Antenna Designer

Design, visualize, and analyze antennas

Description

The Antenna Designer app lets you design, visualize, and analyze antennas in the Antenna Toolbox library interactively.

Using this app, you can:

Select antennas based on general properties or antenna performance.
Select backing structures from the gallery of backing structures.
Visualize antennas based on frequency and frequency range.
Analyze antennas based on radiation pattern, polarization, and bandwidth.
Export selected and designed antennas as a variable to the MATLAB^® workspace, as either script or a variable. The exported MATLAB script has two sections: Antenna Properties and Antenna Analysis.
Save and load an existing antenna .mat file to the app and analyze the antenna.
Optimize antennas for various analysis results under given constraints using SADEA or Surrogate optimization methods.
Note
- To use Parallel Computing for SADEA optimizer, you need the Parallel Computing Toolbox™.
To use the Surrogate optimization algorithm, you need the Global Optimization Toolbox.

Open the Antenna Designer App

MATLAB Toolstrip: In the Apps tab, under Signal Processing and Communications, click the app icon.
MATLAB command prompt: Enter antennaDesigner.

Examples

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Antenna Designer Canvas

The Antenna Designer opens a blank canvas.

Antenna Designer app new canvas showing the various options on the toolbar.

Select and Visualize Antenna
- Click
  
  in the canvas toolstrip to choose the antenna you want to analyze.
- The default antenna is a dipole antenna.
- You can filter the antennas based on Radiation pattern, Polarization, and Bandwidth.
- Using the toolstrip you can also add Cavity backing, or Reflector backing to the antennas.
- You can also specify the Design Frequency of the antenna. Setting this value scales the antenna to resonate at the specified frequency. You can also tune the antenna using Antenna Properties tab during analysis.
- Use Reset, to go back to default settings.
- Use Accept, to analyze the antenna characteristics.
- Use Cancel, to start over.
Antenna Gallery
- You can choose your antennas from the ANTENNA GALLERY.
- When you filter antennas based on Radiation pattern, Polarization, or Bandwidth, the antenna gallery greys out the antennas that do not belong to the chosen filter.
Back Structure Gallery
- You can choose your antenna backing structures from the BACKING STRUCTURE GALLERY.
Analyze Antenna
- You can plot the Impedance and S Parameter of the antenna based on the specified Frequency Range in Hz.
- You can visualize the Current distribution on the antenna based on the specified Frequency in Hz.
- You can visualize the 3D Pattern, AZ Pattern, EL Pattern of the antenna based on the specified frequency. Here AZ stands for azimuth and EL stands for elevation.
- Use Export to view your antenna in MATLAB workspace or MATLAB script.
- Manually change the antenna properties using the Antenna Properties tab. In this tab, you can change the geometrical properties of the antenna, add a dielectric substrate to the antenna, and change the value and location of the load.
Optimize Antenna
- Click on Optimize to open the optimizer canvas of the antenna designer app.
  Use the OBJECTIVE FUNCTIONto choose the main goal of optimizing the antenna.
- Use the Design Variables to input the variables The variables are then changed by the optimizer depending on the lower and upper bounds.
- Use Constraints functions to restrict a desired analysis function value on the antenna.
- Use the Optimizer to choose between SADEA or Surrogate Opt.
  Note
  To use Parallel Computing for SADEA optimizer, you need the Parallel Computing Toolbox.
  To use the Surrogate optimization algorithm, you need the Global Optimization Toolbox.
- After adding the required values, click Run to start the optimization.

Plot Radiation Pattern of Cavity-Backed Dipole

Open Live Script

Use the Antenna Designer app to plot the radiation pattern of a cavity-backed dipole antenna.

Open the app and click New to show the default dipole antenna.

From the BACKING STRUCTURE GALLERY, click Rectangular Cavity to create a cavity-backed dipole antenna.

Click Accept.

In SCALAR FREQUENCY ANALYSIS, click 3D Pattern to calculate the radiation pattern of the cavity-backed dipole. The default frequency used is 75 MHz. Click Tile to view both the antenna and the radiation pattern.

Analyze Patch Microstrip Antenna Having Dielectric Substrate

Open Live Script

Use the Antenna Designer app to plot the radiation pattern of a patch microstrip antenna with a dielectric substrate.

Open the app and click New. In the ANTENNA GALLERY section, under PATCH FAMILY, click Microstrip. Click Accept.

On the Antenna Properties tab, change the groundplane length and groundplane width to 0.120 m. Click Apply to see the changes.

Add an FR4 dielectric as a substrate to the patch microstrip antenna. To add the dielectric, open the Substrate section and hover over the Name tab to see the Dielectric Catalog. Set the substrate Name to FR4, EpsilonR to 4.8000, and Loss Tangent to 0.0260. Click Apply to see the antenna.

Click 3D Pattern to plot the radiation pattern of the antenna at the default frequency of 1.67 GHz.

Export, Save, Load and Analyze Discone Antenna

Open Live Script

Create and export a discone antenna using Antenna Designer app.

In the Matlab workspace, you will see the exported antenna. This is in the form of a .mat file.

Change the parameters of the antenna to the below given values at the Matlab command line and save the .mat file again to a known folder.

Rd=55e-3;                % Radius of disc
Rc1=72.1e-3;             % Broad Radius of cone
Rc2=1.875e-3;            % Narrow Radius of cone
Hc=160e-3;               % Vertical height of cone
Fw=1e-3;                 % Feed Width
S=1.75e-3;               % Spacing between cone and disc

Open the updated .mat file of the discone antenna using the open antenna designer app.

The app will overwrite the previous discone antenna design and open the updated discone antenna.

Calculate the S-parameter of the antenna at the specified frequency range.

Plot the radiation pattern of the antenna at the specified frequency.

Minimize Area of Dipole Antenna to Optimize Gain

Open Live Script

Minimize the occupied area of a dipole antenna such that gain of the antenna is greater than 4 dBi.

Open Antenna Designer app and accept the default dipole antenna.

Analyze the pattern of the antenna. Notice that the Max value for directivity in the plot is 2.17 dBi.

Optimize Dipole Antenna

Click on Optimize to open the Optimizer canvas of the Antenna Designer app.

From the OBJECTIVE FUNCTION drop down choose, Minimize Area. Enter the bounds for the length and the width of the antenna in the Design Variables tab. Click Apply.

Enter the constraints in the Constraints tab. Click Apply.

Set the number of iterations to 50. Click Run.

First the optimizer builds the model.

Then starts the optimization based on the objective function and the constraints.

Click Accept.

Analyze the antenna again for the 3D pattern. See that the Max value of the directivity is now 4.03 dBi.

Minimize Area of Dipole Antenna to Optimize Gain Using Surrogate Optimization Method

Open Live Script

Minimize the occupied area of a dipole antenna such that gain of the antenna is greater than 4 dBi.

Open Antenna Designer app and accept the default dipole antenna.

Analyze the pattern of the antenna. Notice that the Max value for directivity in the plot is 2.17 dBi.

Optimize Dipole Antenna

Click on Optimize to open the Optimizer canvas of the Antenna Designer app.

From the OBJECTIVE FUNCTION drop down choose, Minimize Area. Enter the bounds for the length and the width of the antenna in the Design Variables tab. Click Apply.