Why Antenna Dimension is so important ?

As mentioned above, in order to achieve the stable measurement result it is important to put the distance between DUT antenna and the equipment antenna to be greater than the Far Field Boundary. As shound in [Figure 1], the Far Field boundary starts from the following distance.

 

 

As you notice from this expression, the distance is proportional to D squared (D represents antenna dimension). That is, the distance changes drastically with even a small changes in D. To give you more intuitive understanding, I plotted this equation in a graph as shown in left. The path loss at the boundary also increases as the D increases as shown in right.

 

 

< Figure 5 - Far Field Distance and Path Loss with D >

 

 

In case that you want to get the exact quantitative data, I put a table as shown below. The two graphs shown above are plotted from this table.

 

< Table 2 - D influencing on Far Field Distance and Path Loss >

D(cm)	Freq(Ghz)		Path Loss
1	28	2	27.42
2	28	7	38.30
3	28	17	46.01
4	28	30	50.94
5	28	47	54.84
6	28	67	57.92
7	28	91	60.58
8	28	119	62.91
9	28	151	64.98
10	28	187	66.83
11	28	226	68.48
12	28	269	69.99
13	28	315	71.36
14	28	366	72.67
15	28	420	73.86
16	28	478	74.99
17	28	539	76.03
18	28	605	77.03
19	28	674	77.97
20	28	747	78.86
21	28	823	79.70
22	28	903	80.51
23	28	987	81.28
24	28	1075	82.02
25	28	1167	82.74
26	28	1262	83.42
27	28	1361	84.07
28	28	1463	84.70
29	28	1570	85.31
30	28	1680	85.90

 

 

 

What this implies is that you need to know the exact antenna dimension in order to get the accurate measurement. However, it is not always easy to correctly define the antenna dimension. Antenna Dimension D is defined as the maximum distance across the whole antenna module. The Red Arrow in [Figure 6] indicates D. As you see, it would be straightforward to define D in case of (A), (B), (C) and (E). However, in case of (D), defining the dimension would not be so easy. In (D), the physical dimension is same as (A), but you see some conductive material around the antenna module influence the radiation pattern of the antenna module. This may influence the effective dimension of the antenna and it would be very difficult to accurately estimate the effective dimension. Also there would be some possibilities where UE makers distribute the antenna modules accross several different locations inside of the UE as shown in (F), (G) and (H). Of course, the shape and location of Antenna modules within a UE would be more diverse and complicated than the ones shown here.

 

 

< Figure 6 - Antenna Dimensions for various configuration >

 

 

 

There is another reason why defining D gets difficult. It would get more difficult for UE case. In order to correctly define D, you need to have all the detailed information of the antenna structure and positions in UE. But in many cases these information is treated as a highly confidential information by most of UE manufacturer. So when you are given a UE (especially a commercialized UE), it is almost impossible to get the exact estimate for D (Dimension).

 

Now we are facing a very tricky situation. How can we guarantee the accurate measurement when we are not given the detailed information on Antenna dimension ?

This is what I will talk about next section.