Analysis of Thin Wire Antennas

Author: Rahul Gladwin.

Advisor: Prof. J. Jin

Department of Electrical and Computer

Engineering, UIUC.
Introduction
 When we design antennas, it is vital
to be able to estimate the current
distribution on its surface.
 From the current distribution, we
can calculate the input impedance,
gain and the far-field pattern for the
antenna.
Introduction (cont…)

 Theoretical calculations may be used

to analyze antennas with simple
geometry, however, as we begin to
analyze coupled antennas, the work
becomes more tedious.
 It becomes necessary to numerically
model the antenna to determine its
current distribution.
Introduction (cont…)

 In this project, I have written a

MATLAB program to model the
current distribution on thin-wire
single and coupled one-dimensional
antennas.
 The algorithm used to evaluate the
integrals is based on the Method of
Moments and Hallén-Pocklington
equations
Introduction (cont…)

 To test my program, I have the

modeled current distributions on a
single dipole antenna and due to
the mutual coupling between closely
spaced linear antennas like those in
a three-element Yagi-Uda array
antenna.
Theoretical Formulation
 This purpose of this program is to
determine the electric charge
density and electric current density
that result when an impressed
electric field acts on a one
dimensional thin wire antenna.
Theoretical Formulation (cont…)

 Until now, we’ve assumed that J is

known and we have solved for E. I
have now turned this around and
solved for J using a known E.
 Where J is the current density and E
is the electric field intensity.
Theoretical Formulation (cont…)

 Obviously, E is not known anywhere,

but we do know that Etan = 0 on the
surface of the PEC (Perfect Electric
Conductor).

 My further derivations take off from

here.
Theoretical Formulation (cont…)

 When studying antennas, we can run into

two situations: receiving and transmitting
antennas.
 A successful program should consider
both these situations and the differences,
if any, should be incorporated in the
algorithm.
 I started by drawing the two scenarios
and writing out the respective equations.
Transmitting Antennas
Receiving Antennas
Theoretical Formulation (cont…)

 The important thing to realize is that

whether we’re dealing with either of
the two situations, the impressed
Electric field induces a current J to
flow on and in the wire.
 J(r), in turn produces a scattered
field Es. The total electric field
produced is E=Ei+Es.
Theoretical Formulation (cont…)

 For simplicity, I assumed the wires

to be perfectly conducting. Thus, the
tangential component of the total
field must be zero on perfectly
conducting wires.
 This leads to an integral equation
that can be solved for J. Once J is
known, it can be used to find the
required current distribution.
Theoretical Formulation (cont…)

 Now, all I needed is the expression

for Etan on the wire surface that is in
terms of the unknown J.

 The first step is to find an equation

relating E to J. It can be derived as
follows.
Derivation for Escattered
Derivation for Escattered
Derivation for Escattered
Derivation for Escattered
Derivation for Escattered

The above is the exact solution

Simplifying assumptions
 The wire is a PEC (Perfect Electric
Conductor).
 Current flows only on the surface of
the wire.
 Current only flows on the + axis and
is uniformly distributed over the wire
surface.
Simplifying assumptions (cont…)

 The wire is thin. I assumed this to

enforce that Etan= 0 on PEC wire.
 Both Ez and Ephi are tangential
components but the thin wire
assumptions don’t allow a Ephi
component. So I only cared about
the z-component of Etan.
Simplifying assumptions (cont…)

 From the previous assumptions, I

can write the current density within
the wire as:
Simplifying assumptions (cont…)

 After enforcing Etan = 0; by

symmetry, Etan = Ephi

 Again, putting down only the z-

component of the scattered electric
field equation, we get:
Simplifying assumptions (cont…)
Simplifying assumptions (cont…)

This is my main equation for

evaluating Ez. However, there is a
problem with the above equation: a
singularity exists.
Simplifying assumptions (cont…)
Simplifying assumptions (cont…)
 Integral Equation of the
First Kind is found:
Note that the previous equation can be
changed to n equations and n unknowns.
That is, the above equation can be solved
by discretizing, that is, writing I(z’) as,

Integral equation of the first kind (above)

Basis function: Triangular
Weighting function: Delta
 The Delta function amounts to
forcing Etan=0 only at a discrete
set of points. The weighting
function is equal to the delta
function.
Weighting function: Delta
 In other words, I’m forcing the
weighted average of Etan=0 within
each interval to be zero. The
system becomes:

The above is the nth equation

Final system of equations

Once the above equation is inverted, you

can find the current distribution for a
whole range of antenna excitations.
The Final Equation:

Once In is known, we can calculate

patterns, gain, etc. of the antenna
Analysis of a Straight
Dipole
An example follows.
The Straight Dipole
 This section provides results from
simulations of a 47 cm straight
dipole.
 The straight dipole is analyzed at
resonance (300Mhz) in order to
validate the model.
The Straight Dipole (cont…)

 In order to test my program, I

simulated the following 47 cm long
dipole because it should exhibit
resonance at around 300Mhz.
The Straight Dipole (cont…)

 For analyzing a straight dipole, the

program prompts for the number of
moments used and the frequency as
initial inputs.
 Based on the derivations, the
program then plots the current
magnitude as the functions of
positions on the dipole.
The Straight Dipole (cont…)

 I used a moment density of 55

moments per wavelength and
frequencies of 300Mhz, 600Mhz and
900Mhz.
 The output follows:
Analyzing coupled
antennas
Numerical Solutions
to the Hallén-
Pocklington
equations for
coupled dipoles
Theoretical Formulation
 Here, I discuss their numerical
solution. For K antennas in line, on
the pth antenna, we have:
Theoretical Formulation (cont…)

 In the above equation, Vp(z) is

defined to be the sum of the
(scaled) vector potentials due to the
currents on all antennas:
Theoretical Formulation (cont…)

 The Impedance kernel is:

Theoretical Formulation (cont…)

 For the Pth antenna, the solution for

V(p) is of the form:
Theoretical Formulation (cont…)

 Assuming that all the antennas are

center driven, we obtain the coupled
system of Hallén equations, for p =
1, 2, . . . , K:
Theoretical Formulation (cont…)

 To solve the previous system of

equations, I applied a pulse-function
expansion of the form:

…and took N = 2M + 1 sampling

points on each antenna.
Theoretical Formulation (cont…)

 On the qth antenna, we have:

Therefore, the pulse-function

expansion for the qth current must
use a square pulse of width delta
zq.
Theoretical Formulation (cont…)

 Therefore, the current expansion on

the qth element should be:
Theoretical Formulation (cont…)

 I used the previous equation and

sampled along the pth antenna

…and obtained the discretized

Hallén system as:
Theoretical Formulation (cont…)

 The previous equation can be

written in a more compact form
since p=1,2,3…K. The new form is:
Theoretical Formulation (cont…)

 Now, n-dimensional vectors can me

defined:
Theoretical Formulation (cont…)

 This system provides k coupled

matrix equations by which we can
determined the k sampled currents
on the antennas. For example, if
k=3, we have:
Theoretical Formulation (cont…)

 This matrix can also be written in

the form:
Theoretical Formulation (cont…)

The solution to this equation is of

the form:

I have written a MATLAB script that

solves the above equation for
currents on coupled antennas.
 Analysis of a Three
element Yagi-Uda array
An Example follows
Yagi-Uda array
 The three-element Yagi I simulated
consisted of one reflector, one driven
element and one director.
 The corresponding antenna lengths,
radii and locations on the x-axis
(with the driven element at origin)
were in units of ‘lambda’
(wavelengths - meter)
Yagi-Uda array (cont…)

 My program prompts the values of

‘L’, ‘a’ and ‘d’ as inputs.
 L=antenna length, a=radius and
d=distance along the horizontal
axis. Here is the data I used:
 Reference
1. Harrington, Roger F., Field Computation by Moment
Methods. New York: IEEE Press, 1993.
2. Micheilssen, Eric. ECE 354 Lecture Notes on Antennas. The
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2003.
3. Janaswamy, Ramakrishna. Radiowave Propagation and
Smart Antennas for wireless communications, Kluwe
Academic Publishers, Boston, 1999.
4. IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine, Vol 44, No. 4,
August 2002.
5. Pozar, David. Microstrip Antennas : The Analysis and Design
of Microstrip Antennas and Arrays, Wiley-IEEE Press, July
1995.
 Special Thanks To

Prof. J. Jin
and
his research group