Science Behind Monopole Antenna

SCIENCE BEHIND MONOPOLE ANTENNA
Like a dipole antenna, a monopole has an omnidirectional radiation pattern. That is it radiates equal
power in all directions perpendicular to the antenna, but the radiated power varies with elevation angle,
with the radiation dropping off to zero, on the antenna axis. It radiates vertically polarized radio waves.
Certain types of monopole antennas, e.g. some helical antennas, can radiate circularly polarized waves.
A monopole can be visualized as being formed by replacing the bottom half of a vertical dipole antenna
with a conducting plane (ground plane) at right-angles to the remaining half. If the ground plane is large
enough, the radio waves from the remaining upper half of the dipole reflected from the ground plane will
seem to come from an image antenna forming the missing half of the dipole, which adds to the direct
radiation to form a dipole radiation pattern. So the pattern of a monopole with a perfectly conducting,
infinite ground plane is identical to the top half of a dipole pattern, with its maximum radiation in the
horizontal direction, perpendicular to the antenna. Because it radiates only into the space above the
ground plane, or half the space of a dipole antenna, a monopole antenna will have a gain of twice
(3 dB over) the gain of a similar dipole antenna, and a radiation resistance half that of a dipole. Thus
a quarter-wave monopole, the most common type, will have a gain of 5.19 dBi and a radiation resistance
of about 36.8 ohms if it is mounted above a good ground plane.
The general effect of electrically small ground planes, as well as imperfectly conducting earth grounds, is
to tilt the direction of maximum radiation up to higher elevation angles.
The only change that needs to be noted is that the impedance of a monopole antenna is one half of that
of a full dipole antenna. For a quarter-wave monopole (L=0.25* ), the impedance is half of that of a
half-wave dipole. This can be understood since only half the voltage is required to drive a monopole
antenna to the same current as a dipole (think of a dipole as having +V/2 and -V/2 applied to its ends,
whereas a monopole antenna only needs to apply +V/2 between the monopole antenna and the ground
to drive the same current). Since Zin = V/I, the impedance of the monopole antenna is halved.
However the directivity on monopole antenna is twice of a dipole antenna.
BASIC PROPERTIES AND DESIGN

A monopole is a ground plane dependent antenna that must be fed single-ended.
The antenna must have a ground plane to be efficient, and ideally the ground plane should
spread out at least a quarter wavelength, or more, around the feed-point of the antenna. The
size of the ground plane influences the gain, resonance frequency and impedance of the
antenna.
The length of the monopole PCB trace mainly determines the resonant frequency of the
antenna, but because of the very wide gain bandwidth of a quarterwave monopole, the
antenna length is not too critical. But like any other antenna types, the gain of a quarterwave
monopole will vary if parameters in the surroundings, such as case/box materials, distance to
the ground plane, size of the ground plane, width and thickness of the PCB trace are varied. If
any of these parameters are changed, a retuning of the monopole PCB trace length may be
Necessary for optimum performance in each application.
For an application operating both in the 868-870MHz and 902-928MHz bands, the antenna
can be tuned to a frequency in between the two bands. Because of the very wide gain
bandwidth of the antenna, the antenna will show good overall performance in the whole
frequency range 868-928MHz when tuned to 900MHz.
The antenna is fabricated on a standard 1.6mm FR4 substrate material with a typical dielectric
Constant equal to 4.4 at 900MHz.
When implementing the monopole as a trace on the PCB, the length of the trace should be
extended somewhat to allow for some fine-tuning of the antenna to resonance at 900MHz. If
the size of available ground plane is approaching the ideal size and the antenna trace is
uniformly surrounded by the FR4 substrate, then the length of the trace should be extended by
about 20%.
ADVANTAGES AND APPLICATIONS

 Monopole antennas are half the size of their dipole
counterparts, and hence are attractive when a smaller
antenna is needed. Antennas on older cell phones were
typically monopole antennas, with an infinite ground
plane approximated by the shell (casing) of the phone
 Monopole antenna is very useful in wireless applications
due to its light weight, low cost and easy to install and
allow different frequency bands
 It’s very useful in Radio Broadcasting
 In a monopole antenna, the increased radiation
resistance is extremely useful in matching the antenna
 The distortion of this antenna is very less

Science Behind Monopole Antenna

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SCIENCE BEHIND MONOPOLE ANTENNA

However the directivity on monopole antenna is twice of a dipole antenna.

BASIC PROPERTIES AND DESIGN

Necessary for optimum performance in each application.

frequency range 868-928MHz when tuned to 900MHz.

Constant equal to 4.4 at 900MHz.

ADVANTAGES AND APPLICATIONS

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