Customer Reviews

The Art and Science of Ultra-Wideband Antennas

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Author Schantz brings a dramatically different approach to the understanding of very wide band antennas - which are critically important in UWB technology. It is well illustrated, and is steeped in historical background which aids the understanding of antenna development. The volume introduces an intuitive but rarely seen space-time energy flow diagrams to bring an understanding of stored and radiated fields.

This book has helped with uwb antenna arrays in aerospace applications. The review of uwb antenna history and applications of antennas today helps the engineer developed a sound design practice.

This is an excellent book on antennas.
Main things to point out:
- Gives an hystorical view of (UWB) antennas. Tells how and why a specific kind of antenna was conceived.
- Presents antennas from different points of view: as transducers, as transformers, as radiators and as energy converters.
- Provides useful construction details on several particular antennas.
- States explicitly that "in many respects, our knowledge of electromagnetics is akin to the science of chemistry before the atomic theory was verified. We have the math to mix electronic components together in the right portions to generate useful results, but we really don't understand what we are doing on a fundamental level"

Schantz presents a useful "big picture" compendium of electrially small and wideband antenna classes, with supporting theory and many practical tips, and worked examples. Fundamental limits of antenna size and gain-bandwidth performance are presented and analyzed in a manner that non-academics can follow. Methods of measuring antenna efficiency are usefully presented. A very helpful "energy flow" chapter assists understanding how a fraction of local reactive energy separates off to become radiated energy. This book substantially helped better my understanding of antennas and RF energy related radiative processes. Hopefully, there will be a second edition of this excellent book, having a chapter on log periodic antennas, the only common ultrawideband antenna class not discussed.