Turnstile antenna

Presentation by:
C. Vinoth kumar
AP/ECE
SSN College of Engineering
 Objective

What is a turnstile antenna?

Field expressions for turnstile antenna

How turnstile antenna radiates circularly

polarized waves .

Applications

Batwing and Superturnstile antenna.

 Turnstile Antenna
A turnstile antenna is a set of two dipole
antennas aligned at right angles to each
other and fed 90 degrees out-of-phase.

The name reflects that the antenna looks

like a turnstile when mounted horizontally.

When mounted horizontally the antenna

is nearly omnidirectional on the horizontal
plane.

When mounted vertically the antenna is

directional to a right angle to its plane and
is circularly polarized.
 Turnstile Antenna
Field Expression for Turnstile Antenna
Consider two /2 dipoles symmetrically placed
about the origin with one dipole oriented along
the X-axis and the other along the Y-axis.
Let I1 and I2 be the sinusoidal currents at the
centers of the dipoles 1 and 2 respectively.
Z X

Dipole 1
I2

Y
I1
Dipole 2
 Turnstile Antenna
The electric field in the far field region of the dipole
1 is given by

j r cos sin cos
E1 = jI 1
e 2
[ ]
(cos cos )a sin a ...(1)
( 2
2r 1 sin cos 2
)

The electric field in the far field due to the dipole 2

is given by

j r cos sin sin
E 2 = jI 2
e 2 [ (cos sin )a + cos a ...( 2)
]
(
2r 1 sin 2 sin 2 )
 Turnstile Antenna
Let us suppose that the magnitudes of I1
and I2 are equal in magnitude and in
phase quadrature.

I1 = I 0

...( 3)
j
2
I 2 = I 0e
 Turnstile Antenna
The electric field at the far field region is sum of the
electric field due dipoles 1 and 2.
Considering the antenna radiates along Z-direction
i.e., = 0, we have
e j r
E = j I O
2r
[ ]
cos a sin a + e j / 2 (sin a cos a )

e j r
E = j I O
2r
[(cos j sin )a + (sin + j cos a )a ] .....(4)

From the expression we can see that the

polarization is right circular
 Turnstile Antenna
Considering the antenna radiates along Z-direction
i.e., = 90, we have

jr cos cos cos sin
E = a j
e
2 +j 2 ...(5)
2r sin cos

The far-zone electric field in the plane of the dipoles

has only a component.
 Turnstile Antenna
From the previous expressions, the electric field
are of identical magnitude and out of phase by
90, leads to circularly polarized waves.

Radiation Pattern
 Turnstile Antenna
From equation 4, an
orthogonally oriented
dipole pair excited in
phase quadrature has a
radiation pattern in the
plane of the dipole that
is almost independent
of direction.
 Turnstile Antenna
A turnstile antenna has a very
broad beam in the vertical Turnstile Array
plane.
Turnstile antennas can be
stacked to form an array.
Each element of the array is
known as bay.
This is used to receive TV
signals, as the radiation pattern
of the array is omnidirectional.
The directivity can be
increased by attaching many
turnstile antenna vertically.
 Applications

The turnstile antenna is often used for

communication satellites because, being
circularly polarized, the polarization of the
signal doesn't rotate when the satellite
rotates.

Since it has omni-directional pattern, it is

used as FM broadcast transmitters.
 Batwing & SuperTurnstile
Antennas
Batwing antenna is a metal plate with a slot in
the middle. The two ends of the slot are shorted
into the metal plates.
The antenna is fed by a balanced transmission
line at the center of the slot.
 Batwing & SuperTurnstile Antennas
For the applications in VHF and UHF ranges
(30MHz 3GHz), the metal plate is replaced by
a grid of wires as shown in the previous
diagram.

Radiation Pattern
Horizontal Plane Vertical Plane
 Batwing & SuperTurnstile Antennas

Two Batwing antennas placed

orthogonal to each other are
fed in phase quadrature
produces an omni-directional
pattern with higher gain that
of a turnstile antenna is called
Super-Turnstile antenna.

Several Super-Turnstile
antenna are stacked together
to produce a high- gain, omni-
directional pattern with
horizontal polarization.
 Summary
Turnstile antenna is a combination of two dipole
arranged on a surface and fed with currents in phase
quadrature.

It has a omni-directional pattern.

Several turnstile antennas can be combined to

increase directivity.

Metal plate in the form of batwing radiates EM waves

omni directionally and two batwing antennas connect
orthogonal to each other and carrying currents in
phase quadrature results in Super turnstile antenna
with increased gain and directivity.