Customer Reviews

Antenna Theory & Design (IEEE Press Series on Electromagnetic Wave Theory)

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Antenna Theory and Design provides a penetrating insight into the design and analysis of antennas. The book is unique in providing thorough and very readable coverage of many important topics that are not found, or are only discussed superficially, in other "similar" antenna text books.

Antenna Theory and Design is not a typical textbook that attempts to give a brief overview of every antenna possible. The topics covered in Antenna Theory and Design reflect the work of the author in his extensive career. Thus, some antennas, such as microstrip patch radiators, are barely mentioned because the author did not work on them. Other antennas, most notably the theory and practice of designing array antennas, receive thourough treatment that is not found elsewhere.

Constantine Balanis's book with the same title is much much better.Antenna Theory: Analysis and Design, 3rd Edition

It is a real pity that this book is out of print. What I like the most about it is the use of Maxwell Equations to proof many important Antenna Theory results such as Reciprocity and the treatment of the circuit properties of antennas. Unfortunately I have never been able to get a copy of it. Please IEEE, have you ever thought about a reprint?

Without going into too many details of the different types of antennas that larger texts such as Kraus and Balanis describe, Antenna Theory & Design cover the details of antenna analysis and synthesis at a fundamental level directed at an audience of graduate students or working professionals.

Chapter 1 covers the Far-Field Integrals, Reciprocity, and Directivity as they apply to single antenna elements. For those who are not satisfied with a basic treatment using retarded potentials, the Stratton-Chu Solution is also presented. The far field is calculated for both Type I (actual source) and Type II (equivalent source) antenna elements. The analysis of Type II antennas is based on the Schelkunoff Equivalence Principle.

Chapters 2 & 3 describe radiation patterns of several basic types of antenna elements.

I particularly liked the chapters in Part II in their treatment of Array Analysis & Synthesis. Chapter 4 covers the Analysis of linear arrays and is a precursor to Chapter 5 which covers Synthesis of linear arrays. Chapter 6 covers both Analysis & Synthesis of Planar Arrays. Rectangular grid arrays are covered as are Circular and Generalized Taylor distributions.

Both Chapters 5 and 6 cover numerical techniques for the synthesis of antenna arrays.

Chapter 7, the first in Part III covers Self-Impedance and Mutual-Impedance of antenna elements. Of course, the bulk of the chapter focuses on the former. Impedance is calculated based on the Method of Moments and Hallen's Integral Equation. Mutual Impedance between pairs of elements is covered based on the impedance matrix [Z_11 Z_12; Z_21 Z_22].

There are a total of 10 chapters and 8 appendicies in the text, but I found the chapters I reviewed above to be the most valuable.

This book is often overlooked as just another intro. text on the subject of antennas. It has an excellent section on waveguide slot arrays. Elliot is one of the greatest antenna engineers, and his books and papers are all excellent.

This book has quite the deceiving back:
"Beautifully and clearly written, of the highest technical quality."
--Dr. Robert J. Mailloux

That line was likely said by the author's friend so he could get good hand chosen reviews for his book. Honestly, this book is awful at explaining all its concepts. Equations are densely packed; however, none of them are truly explained. Through the first chapter, I saw no example problems, and in the homework section every question asks you to go back and explore the material. And by explore the material, it means to ask for an unspecific answer. As a result my teacher has used homework problems from another book, and is not even using the one his students were told to buy. I suggest you "look inside" this before you even consider reading the other reviews.

In short, I have found this book to be of the horribly and aimlessly written, of the lowest technical quality.

My suggestion of a better book that should help aid you in this subject matter better is the following:
Antenna Theory: Analysis and Design by Balanis