Practical Antenna Design Training Course

About the Training Course

The course covers the important and timely issues involving modern antenna design and theory. Developed specifically for engineers and designers who work with radar and radio communications, this workshop will give participants the understanding of antenna theory and techniques, the skills to analyse, design and measure various antennas, and the knowledge of antenna measurements. The participants will have the opportunity to use industry standard software to design a practical antenna, and use equipment to conduct some antenna measurements during the course.

Who is this training course for?

• Antenna engineers.
• Wireless and radar system architects.
• EMC specialists.
• Technicians.
• Wireless communication professionals.
• Applications and test engineers.
• Anyone who works with radio waves (20MHz to 20GHz and beyond).

Benefits

This is a practical course. It is filled with practical examples, explanations, and classroom computer simulation and measurements. Anyone who works with antennas and radio propagation will understand and benefit from the material presented. No advanced mathematics are necessary.

The book, "Antennas: From Theory to Practice" by Yi Huang and Kevin Boyle (Wiley) is available as part of this course (see registration section below).

Training Course Content

Day One

AM: Transmission lines, Antennas and Radio Propagation (Dr Yi Huang)

• Understand the transmission line theory and identify the advantages and limitations of various transmission lines (such as coax, micro-strip, waveguide, and CPW).
• Review the fundamental theory of antennas and radio propagation.
• See how a voltage/current is converted to a radio wave, and vice versa.
• Gain a thorough understanding of the important concepts such as characteristic impedance, radiation pattern, input impedance, VSWR, bandwidth, directivity, gain, efficiency, polarisation, effective aperture, antenna temperature, near-field and far-field
• Characterise various radio propagation channels and find out how to link them to antennas.

PM: Antenna Analysis, Design and Measurements (Dr Yi Huang)

• Introduce antenna analysis methods and apply to a few practical examples (such as dipole, loop, helical, patch, and PIFA antennas).
• Discuss balun and impedance-matching techniques.
• Appreciate and compare a wide range of antennas: wire type and aperture type, narrow band and wide band, element and antenna array.
• Demonstrate how to design an antenna with a set of given specifications using industrial standard commercial software.
• Outline the basic theory of antenna measurements.

Day Two

AM: Special Topics (Kevin Boyle)

• Techniques to make an antenna small for wireless LAN and Blue tooth applications.
• Wide-band and multi-band antennas.
• Mobile antennas and antenna diversity.
• Reconfigurable antennas.
• Practical consideration in designing antennas for wireless communications (such as the interaction between mobile antenna and human body).

PM: Practical Session on Antenna Design and Measurements (Dr Yi Huang, Kevin Boyle)

• Learn how to use some commercial software packages (EZNEC, HFSS, CST-MS and MicroStrips) to design various antennas.
  
• Understand the theory, advantages and limitations of these packages.
  
• Use network analyser to measure antennas parameters.
  
• Identify the possible source of errors.
  
• Develop necessary skills for antenna design and measurements.

 

About the Lecturers

• Dr Yi Huang, Head of Wireless Communications and Engineering Group, University of Liverpool
• Dr Kevin Boyle, Principal Research Scientist, Wireless Systems Group, NXP Semiconductors

References

• For Further Information on this Training Course: such as Dates, Venue, Prices etc. please fill in your details on the form below and click the "submit" button.

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