Continued from Part 2. Here we discuss basics of antenna design.
Antenna design begins by understanding your transmission requirements. You need to know the wavelength / frequency of the signal for the antenna, before beginning work on antenna design. The next step is understanding the antenna type that would suit your application. Moreover certain applications would require several antenna and this may cause a confusion for novices.
A list of currently used antennas
A detailed list of antennas has been mentioned below for your reference. This list is being further updated on a regular basis.
| Monopole Antenna | Helical Antenna | Log-Periodic Dipole |
| Dipole Antenna | Yagi-Uda | Slot Antenna |
| Short-Dipole | Spiral Antenna | Cavity-Backed Slot |
| Half-wave dipole | Corner Reflector | Horn Antenna |
| Broadband Dipole | Parabolic Reflector | Vivaldi Antenna |
| Folded Dipole | Microstrip patch | Slotted Waveguide |
| Loop Antenna | Planar Inverted-F | Inverted-F |
| Cloverleaf Antenna | Bow-Tie | Antenna in wearables |
Parameters in Antenna Design
All of these and more are being used in some or the other application around us. However designing any of them would involve understanding parameters and suitability for a particular application. Some parameters involved with antenna design besides basic aesthetics are the antenna resonance point or the operating frequency, and the antenna bandwidth or the range of frequencies over which this antenna would be expected to operate.
Any RF antenna consists of capacitive and inductive components in it’s design. Hence this calls for tuning between the two. This brings in a resonance point into the picture. You might be familiar with the relation between capacitance and inductance in tank circuits
