element, this kind of end-fire array was
different from typical end-fire array using dipole or monopole as the
element. Obviously because of the length of plate end-fire element, the
interelement spacing for this kind of array was far larger than a typical
end-fire array.
Before constituting this array for high directivity, several questions
Progress In Electromagnetics Research B, Vol. 33, 2011 145

must be answered. Firstly, which plate end-fire antenna was chosen

to be the element. Secondly, what was the optimum value for d,
which is a significant parameter in this kind of array’s design. Thirdly,
what values for every element’s excitation amplitude and phase were
suitable. Actually the three questions above were interrelated.

4.3.1. Simulation and Optimization for Array Taking 20 Monopoles

Plate End-fire Antenna as the Element
Generally speaking, if the d spacing of every two adjacent elements
was too small, the reflector of the front one would shelter off the
end-fire radiation from the behind one. But the superposition of
electromagnetic waves radiated from different elements would be worse
when the spacing is quite large.
According to end-fire array theory, the uniform progressive phase
should be chosen to make the radiating field from every element
superimposed in-phase in the end-fire direction. So the uniform
progressive phase should depend on the d value. That was also
applicable to this kind of end-fire array. But an issue which must
be taken into account was that the velocity for the slow surface wave
along array axis in the new kind of end-fire array was lower than that
in a typical end-fire array. Then the relationship between d and the
uniform progressive phase must be different from the one in typical
end-fire array.
Taking the qualitative conclusions above into account, a lot of
simulations were performed to determine the optimum values for d
and the uniform progressive phase.
Taking a four-elements array whose elements were 20 monopoles
plate end-fire antennas as an example, the initial value for the d-spacing
and the uniform progressive phase were set to 0.5 wavelength and
60◦ , where 60◦ was basically equal to the phase delay for the slow
surface wave propagating from the driven monopole of an element to
the driven monopole of the next element. The excitation amplitude
for each element was selected to be equal.
Firstly, the simulations taking d-spacing as the variable, and the
60◦ for the uniform progressive phase as a constant were made to find
the optimum result in directivity. The scale for d spacing was set
from 0.2 to 1.0 wavelength, and the simulation results were shown in
Figure 12. Secondly, the simulations taking the uniform progressive
phase as the variable, and the 0.5 wavelength for d-spacing as a
constant were made to find the optimum result in directivity. The
scale for the uniform progressive phase was set from 0◦ to 360◦ , and
the simulation results were shown in Figure 13.
146 Yao et al.

Figure 12. The simulation results for array’s directivity versus the
d-spacing when the uniform progressive phase was constant 60◦ .

Figure 13. The simulation results for array’s directivity versus

the uniform progressive phase when the d-spacing was constant 0.5
wavelength.

From the above simulation results, also taking the side lobe level,
back lobe level and beam width into account, 0.5 wavelength and 60◦
were revealed to be the optimum d-spacing and uniform progressive
phase. With these two parameters, the average phase constant for
surface wave along this array’s axis was calculated to be 1.738π/λ,
which was obviously smaller than the phase constant of light 2π/λ.
The simulation results of field pattern for this array were shown
in Figure 14. In order to observe the benefit of building an array, the
field patterns for a single element were also shown in the corresponding
Progress In Electromagnetics Research B, Vol. 33, 2011 147

Figure 14. The simulation results of field pattern for the X axis
end-fire array and a single element.

figures.
The comparisons shown in Figure 14 indicates that the beam
widths of the array are narrowed in E- and H-planes simultaneously,
which is obviously different from Y - and Z-direction end-fire arrays.
Because the array has higher directivity and lower side lobe than the
element, it could be concluded that this kind of array is efficient to
enhance directivity, and it also indicates that the elements should
be fed with the appropriate uniform progressive phase just equal to
the slow surface wave propagation phase delay. This forced feeding
combining with the in-phase addition of surface wave is the reason to
obtain higher directivity for this kind of array.

4.3.2. Comparisons for Arrays with Different Elements

For the comparison of the radiation characteristics of array with
different elements, 10 monopoles, 15 monopoles and 20 monopoles plate
end-fire antenna were selected as the element respectively to constitute
three kinds of end-fire array. The simulations were also done for the
three conditions respectively.
No matter what kind of element was used, the rules for choosing
the d-spacing and the uniform progressive phase were the same as
mentioned above. The simulation results for the array directivity
vs. the total number of monopoles within the array were shown in
Figure 15.
According to Figure 15, directivity curves for different arrays had
the same trend, especially when the array having 10 monopoles plate
end-fire antenna as the element and the array having 15 monopoles
148 Yao et al.

Figure 15. The simulation results of array directivity vs. the total
number within the array.

plate end-fire antenna as the element.

For different arrays with the same total number of monopoles,
there were different directivities. Taking the total 60 monopoles as an
example, we found that the arrays using 10, 15, 20 monopoles antenna
respectively as element would have 6, 4, 3 elements, and the directivity
for each array was 19.1 dB, 18.2 dB and 18.0 dB respectively.
For the total number of monopoles from 30 to 90, the array with
10 monopoles element had the highest directivity. The array with
15 monopoles element had the second highest directivity, and the array
with 20 monopoles had the lowest one.
But when the total number of monopoles was more than 90, the
directivities of the array with 10 monopoles element and the array with
20 monopoles element were almost the same. Their directivities were
both higher than the array with 15 monopoles element.
The average phase constants were calculated for slow surface wave
propagating along the array axis. The results for the above three arrays
with different kinds of elements were 1.656π/λ, 1.734π/λ and 1.738π/λ,
respectively. Although different arrays have different phase constants,
they have similar directivities when the total number of monopoles is
large enough.
Progress In Electromagnetics Research B, Vol. 33, 2011 149

Figure 16. A S-band four elements end-fire array was under test.

Figure 17. The measurement results for array’s far field pattern.

4.3.3. Measurement for Array Taking 20 Monopoles Plate End-fire

Antenna as the Element
An S-band four elements end-fire array taking 20 monopoles plate end-
fire antenna as the element was chosen to be fabricated and measured
for obtaining its radiation characteristics.
The whole length in X axis for this array (also the length for the
integrative metal plate) was 17.7λ, and the width in Y axis was 2λ.
Also the interspacing between every two monopoles was 0.2λ, and the
d-spacing was 0.5λ.
Figure 16 shows that this array was under test in a near-field
measurement system, and the measurement results for array’s far field
pattern are shown in Figure 17. These figures also give the simulation
results for array’s far field pattern.
The measurement results for directivity was 19.2 dB, and half
power beam widths (HPBW) were 9.2◦ and 22.94◦ in E- and H-planes,
150 Yao et al.

respectively. The simulation and measurement results coincided very

well.
The 20 monopoles plate end-fire antenna was also tested in the
same measurement system. Compared with the measured directivity of
this single element, 14.7 dB, the array’s directivity had been enhanced
by 4.5 dB, which indicated that this kind of end-fire array had the
capability to obtain high directivity and then had practicability in
many applications.

5. CONCLUSION

In this paper, a new kind of end-fire array was designed and built by a
novel method, in which some plate end-fire antennas had been taken as
the element, arranged in a line end to end along the end-fire direction
and excited according to slow wave phase delay. Before this, the plate
end-fire antennas were optimized to obtain high directivity based on
electromagnetic surface wave theory. Simulation and measurement
results showed that the directivity of this array achieved a tremendous
increase.

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