Yagi Uda Antenna Array

Introduction : A YagiUda antenna is a directional antenna consisting of multiple

parallel elements in a line, usually half-wave dipoles made of metal rods where half
dipole ; invented by German physicist Heinrich Hertz around 1886 , is an
arrangement , in which each of the two rod elements is approximately 1/4
wavelength long, so the whole antenna is a half-wavelength long.
Etymology : Yagi antenna derives its name from its two Japanese inventors since it
was invented in 1926 by Shintaro Uda of Tohoku Imperial University, and his
colleague Hidetsugu Yagi.
Achievement : The YagiUda antenna was named an IEEE Milestone in 1995
Initial Applications :
Before & during WW2 : Yagi antennas were first widely used during World War
II in radar systems by the British, US, Germans and Japanese for airborne
radar sets, because of its simplicity and directionality.
After WW2 : the advent of television broadcasting motivated extensive
development of the YagiUda antenna as a rooftop television reception
antenna in the VHF and UHF bands, and to a lesser extent an FM radio
antenna. Until the development of the log periodic antenna in the 1960s it
was the only type of antenna that could give adequate fringe reception in
areas far from the television transmitter.
The Basic Construction : The Yagi antenna design has a dipole as the main radiating or
driven element. Further 'parasitic' elements are added which are not directly
connected to the driven element.These parasitic elements within the Yagi antenna
pick up power from the dipole and re-radiate it. The phase is in such a manner that
it affects the properties of the RF antenna as a whole, causing power to be focussed
in one particular direction and removed from others. The parasitic elements of the
Yagi antenna operate by re-radiating their signals in a slightly different phase to that
of the driven element. In this way the signal is reinforced in some directions and
cancelled out in others. It is found that the amplitude and phase of the current that
is induced in the parasitic elements is dependent upon their length and the spacing
between them and the dipole or driven element. There are three types of element
within a Yagi antenna:

Driven element: The driven element is the Yagi antenna element to which power is
applied. It is normally a half wave dipole or often a folded dipole.

Reflector : The Yagi antenna will generally only have one reflector. This is behind the
main driven element, i.e. the side away from the direction of maximum sensitivity.
Typically a reflector will add around 4 or 5 dB of gain in the forward direction. Many
designs use reflectors consisting of a reflecting plate, or a series of parallel rods
simulating a reflecting plate. This gives a slight improvement in performance, reducing
the level of radiation or pick-up from behind the antenna, i.e. in the backwards direction.

Director: There may be none, one of more reflectors in the Yagi antenna. The director or
directors are placed in front of the driven element, i.e. in the direction of maximum
sensitivity. Typically each director will add around 1 dB of gain in the forward direction,
although this level reduces as the number of directors increases.

Radiation pattern : The antenna exhibits a directional pattern consisting of a main

forward lobe and a number of spurious side lobes. The main one of these is the
reverse lobe caused by radiation in the direction of the reflector. The antenna can
be optimised to either reduce this or produce the maximum level of forward gain.
Unfortunately the two do not coincide exactly and a compromise on the
performance has to be made depending upon the application.

Operation : One way of thinking about the operation of such an antenna is to

consider a parasitic element to be a normal dipole element fed at its centre, with a
short circuit across its feed point. As is well known in transmission line theory, a
short circuit reflects all of the incident power 180 degrees out of phase. So one

could as well model the operation of the parasitic element as the superposition of a
dipole element receiving power and sending it down a transmission line to a
matched load, and a transmitter sending the same amount of power up the
transmission line back toward the antenna element. If the transmitted voltage wave
were 180 degrees out of phase with the received wave at that point, the
superposition of the two voltage waves would give zero voltage, equivalent to
shorting out the dipole at the feedpoint (making it a solid element, as it is). Thus a
half-wave parasitic element radiates a wave 180 out of phase with the incident
wave.The fact that the parasitic element involved is not exactly resonant but is

somewhat shorter (or longer) than /2 modifies the phase of the element's current
with respect to its excitation from the driven element. The so-called reflector
element, being longer than /2, has an inductive reactance which means the phase
of its current lags the phase of the open-circuit voltage that would be induced by
the received field. The director element, on the other hand, being shorter than /2,
has a capacitive reactance with the voltage phase lagging that of the current.
The elements are given the correct lengths and spacings so that the radio waves
radiated by the driven element and those reradiated by the parasitic elements all
arrive at the front of the antenna in phase, so they superpose and add, increasing
signal strength in the forward direction . In other words, the crest of the forward

wave from the reflector element reaches the driven element just as the crest of
the wave is emitted from that element. These waves reach the first director
element just as the crest of the wave is emitted from that element, and so on. The
waves in the reverse direction interfere destructively, cancelling out, so the signal
strength radiated in the reverse direction is small. Thus the antenna radiates a
unidirectional beam of radio waves from the front (director end) of the antenna.

Mathematical Analysis :
Properties :
Moderate Gain which depends on the number of elements used, typically limited to
about 17 dB
Linear polarization

 Unidirectional (end-fire) beam pattern with high front-to-back ratio of up to 20 db.

Lightweight, inexpensive and simple to construct
The bandwidth of a Yagi antenna, the frequency range over which it has high gain, is
narrow, a few percent of the center frequency, and decreases with increasing gain.
Applications :
Also called a "beam antenna", the Yagi is very widely used as a high-gain antenna on the
HF, VHF and UHF bands
Since it has a narrow bandwidth hence it is often used in fixed-frequency applications.
The largest and best-known use is as rooftop terrestrial television antennas
Also used for point-to-point fixed communication links, in radar antennas, and for long
distance shortwave communication by shortwave broadcasting stations and radio
amateurs.

Advantages :

High gain enabling interference levels to be minimised.

High directivity enabling interference levels to be minimised.

Ease of handling and maintenance.

Straightforward construction. - the Yagi antenna allows all constructional elements to be

made from rods simplifying construction.

Less amount of power is wasted.

Disadvantages:

Prone to noise.

Prone to atmospheric effects.

For high gain levels the antenna becomes very long

Gain limited to around 20dB or so for a single antenna