Antennas for Mobile Communications
Syllabus
Part I – Basic concepts of cellular communication systems. Basic concepts of electromagnetic radiation: free-space green's function, hertz dipole, near-field and far-field. Basic concepts of antennas: historical perspective, antenna types, radiation mechanism, current distribution on linear antennas. Electrical and radiating properties of antennas: radiation intensity, radiation pattern, radiated power, directivity, efficiency, gain, beam-width, polarization, input impedance, bandwidth, effective length and effective area. Friis formula.
Part II – Overview of base station antennas. Omni-directional antennas. Thin and thick dipole antennas. electrical and radiating properties of dipolar antennas. Broadband dipoles. Directive antennas. image principle and employment of reflectors. Dipolar antennas with reflectors. Antenna arrays: uniform antenna arrays for base station panels. Analysis and synthesis methods of the single antenna element of a base station panel. Design examples of omni-directional and directive dipole antennas for GSM900/1800 and UMTS. Space diversity and polarization diversity. Beam forming networks for antenna arrays. Mechanic and electric down tilt. Smart antennas and adaptive antennas.
Part III – Overview of mobile terminal antennas. Microstrip antennas: basic concepts. Electrical and radiating properties of microstrip antennas. Analysis of microstrip antennas by using the transmission line model. Design techniques of microstrip antennas working in linear, double-linear, and circular polarization. Examples of microstrip antennas for GSM900/1800 and UMTS mobile terminals. examples of microstrip antennas for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. examples of panels of microstrip antennas to be used as indoor umts base station and Wi-Fi access point antennas.
Part IV – Electromagnetic pollution. Current regulation. Prediction models of the electromagnetic field intensity levels emitted in urban and indoor scenarios. Numerical solvers. Measurements.
Course information
The course was taught by Prof. Filiberto Bilotti until the academic year 2014/2015.