Antennas using left handed transmission lines

Liu, Qing (2010). Antennas using left handed transmission lines. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

Preview

Liu10PhD.pdf
PDF
Download (9MB)

Abstract

The research described in this thesis is concerned with the analysis and design of conventional wire antenna types, dipoles and loops, based on the left-handed transmission line approach. The left handed antennas have a unique feature that the wavelength of the induced current becomes shorter with decreasing frequency. The left handed transmission line concept can be extended to construct reduced-size dipole or loop antennas in the VHF frequency band. The use of higher order modes allows orthogonal polarisation to be obtained, which is thought to be a feature unique to these antennas. Efficiency is a key parameter of left handed antennas as the heavy left handed loading increases the resistive loss. A study of the efficiency of small dipole antennas loaded with a left-handed transmission line is specially described, and the comparison with conventional inductive loading dipoles. In a low order mode, the efficiency of L-loading dipole is better with low number of unit cell. If the number of cell increases, CL-loading presents comparable and even better performance. In a high mode the meandered left handed dipole gives the best efficiency due to the phase distribution, presenting orthogonal polarization as well. The optimized dipole loaded with parallel plate capacitors and spiral inductors presents the best performance in impedance and efficiency, even better than the conventional inductive loading. A planar loop antenna using a ladder network of left handed loading is also presented. Various modes can be obtained in the left handed loop antenna. The zero order mode gives rise to omnidirectional patterns in the plane of the loop, with good efficiency. By loading the loop with active components, varactors, a tunable left handed loop antenna with a switchable radiation pattern is implemented. The loop gives an omnidirectional pattern with a null to z axis while working in an n = 0 mode and can switch to a pattern with a null at phi = 45° in the plane of the loop in an n = 2 mode.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):