A Yagi–Uda antenna, or Yagi antenna, is a directional antenna consisting of two or more parallel resonant antenna elements in an end-fire array; these elements are most often metal rods (or discs) acting as half-wave dipoles. Yagi–Uda antennas consist of a single driven element connected to a radio transmitter or receiver (or both) through a transmission line, and additional passive radiators with no electrical connection, usually including one so-called reflector and any number of directors. It was invented in 1926 by Shintaro Uda of Tohoku Imperial University, Japan, with a lesser role played by his boss Hidetsugu Yagi. Reflector elements (usually only one is used) are slightly longer than the driven dipole and placed behind the driven element, opposite the direction of intended transmission. Directors, on the other hand, are a little shorter and placed in front of the driven element in the intended direction. These parasitic elements are typically off-tuned short-circuited dipole elements, that is, instead of a break at the feedpoint (like the driven element) a solid rod is used. They receive and reradiate the radio waves from the driven element but in a different phase determined by their exact lengths. Their effect is to modify the driven element's radiation pattern. The waves from the multiple elements superpose and interfere to enhance radiation in a single direction, increasing the antenna's gain in that direction. Also called a beam antenna and parasitic array, the Yagi is widely used as a directional antenna on the HF, VHF and UHF bands. It has moderate to high gain of up to 20 dBi, depending on the number of elements used, and a front-to-back ratio of up to 20 dB. It radiates linearly polarized radio waves and is usually mounted for either horizontal or vertical polarization. It is relatively lightweight, inexpensive and simple to construct. The bandwidth of a Yagi antenna, the frequency range over which it maintains its gain and feedpoint impedance, is narrow, just a few percent of the center frequency, decreasing for models with higher gain, making it ideal for fixed-frequency applications. The largest and best-known use is as rooftop terrestrial television antennas, but it is also used for point-to-point fixed communication links, radar, and long-distance shortwave communication by broadcasting stations and radio amateurs.
Origins
The antenna was invented by Shintaro Uda of Tohoku Imperial University, Japan, in 1926, with a lesser role played by Hidetsugu Yagi. However, the name Yagi has become more familiar, while the name of Uda, who, through experiment, developed and put into practice Yagi's initially vague conception, is often omitted. This appears to have been due to the fact that Yagi based his work on Uda's pre-announcement and developed the principle of the absorption phenomenon Yagi had announced earlier. Yagi filed a patent application in Japan on the new idea, without Uda's name in it, and later transferred the patent to the Marconi Company in the UK. Incidentally, in the US, the patent was transferred to RCA Corporation. Yagi antennas were first widely used during World War II in radar systems by Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. After the war, they saw extensive development as home television antennas.
Description
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