Antenna Technology

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An­ten­na tech­nol­o­gy is con­cerned with the de­vel­op­ment and man­u­fac­ture of an­ten­nas for re­ceiv­ing and trans­mit­ting elec­tro­mag­net­ic waves. Trans­mit­ting an­ten­nas con­vert con­duct­ed waves in­to free space waves, which are con­vert­ed back in­to like­wise con­duct­ed waves by re­ceiv­ing an­ten­nas. The di­men­sions of an­ten­nas de­pend on the length of the waves. In an­ten­na tech­nol­o­gy, there­fore, an­ten­na sizes rang­ing from sev­er­al hun­dred me­ters (in the long-wave range be­low 10 kHz) to a few mil­lime­ters (in the high-fre­quen­cy range above 50 GHz) are realized.

Wide­ly used de­signs are:

• Om­ni­di­rec­tion­al antennas
• Di­rec­tion­al antennas
• Rod an­ten­nas
• Flat an­ten­nas
• Loop an­ten­nas
• Fer­rite antennas
• Globe an­ten­nas
• Par­a­bol­ic antennas
• Di­pole antennas
• Pan­el antennas
• Ya­gi antennas
• 3D an­ten­nas
• Horn an­ten­nas

The in­di­vid­ual shapes are char­ac­ter­ized by dif­fer­ent ra­di­a­tion properties.

Im­por­tant pa­ra­me­ters for the an­ten­na de­sign are:

• the ra­di­a­tion pattern
• the ra­di­a­tion re­sis­tance Rs
• the im­ped­ance [Ω]
• the ef­fi­cien­cy n_A
• the di­rec­tiv­i­ty D
• the an­ten­na gain G
• the ab­sorp­tion area A_w
• the band­width

The in­te­gra­tion of heat­ing sur­faces — for ex­am­ple by us­ing sil­i­cone heat­ing mats — is high­ly rel­e­vant for the ef­fi­cien­cy of an an­ten­na. To­day, the ra­dius of ac­tion of an­ten­na tech­nol­o­gy ex­tends to all ar­eas of pub­lic life and industry.

Antenna field zones

The area on and around an an­ten­na is di­vid­ed in­to three fields:

• Near field
• Tran­si­tion field
• Far field

Safety aspects of antenna technology

There are three main safe­ty-re­lat­ed points that must be tak­en in­to ac­count in an­ten­na technology:

• Sta­t­ics: An­ten­nas in­stalled out­doors are not pro­tect­ed from the wind. They of­fer a large at­tack sur­face to strong winds, which must be tak­en in­to ac­count in the planning.
• Light­ning pro­tec­tion: The high­er an an­ten­na is used out­doors, the more like­ly it is to be struck by light­ning. Pro­tec­tive mea­sures must be taken.
• Ice: Ice is like­ly to form on the an­ten­na, es­pe­cial­ly in win­ter. The ice can cause the sig­nal from the an­ten­na to be sig­nif­i­cant­ly dis­turbed. In ad­di­tion, there is a risk of the ice com­ing loose and falling down on ob­jects or peo­ple. To coun­ter­act this, heat­ing el­e­ments, such as sil­i­cone heat­ing el­e­ments, are in­stalled in and on the antennas.

Simulation

In an­ten­na tech­nol­o­gy, a large num­ber of pa­ra­me­ters come to­geth­er that must be co­or­di­nat­ed to en­sure that the an­ten­na func­tions smooth­ly. In or­der to cap­ture all the da­ta, spe­cial sim­u­la­tion pro­grams have been es­tab­lished, with which nu­mer­ous as­pects can be co­or­di­nat­ed and calculated.

Problems in antenna technology

In gen­er­al, the high­er the trans­mit­ted fre­quen­cy, the high­er the re­quire­ments for the de­sign of the an­ten­na and the in­di­vid­ual components. 

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