radiation boundary - RF Cafe Forums

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Karthik
 Post subject: radiation boundary
Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2006 10:48 am 
Hi,

Can anyone suggest the optimum size of the radiation boundary box for an antenna in HFSS? If I use the default radiation box, HFSS places the box at the edge of the board. In one of the manuals for an earlier version of HFSS, they have used a box that is quarter-wavelength bigger than the board on 3 sides for a patch antenna, while in the manual for version 9, the box is a lot closer to the patch.

As expected, my results vary depending on the size of the radiation boundary box. Can anyone help me on this?

Karthik.
 
  
 
AP
 Post subject:
Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2006 10:53 am 
I have a feeling that a quarter-wave is pretty close... for microstrip circuits I try and keep the airbox 10x the substrate thickness - i.e. 2.5 mm for a 10 mil alumina substrate... so while I'm not sure where the optimum placement is, you could also try and keep moving the box further and further away from your antenna until the results don't change very much.
 
  
 
Karthik
 Post subject:
Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2006 12:52 pm 
I have a dipole in front of a ground plane. If I take the 'substrate thickness' to be the total depth of the arrangement - i.e, pcb thickness plus the distance between the dipole and the ground plane (this total thickness works out to roughly 20mm), my air box is still 8x this size. However, my results still vary. The gain varies by about half a dB, and as long as the box is symmetrically big on all sides, the pattern doesnt change. The input impedance varies quite a bit.

Another question was regarding interpreting the results in HFSS. When you calculate the far-field characterisitics, HFSS gives results in terms of Directivity, Gain and 'Realized Gain'. What does 'realized gain' mean? I was confused, since, if you look at the efficiency factor, it appears this is calculated using Directivity and Gain and not realized gain.
 
  
 
AP
 Post subject:
Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2006 4:44 pm 
Sorry, I don't know about the realized gain...
 
  
 
UWB_antenna_guy
 Post subject:
Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2006 4:29 pm 
 
Colonel
User avatar

Joined: Tue Aug 09, 2005 1:07 pm

Posts: 28

Def. Realized Gain:

When mismatch loss occurs, as it usually

does, this loss must be subtracted from the

power gain of the antenna to yield realized

gain. Realized gain is important to the systems

engineer, for it reveals how much signal

will be available at the input to the receiver

for a given field strength.

See: https://www.wj.com/pdf/technotes/Direct_antennas.pdf
 
   
 
Karthik
 Post subject:
Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2006 4:45 pm 
Thanks!!

Posted  11/12/2012