All about Antennas

What is Antenna
Antenna is a device which converts an electric wave guided by a conductor into a free-space, unguided
electromagnetic wave, and vice versa. Electrical energy is fed to the antenna via a transmission line, a
conductor which passes electrical energy from one point to another. A matching device is usually
required to ease the abrupt transition between the guided and the free wave. The wave guided by the
line is radiated into space by the antenna.

Antenna Classification
There are dozens of antenna types and variations of each. The type of antenna selected for use depends
on the propagation characteristics required.

Frequency

Antennas can be classified as single-band antennas (narrow-band antennas), wide-band antennas, dual-
band antennas, triple-band antennas, etc.

Directivity

Antennas can be omnidirectional, sector or directive. Omni-directional antennas radiate roughly the
same pattern all around the antenna in a complete 360° pattern. The most popular types of
omnidirectional antennas are the dipole and the ground plane. Sectorial antennas radiate primarily in a
specific area. The beam can be as wide as 180 degrees, or as narrow as 60 degrees. Directional or
directive antennas are antennas in which the beamwidth is much narrower than in sector antennas.
They have the highest gain and therefore used for long distance coverage. Types of directive antennas
are the Yagi, the biquad, the horn, the helicoidal, the patch antenna, the parabolic dish, and many
others.

Main Specifications of Antenna

The technical specifications of antenna include:-

 Work band
 Gain
 Polarization mod
 Beam width
  Preset down tilt
 Down tilt mode
 Adjustable range of down tilt
 Front-to-rear ratio
 Side lobe suppression ratio
 Zero point filling
 Echo loss
 Power capacity
 Impedance
 Third order intermodulation

The mechanical specifications of antenna include:

 Dimensions
 Weight
 Number Input ports
 Port connector type (e.g. N or DIN)
 Wind load
 Work Band

It is the work band of LTE system. Many vendors are offering generally antenna product of the following
frequency band:

 806-960MHz (FDD 850MHz, 900MHz)

 1710-2170MHz (FDD 1800MHz, 2100MHz, AWS and TDD Band 33-37, Band 39)
 2300-2700MHz (TDD Band 38/40 and FDD 2.6G)
 824-960/1710-2180MHz (Dual Band)
 2300-2700/2300-2700MHz (for 4T4R MIMO)

Antenna Gain
The antenna is a passive device. It can neither strengthen the signal nor transmit signal by itself. It
concentrates the power to a direction by changing the combination of oscillators and changing the
feeder mode. Gain is a key index for antenna, standing for the capability of concentrating the power to a
direction. There are usually two units for antenna gain: dBi and dBd. The relationship between the two
units is as the following equation:

 0 dBd = 2.15 dBi

 dBi: the capability of concentrating power by actual directional antenna (including
omnidirectional) compared with the isotropic antenna. The i in dBi means isotropic.
  dBd: the capability of concentrating power by actual directional antenna (including
omnidirectional) compared with half-wave dipole antenna. The d in dBd means dipole.

The antenna gain is relevant to the number of oscillator units, horizontal and vertical beamwidth.

What is Antenna Pattern?

The pattern is the electromagnetic field of antenna radiation distributed by coordinate along fixed
distance.

 If the pattern is represented by radiation field strength, it is called field strength pattern.
 If the pattern is represented by power density, it is called power pattern.
 If the pattern is represented by phase, it is called phase pattern.

In mobile communication, the power pattern is the most common.

The antenna pattern is a cubic figure, usually represented by two patterns which are vertical to each
other in a main plane. This is the surface pattern. The surface pattern includes vertical pattern and
horizontal pattern. There are also omnidirectional antenna pattern and directional antenna pattern.
There are other special directional antennas, such as heart-shaped antenna and 8-shaped antenna.
The directionality of antenna lies in the ranking of oscillators and the variety of feeder phase, similar to
the interferometric effect of optics in principium. As a result, the power in some directions is
strengthened while the power in some directions is weakened. The lobes of various shapes and zero
points form. The lobe with the highest power is the main lobe. The lobes near the main lobe with the
second highest power are the first side lobes. The second side lobes are those with the third highest
power. The directional antenna produces a rear lobe. Figure shows the horizontal and vertical patterns
of directional antenna.

Antenna Pattern

 Front-to-rear Ratio

It is the ratio of signal radiation strength of main lobe to that of rear lobe, the difference between the
level of side lobe and the maximum beam in the range of rear 180°±30°, a positive value. The front-to-
rear ratio of common antennas is between 18 dB and 45 dB.

 Upper Side Lobe Suppression

In a cellular network, to improve the efficiency of frequency reuse and reduce the intra-frequency
interference with neighbor cells, for shaped-beam antenna, you need lower the upper side lobe that
radiates neighbor cells and improve the D/U ratio (the ratio of strength of useful signal to that of
interference signal). The level of the first upper side lobe compared with main lobe shall be smaller than
–18 dB. This is invalid to the antennas of macro cell eNodeB.

What is Polarization Mode for antenna?

The polarization is a radiation feature for indicating the vector special direction of field strength of
electromagnetic wave. If unspecified, the spatial direction of electric field vector usually serves as the
polarization direction of electromagnetic wave. The spatial direction of electric field vector is the
direction of maximum radiation by antenna.

The electromagnetic wave of which the spatial direction of electric filed vector keeps fixed any time is
the linear polarization wave. With the ground as a reference, the polarization of which the direction of
electric field vector is parallel to ground is the horizontal polarization wave and polarization of which the
direction of electric field vector is vertical to ground is the horizontal polarization wave.

The spatial direction of electric field vector is not always fixed.

 If the endpoint trace of electric field vector forms a circle, the polarization wave is circular
polarization wave.
  If the endpoint trace of electric field vector forms an ellipse, the polarization wave is elliptical
polarization wave.
 The elliptical polarization wave and circular polarization wave have polarization direction.

The electromagnetic wave of different bands caters for different polarization modes for propagation.
The mobile communication systems usually choose vertical polarization while the broadcasting systems
usually choose horizontal polarization. The elliptical polarization usually applies for satellite
communication.

The polarization modes of antennas include the polarization and dual polarization, and they are all linear
polarization. The dual polarization antenna reduces the impact from multi-path attenuation and
improves the quality of signals received by the eNodeB by using polarization diversity. The dual
polarization antenna in LTE networks usually use ±45° cross polarization mode.

What is Beamwidth and Relation between Beamwidth and Gain

What is Beamwidth?

The beamwidth is also called the half power beamwidth, including horizontal beamwidth and vertical
beamwidth. The horizontal beamwidth and vertical beamwidth is the beamwidth between two points
where the power is lower 50% (3 dB) than the maximum radiation power. The common horizontal
beamwidth of eNodeB antennas includes 360°, 90°, 65°, 60°, and 33°. The common vertical beamwidth
of eNodeB antennas includes 6.5°, 7°, 10°, 13°, and 16°.

Relation between Beamwidth and Gain

The antenna concentrates power. It strengthens the power of a direction while reducing the power of
other directions. You can usually reduce the horizontal beamwidth to strengthen the power of a
direction. When the antenna gain is fixed, the horizontal beamwidth is in inverse proportion to the
vertical beamwidth, with their relation as below:

Wherein,

Ga: the antenna gain in the unit of dBi.

β: the vertical beamwidth in the unit of dBi.

θ: the horizontal beamwidth in the unit of dBi.

According to the previous formula, if you have known the antenna gain and horizontal, you can calculate
the vertical beamwidth.
For example, for an omnidirectional antenna, the gain is 11 dBi, the horizontal beamwidth is 360°, so the
vertical beamwidth is calculated as below:

Due to the deficiency of design and manufacturing process, the actual vertical beamwidth of
omnidirectional antenna is usually smaller than the calculated result. The less difference between the
two beamwidth, the better the antenna is designed.

According to the figure above, when the antenna gain is low, the vertical beamwidth and horizontal
beamwidth are usually large. When the antenna gain is high, the vertical beamwidth and horizontal
beamwidth are usually small. In addition, the antenna gain depends on the number of oscillators. The
larger the number of oscillators, the higher the gain is and the larger the aperture of antenna (the
effective receiving area) is. For an omnidirectional antenna, if the antenna gain increases by 3 dB, the
antenna length will double. Therefore, the antenna gain is usually within 11 dBi.