In this final session, I’ve shared some of the research trends in antenna design. The topics covered for the past 13 weeks lays sufficient foundation for students to kick start their journey to explore the interesting areas in antenna researches.
I hope you enjoyed the online classes as much as I did for the past 13 weeks and all the best in your final exams.
Today’s class is on the final chapter of Antenna & Propagation: Radio Propagation.
It is important for an antenna designer to understand the propagation concepts, as radio wave propagation and reception are heavily affected by them. Among topic that is included in this chapters are propagation model, mechanism and fading.
Assignment: Project (10%)
An instruction for Antenna Project Design has been uploaded in KALAM. The project involves to design a microstip antenna with circular polarization properties for application in GPS devices.
Assignment: Journal Review (10%)
Here, the assignment is to review 3 articles, either from the given articles in KALAM or from the one downloaded from Google Scholar / IEEExplore.
The video below shows the common practices in scientific article review.
Today’s class covers the topic of antenna measurement, which is essential in antenna design verification process. There are a number of techniques such as near field and far field. Measurement equipment for a typical antenna measurement setup are network analyzer, signal generator, positioner (turn table) and spectrum analyzer.
A good measuring setup presents minimal discrepancies between the measured and simulated results.
Today’s class discusses the topic of antenna array – a very interesting subject in Antenna Design.
Arrays are adopted for communication devices that requires high precision, highly directive coverage. Similar to the radar operation, array antennas allows beam steering as well as interference nulling.
Week 5 – Revisit on antenna parameters, electrically small antenna, resonant antenna and antenna simulation.
It is a must for an antenna designer to be equipped with antenna modelling and simulation skills. From simulation results, the behavior of an antenna could be estimated hence giving a sense of confidence to pursue to the next stage of antenna design – fabrication and measurement.
Week 3 covers the topic of Electrically Small Antenna, which among the most attractive antenna structure due to it’s simplicity in the design process and compact size. However, these come with a trade off narrow bandwidth and low efficient radiancy.
For this chapter, please complete the following:-
Electrically Small Antenna Video Review
Complete Lab 1 on Dipole antenna design
Simulate the halfwave dipole design
Observe the following items and:-
describe the operating frequency of the dipole antenna,
describe the radiation characteristics of the antenna,
what are the influencing design parameters,
estimate the dimensions of a dipole antenna that will radiate at 1.8 GHz
Submit your answers in a 2-page journal article format.The anatomy /structure of a journal article is explained here:-
This Lab assignment contributes 5% to the course works marks.