Lab-Based Antenna Course Using Full-Wave Numerical Simulation Software FEKO

Antennas are ubiquitous in our daily life, which are used in all wireless electronic devices and can be found in cellphones, laptops, cars, ships, airplanes, and satellites to support a variety of applications involving wireless communications and microwave sensing from civil to defense areas. To become a qualified antenna engineer, it requires solid background knowledge in electromagnetics (EM) field theory, which is one of the most difficult courses in electrical engineering. To help students maximize the transferable knowledge from EM field theory to antenna theory, brief review on vector analysis, coordinate systems, Maxwell's equations, and plane wave solution in unbounded free space are addressed at the beginning of the course. In a traditional antenna theory classroom, the course tends to be more theoretical, including more physics and mathematical aspects, such as solving differential and integral forms of Maxwell's equations in a three-dimensional spherical coordinate system. Students may lose interests in finding electric field intensities generated by an antenna. To make sure students have a better understanding on antenna theory and visualize antenna parameters and performance, full-wave commercially available numerical EM simulation software FEKO is used. FEKO is a German acronym 'Feldberechnung für körper mit beliebiger oberfläche', which means electromagnetic field calculations of arbitrary shaped objects. To guarantee a better learning experience of students, multiple labs are designed and specific lab sessions are assigned to guide students to achieve antenna modeling. In this paper, the structure of the antenna theory course will be described. Definitions of antenna parameters are discussed, such as radiation resistance, radiation patterns, directivity, gain, frequency bandwidth, etc. Labs using FEKO simulations will be presented as well.