antenna-theory.com

[Mohican]

Hello Guys,

I'm graduate student and Newbie in field of antennas. I want to apologize in advance if my questions are too trivial.

I have a project of antenna array for WiFi. The output signal will be differential. So I have two questions:

1. Is it possible to directly feed patch antenna (without balun or feeding patch antenna through dipole) with differential signal and still has a linear polarization?

2. How to characterize dipole antenna with VNA, since it has single-end output and dipole requires differential input?

Regards, Newbie

[admin]

The feed structure (single-ended or differential) has no effect on polarization.

Patch antennas make use of a system ground plane, so it would be very unlikely you would actually want to do differential signaling on a patch antenna. But yes, you could, if the ground of the patch was floated relative to system ground.

Your 2nd question is not good. VNA output is not single ended, there is a ground and a signal, and for a dipole the ground goes to one side and hte signal to the other (doesn't matter which)