ANTENNA LOADING: LUMPED ELEMENTS 9.4, Introduction 9.2. Code Sequence 9.3. Lumped Resistor, Inductor, and Capacitor 9.4. Test 95. Effects of Resistive and Capacitive Loading 9.6. Conclusions References Problems 1. INTRODUCTION ‘The transient response of perfectly conducting cylindrical electric dipoles and monopoles is characterized by a number of reflections from the ends of the antenna (typically from the free end), resulting in an erratic response long after the excitation pulse is ended. This is why the standard dipole/fmonopole cannot be used for the broadband antenna design (for UWB purposes). A classical approach (o prevent the reflection from the end of a dipole or monopole antenna is to introduce a variable internal resistance per unit length. This is the so-called Wu and King model [1,2]. Although the antenna is purely reflectionless at only one particular frequency. the frequency depen- dence is weak, resulting in a current distribution that is very nearly indepen- dent of frequency [3]. Another approach to prevent the reflection from the end of the dipole or monopole, keeping the ohmic losses negligible, is to use a variable capacitance 223224 © ANTENNALOADING: LUMPED ELEMENTS: per unit length. It originates with Hallén [4]. The same objective is achieved of nearly occluding the reflecting wave from the end of the monopole but by way of a reactive distributed impedance instead of the real one. The corre- sponding theory somewhat follows the Wu and King model. The reasoning behind such a replacement is that in eliminating the ohmic losses of pure resis- tive loading, one could increase the antenna’s efficiency as a radiator. Capac- itive loading was further investigated in [5,6]. A comprehensive review of different loading types is given in [7]. The NEC code for loaded antennas is discussed in [8]. In this very short chapter we study the lumped and distributed loading of the simple antenna types. The RWG edge elements are ideally suited for mod- eling the antenna loading. Actually we only need to change slightly the diag- ‘onal terms of the impedance matrix. The corresponding theory was developed in [9,10]. 9.2. CODE SEQUENCE ‘The code sequence of Chapter 7 remains practically unchanged, The only script that is changed is rw¢3 .m. This script has a new biock that introduces the lumped loading of a few RWG edge elements, Distributed loading can be simulated using a straightforward modification of this block. 9.3. LUMPED RESISTOR, INDUCTOR, AND CAPACITOR Figure 9.1 illustrates the idea of the loaded edge (RWG edge element) for four different loading types with RWG edge elements [9]. One of them, which is the voltage feed, has been already investigated in the preceding chapters. Equally with the voltage feed, we can introduce a resistive, inductive, or capac- itive load of an edge element. ‘To see how the loaded edge works we return to the voltage feed model discussed in Chapter 4. First, we treat a loaded edge nas if it were exactly ‘the voltage source edge, with an unknown voltage in the feed V. Next, the unknown voltage is expressed in terms of the total current through the edge x. According to Eq. (4.7) this current is equal to (,4,, where |, is the edge length. ‘The corresponding expression is given by Va enllatn) (9.1) where z, is the lumped impedance (or resistance for a purely resistive load), Eq. (9.1) is none other than circuit Ohm's law for an impedance clement z,. Next, the voltage drop (9.1) is incorporated into the moment equations according to Bq. (4.5) and moved %o its left-hand side (to the impedance matrix). Since the source voltage and the load voltage must have the oppositeLUMPED RESISTOR, INDUCTOR, AND CAPAGITOR 225 Physical model a) b) Driving Resistive edge edge °) a) Inductive Capacitive edge edge Figure 9.1. Iustration of the loaded edge tor four types of loaded RG elements, polarities (see the passive and active reference configurations for an electric circuit), the sign of the impedance contribution must be the opposite of the feed voltage contribution (alternatively, we could use—V instead of V). ‘Thus, if the edge n is the only loaded edge, only one diagonal element of the impedance matrix Z has to be modified according to the following formulas (see also [9]):226 ANTENNA LOADING: LUMPED ELEMENTS: Resistance Ri Zin 3 Zany +n t joC Inductance L! Zin Zan +(0,)" Jol, Capacitance Cr Zay > Zin + (Ey Impedance 2; Zu, Zon +(ls)°Z (9.2) The impedance contribution is programmed in the script rwq3m. First, we identify positions of the lumped elements and the LCR (inductance! capacitance/resistance) values for every clement. The “direction” of the lumped element has to be given in order to make clear exactly which edge is loaded. The code below illustrates these steps: SIMPEDANCE ELEMENTS SLumped impedance format ® LeadPoint, Lumped element locations % LoadVvalue vector of L, C, and R % LoadDir “Direction” of lumped element UNvumber=2; LoadPoint(1:3,1}=[0 6.50 01"; LoadValue(1:3,1)=(0 1e16 100)‘; $LCR LoadDir (1:3,1)=[0 1 0)"; LoadPoint (1:3,2)=[0 -0.50 0)‘; hoadValue(1:3,2}=[0 lel6 100]’; SLCR LoadDir (1:3,2)=[0 1 0)’; for k=1:LNumber DeltaZ(k)=j*omega*hoadValue(1,k) +... 1/ (j*tomega*LoadValue {2,k)) tLoadValue (3,k); end Next, a corresponding modification of the impedance matrix is made for some edge elements, These elements are identified in the following, way: the corresponding edges are those close: lar to the associated load “direction The concept of impedance loading is physically very clear for thin strips or wires, where we have only one RWG edge element per strip width. The loaded edge corresponds to a resistor, or a inductor, or a capacitor that breaks the thin strip or the thin wire. Many practical realizations of this design are dis- cussed in [8]. At the same time we can formally introduce lumped loading for plates or other surfaces. It is, however, a difficult question of how to realize such a loading in practice. One way might be to cut narrow slots in the metal surface and “shorten” them by the lumped elements to the load points and are perpendicu-EFFECTS OF RESISTIVE AND CAPACITIVE LOADING 227, Feeding edge Loading edge (100) Loading edge (100 0) Figure 9.2. Feed and load positions for the 2m long dipole. Table 9.1, Radiation Characteristics of the Rasislively Loaded Dipole 75MHz Model Input Impedance, Feed Power, —_-Radiated w Power, W Present calculation 188 = jx 14 0.0026 0.0011 Equivalent wire monopole 198 +] x01 0.0025 6.0012 (SuperNEC) with 39 segments, 9.4. TEST As a test example we consider the 2m long dipole simulated by a strip with 80 triangles and a width of 0.02m. This corresponds to a wire radius of 0.005 m. The structure is generated using the script strip.m in subdirectory mesh. Two loading edges are shown in Fig. 9.2. We investigate the resisti lumped loading using two resistors, 1002 each. The frequency is 75 MHz (half- wavelength dipole) ‘Table 9.1 compares the simulation results of the present chapter with the SuperNEC simulation results [11] for a loaded wire dipole of an equivalent radius. The agreement is quite satisfactory. Table 9.1 also indicates the differ- ence between the radiated power of the lossy antenna and the power deliv- ered to the antenna in the feed. The former value is considerably smaller than the latter. In the present case the ratio of two powers (antenna efficiency) is only about 50%. The feed power (at 1 V feed voltage) is calculated in the script xwg3 .m, whereas the total radiated power (array Total Power) is found in the script efield2.m. 9.5. EFFECTS OF RESISTIVE AND CAPACITIVE LOADING First, we investigate the antenna performance in the frequency domain for the resistive loading, The same 2m long strip is considered, with the same posi- tion of the loading elements, Parameters of the frequency loop are specified228 ANTENNA LOADING: LUMPED ELEMENTS: in the script ewe -m. We choose the band from 25 to 500MHz with totally 200 frequency steps. Since the strip only has 79 edge elements, the frequency loop does not take more than 1.5 minutes. The impedance parameters are obtained by running the script sweep1ot .m. Note that this script also outputs the return loss of the antenna as a function of frequency. Figure 9.3 compares three plots for the input impedance: the unloaded dipole (a), the clipole loaded with two 1009 resistors (b),and the dipole loaded with two 2000 resistors (¢). Notice that the moderate resistive loading (Fig 9.36) still preserves the impedance peaks but makes the impedance behavior smoother compared to the unloaded dipole. The strong resistive loading may completely change the impedance curves (Fig. 9.3c). As can be seen, the posi- tion of the load plays a significant role for the dipole, In particular, the second resistance peak in Fig. 9.3 remains practically unchanged, since there is almost no current through the resistors at the corresponding frequency. To obtain the reflectionless dipole, the resistive loading per unit length (y changes from —h to A) should be given by [1,7] (in Q/m) Ro ~ bh (9.3) ‘The value of R, (in Qim) is calculated separately [1]. The variable internal resistance can be implemented as a thin conductive tube of variable thickness, surrounding a nonconductive dielectric rod [7]. The dependency (9.2) can be approximated by a number of lumped resistors as well. Next, the capacitive loading is studied. Figure 9.4 compares three plots for the input impedance of an unloaded dipole (a), a dipole loaded with two 10pF capacitors (b), and a dipole loaded with two 1 pF capacitors (¢). The posi- tion of the load corresponds to that in Fig. 9.2. As shown in the figure, the capacitive loading makes the impedance curves smoother compared to the unloaded dipole. Furthermore the 10 pF capacitive loading shifts the impedance curves slightly to the right, In other words, the capacitive loading makes the antenna “shorter” than it physically is. On the other hand, an inductive loading can be shown to make the antenna “longer” than it is. This inviting feature of inductive/capacitive loading is widely used in practice. When the loading capacitance is very small (impedance magnitude is very high),' the impedance behavior changes completely. This is shown in Fig, 9.4c. 9.6. CONCLUSIONS: In this chapter we briefly discussed a simple model of lumped impedance loading as adapted to RWG edge elements. Although the impedance loading ' Tt may be difficult to realize such smatl capacitance in practice,180 3 ” = 1009 é Unleaded 8 = sod 3 £ Zoo Resistance (0): 1000. Resistive loading 2100 ¢ 500 Resistance (12)-s0bd line; reactance (2)-dashed line Resistive loading 2200.0 1000! 050 100 180 200 260 300 350 Frequency, MHz Figure 9.3. Input impedance of the resistively loaded uipole at different load values.194 Unidades 500 300 Resistance (Q)-soleé ine; reactance (A}-dashed line g i Boop! ces g Capacitive : Sr & 0 2 2 0 g : soo 3 1 © ' “900 ete ¢) | capsite 500 1; reactance (O}-dashed line 50 100 180 200 250 300 980 Frequency, MHz Figure 9.4. Input impedance ot the capacitively loaded dipole at different load values.PROBLEMS © 231 is incorporated very simply into to the numerical model, its practical realiz: tion can be difficult [7,8], especially at higher frequencics [8]. Resistive or capacitive, or resistive/capacitive, loading is generally used to design broad- band nonresonant dipoles [7]. Distributed loading can approximately be rep- resented as a number of lumped elements with the adequate impedance per unit length (area). REFERENCES 1. T.T, Wu and R, W. P. King, The cylindrical antenna with nonrefiective resistive loading, IEEE Trans. Antennas and Propagation. 13: 369-373, 1965. 2. T. T. Wu and R, W. P. King. The cylindrical antenna with nonreflective resistive loading—Corrections. JEEE Trans. Antennas and Propagation, 13: 998, 1965. 3. GC, Rose and R, S. Vickers. Transient response of resistively loaded cylindrical antennas. Int. Journal of Electronics, 36 (4): 479-486, 1974. 4, E. Halién. Eleciromagnetie Theory. Wiley. New York, 1962, at paragraph 35.9 “Reflection-free antennas,” pp. 501-S04, 5. B.L.J. Rao, E. Harris, and W. E. Zimmerman. Broadband characteristics of oylin- drical antennas with exponentially tapered capacitive loading, [EEE Trans. Anten- nas wd Propagation, V7: 145-151, 1969. 6. M. Kanda, Time-dorain sensors for radiated impulsive measurements, /EEE Trans, Antennas and Propagation, 31: 438-444, 1983. 7. TP. Montoya and G. $. Smith. A study of pulse radiation from several broad-band loaded monopoles, IEEE Trans. Antennas and Propagation, 44 (8): 1172-1182, 1996, 8. B.D. Popovié, M. B. Dragovié,and A. R. Djordjevié, Analysis and Synthesis of Wire Antennas. Wiley, New York, 1982. 9. D, Jiao and J-M. Jin, Past frequency-sweep analysis of RF coils for MRI, JEEE Trans, Biomedical Enginecring. 46 (1): 1387-1390, 1999, 10. C.J. Leat, N. V. Shuley, anc G. F, Stickley, Triangular-patch modeling of bowtie antennas: Validation against Brown and Woodward, IEE Proc. Microwave Anten- nas Propagation. 145 (6): 465-470, 1998, IL. MoM Technical Reference Manual, Poynting Software Ltd., 2001, 66 pp. PROBLEMS: 9.4. Fora2m long dipole estimate the effcet of inductive loading on the input impedance and the return loss. Use a frequency sweep of 75 to 500MHz with a total of 200 frequency steps. The loaded elements are shown in Fig. 9.2. The inductance value is 0.1 4H per element. 9.2. Repeat Problem 9.1 if the induetance value changes to 1 uH.232 ANTENNA LOADING: LUMPED ELEMENTS z 6. O41 93. 94, 9.5. m load position Figure 9.5. Monopole for Problem 9.5. For a 2m long dipole estimate the effect of combined inductive/capaci- tive loading on the input impedance and the return loss. Use a frequency sweep of 75 to 500 MHz with a total of 200 frequency steps. The position of the two loading elements is shown in Fig, 9.2. The capacitance value is 10pF (for each element). The inductance value is 0.1 fH (for each element). What is the antenna efficiency then? For a 2m long dipole estimate the effect of the combined inductive/resis- tive loading on the input impedance and the return loss. Use a frequency sweep of 75 to SO0MHz with a total of 200 frequency steps. The loaded elements are shown in Fig. 9.2. The inductance value is 1H (for each element). The resistance value is 200.2 (for each element). * For a 0.5m long base-driven monopole on a 1 by Lm finite ground plane (Fig. 9.5), estimate the effect of the resistive loading on the input imped- ance and the return loss. The resistance value is 100Q. The load position is in the middle of the monopole. Use a frequency sweep of 150 to 1000MHz with a total of 50 frequency steps. The antenna structure is generated using the script monopole.m from subdirectory mesh.