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Description
The antennas and propagation module aims to give a good grounding in a range of antenna and array designs, methods used for their measurement and the principles of radiowave propagation. The material is developed from fundamental principles and illustrated with numerous practical examples of working antenna and array systems.
The module provides students with a good grounding in a range of antenna and array designs, methods used for their measurement, and the principles of radiowave propagation.
By the end of the module students should be able to :
- Understand the basic definitions of antennas and antenna systems, including gain, directivity, polarization, array factor and so on.
- Make basic calculations of propagation loss, taking into account free-space loss and polarization effects, and extend this to a link budget analysis.
- Analyse, from first principles, the basic properties of a range of antennas, such as dipoles, parabolic reflector antennas, horn antennas, printed patch antennas.
- Appreciate the trade-offs between antenna properties, such as aperture efficiency and sidelobe levels and be able to demonstrate these using fundamental principles.
- Apply numerical modeling tools such as CST (by means of the lab experiment) to design antennas, with particular reference to a printed patch antenna.
- Design antennas and antenna systems to fulfill particular practical requirements, an example being a stack of dipoles for a broadcast antenna.
- Perform antenna measurements using facilities such as far-field antenna ranges (to measure radiation pattern and/or gain) and network analysers (to measure impedance bandwidth).
- Understand the limitations of antennas and antenna systems, both fundamental and practical, and how best to arrive at an economic and environmentally-friendly solution.
Module deliveries for 2024/25 academic year
Last updated
This module description was last updated on 8th April 2024.
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