So far, the directivity has been defined relative to an isotropic radiator and we use dBi. An isotropic radiator emits an equal amount of power in all directions and it has no directivity. Antenna directivity can also be specified relative to that of a dipole. A dipole has 2.15 dBi of directivity over an isotropic radiator. When we specify the directivity of an antenna relative to a dipole, we use dBd.
No antenna losses have been included so far and the integrated average of the directivity pattern over an entire sphere has to be 0 dBi. This implies that creating directivity in a certain direction reduces directivity in other directions.
Antenna Gain
Antennas do not have gain because they are passive structures. Antenna gain is defined as antenna directivity times a factor representing the radiation efficiency. Radiation efficiency is always lower than 100% so the antenna gain is always lower than antenna directivity. This efficiency quantifies the losses in the antenna and is defined as the ratio of radiated power (Pr) to input power (Pi). The input power is transformed into radiated
power, surface wave power and a small portion is dissipated due to conductor and dielectric losses. Surface waves are guided waves captured within the substrate and partially radiated and reflected back at the substrate edges. Surface waves are more easily excited when materials with higher dielectric constants and/or thicker materials are used. Surface waves are not excited when air dielectric is used. Several techniques to prevent surface wave excitation exist, but this is beyond the scope of this article.
Antenna gain can also be specified using the total efficiency rather than just the radiation efficiency. This total efficiency is a combination of the radiation efficiency and efficiency linked to the impedance matching of the antenna.
Polarization
The plane in which the electric field varies is also known as the polarization plane. The basic patch covered so far is linearly polarized since the electric field varies in only one direction. This polarization can be anything between vertical and horizontal depending on the orientation of the patch. The polarization plane is the xz-plane in Figure 1. For optimum system performance, transmit and receive antennas must have the same polarization. The patch described above yields horizontal polarization and when rotated by 90°, the current flows in the vertical plane and the antenna is now vertically polarized.
A large number of applications like satellite communications, do not work well with linear polarization because the relative orientation of the antennas is unknown and because of Faraday rotation. In these applications, circular polarization is useful since it is not sensitive to antenna orientation. In a circularly polarized antenna, the electric field varies in two orthogonal planes (x and y direction) with the same magnitude and a 90° phase difference. The result is the simultaneous excitation of two modes, i.e. the TM10 mode (x direction) and the TM01 mode (y direction). One of the modes is excited with a 90° phase delay with respect to the other mode. A circularly polarized antenna can either be right-hand circular polarized (RHCP) or left-hand circular polarized (LHCP). The antenna is RHCP when the phases are 0° and -90° for the antenna in Figure 5 when it radiates towards the reader, and it is LHCP when the phases are 0° and +90°.
To excite circular polarization in a patch we need to do three things:
• Split the signal in two equal parts.
• Feed one signal to the horizontal radiator (x axis) and the other to the vertical radiator (y axis). Each radiator behaves like a pair of radiating slots in the patch antenna as shown in Figure 5.
• Change the phase of one of the signals by 90°.
Splitting the signal in half can be done with a Wilkinson power divider or other splitter. If a square patch is fed with two feed points like in Figure 5 and a 90° delay is added to one of the signal lines, a circularly polarized antenna is built.