Non-Foster Impedance Matching of Electrically Small

Antennas
Keum-Su Song* and Roberto G. Rojas
ElectroScience Laboratory, Dept. Electrical and Computer Engineering,
The Ohio State University,
E-mail : song.210@osu.edu ; rojas-teran.1@osu.edu

Introduction

When the size of an antenna is electrically small, the antenna is neither efficient nor
a good radiator because most of the input power is stored in the reactive near-field
region and little power is radiated in the far-field region. As demonstrated in [1]- [2],
the radiation quality factor of small antennas is definitely high. In other words, the
input impedance of small antennas is considerably reactive. To reduce the radiation
quality factor in the whole or partial frequency range of interest, it is important to
increase the radiation resistance and/or reduce the reactance of the antenna. Hence,
it is necessary to modify the antenna to reduce the reactance of the antenna and/or
add impedance matching networks (MNs) to maximize the transfer of power from
a resistive source to the highly reactive antenna.
In this paper, wideband active MNs for electrically small antennas are considered.
One of the antennas tested in this work is shown in Fig. 1. It is a three inch wire
monopole on a 3 × 3 square metal ground plane.

Figure 1: Three inch wire monopole antenna on 3 × 3 square metal ground plane

In the case of lossless passive MNs, there is a fundamental Gain-Bandwidth restric-

tion (or the Gain-Bandwidth product) [3]- [4] between a resistive generator and a
load. Although better performance can be obtained theoretically by increasing the
order of the MN, the overall efficiency will decrease due to the losses in the trans-
mission lines and the finite Q of lumped elements which are normally used for low
frequency applications. Another common way to increase the bandwidth is to add
losses; however, as already mentioned above, the radiation efficiency of the antenna
deteriorates.
Fortunately, using Non-Foster elements, it is possible to overcome the Gain-Bandwidth
restriction. Non-Foster elements such as negative capacitors, inductors, and resis-
tors can be achieved through active circuits called Negative Impedance Converters

978-1-4244-4968-2/10/$25.00 ©2010 IEEE

(NICs). This paper shows two different Non-Foster MNs to match a 50Ω generator
to an antenna as depicted in Fig. 1. One is a single negative capacitor (C), the
other a series combination of a negative inductor and capacitor (LC).

Methodology

Before the design of the Non-Foster elements is started, it is necessary to first deter-
mine an equivalent circuit for the reactance of the input impedance of the antenna.
Based on this equivalent reactive circuit, the circuit components of the NIC can
be determined. Herein the measured input impedance of the antenna is used to
determine the equivalent lumped circuit of the reactance.
It is important to briefly discuss how the overall gain of the antenna is obtained.
The realized antenna gain can be expressed as the sum (in dBs) of the IEEE antenna
gain (without impedance mismatch losses) and the transducer gain (when Zs = Z0
in Fig. 2) of the Non-Foster matching network.

Figure 2: A 2-port network representation of the Matching Network connected to a

generator and a load (the antenna). Z0 is the reference impedance

Most Non-Foster impedance matching for electrically small antennas have been im-
plemented with a series or a shunt negative capacitor [5]- [7]. Fig. 3 (a) shows a
Non-Foster matching network with a negative capacitor in series with a monopole
antenna. When the size of this antenna in free space is less than λ/4π, a single
negative capacitor is sufficient to reduce the reactance of the antenna.

A. Matching With A Negative Capacitor

We have fabricated and measured the antenna in Fig. 1 with a Non-Foster Matching
Network. Fig. 4 shows the improvement of the measured antenna gain when the MN
is included; namely, the antenna with and without a MN. Note that this antenna’s
electric length is about λ/39 at 100MHz and about λ/7 at 600MHz.

B. Matching With A Series Negative Inductor-Capacitor

To expand the bandwidth of operation of the matching network, a series connection

of a negative inductor-capacitor shown in Fig. 3 (b) is needed. This circuit does a
better show in canceling out the reactance up to the first series resonant frequency
 (a) (b)

Figure 3: (a) Monopole antenna connected in series with a negative capacitor (b)
Monopole antenna connected in series with a negative inductor-capacitor

Measured Antenna Gain Improvement With Non-Foster Matching

10

2
Gain [dB]

-2

-4

-6

Measured Antenna with Non-Foster Matching (10pF)

-8
Measured Antenna with Non-Foster Matching (10pF) (Smooth version)
Simulated Transducer Gain Improvement
-10
100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600
Freq [MHz]

Figure 4: Improvement of measured antenna gain when Non-Foster MN is included

(−10pF in Fig. 3 (a))

of the antenna. The red curve in Fig. 5 is the simulated result of the transducer
gain for the LC circuit with 6nH and 5pF, respectively. For comparison, the blue
curve in Fig. 5 shows the simulated transducer gain of a single negative capacitor
with 5pF. At the lower frequencies, the transducer gain of the single negative ca-
pacitor is similar to that of the series negative inductor-capacitor circuit. However,
after 250MHz the LC circuit performs better than the single negative capacitor.
Furthermore, after 445MHz, the transducer gain of the antenna without matching
network is similar to the case when the LC circuit is included. This is due to the
improvement in the input impedance of the antenna as it becomes larger electrically.

Additional results will be presented, including a discussion of the Signal-To-Noise

Ratio (SNR) of the antenna with MNs.
 Transducer Gain
0

-5

-10

GT[dB]
-15

-20

Antenna with a single -C

Antenna with a series -LC
Antenna without matching (MissMatching)
-25
80 150 250 350 450 550 650 750 850 900
Freq [MHz]

Figure 5: Simulated transducer gain of MN for two cases: Single non-Foster ca-
pacitor and non-Foster LC circuit. Black line is the impedance mismatch loss for
antenna without MN.

References

[1] H. A. Wheeler, “Fundamental Limitations of Small Antennas,” Proc. IRE, vol.

35, pp. 1479-1484, Dec. 1947.

[2] L. J. Chu, “Physical Limitations of Omni-Directional Antennas,” J. App. Phys.,

vol. 19, pp. 1163-1175, Dec. 1948.

[3] H. W. Bode, Network Analysis and Feedback Amplifier Design, New York: Van
Nostrand Company, 1945.

[4] R. M. Fano, “Theoretical limitations on the broad-band matching of arbitrary

impedances,” J. Franklin Inst., vol. 249, pp. 139-154, Feb. 1950.

[5] Andrew D. Harris, and Glen A. Myers, “An Investigation of Broadband Minia-
ture Antennas,” Technical Report, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey CA,
Sept. 1968.

[6] Albert K. Perry, “Broadband Antennas Systems Realized by Active Circuit

Conjugate Impedance Matching,” Thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, Mon-
terey CA, Sept. 1973.

[7] S. E. Sussman-Fort, R. M. Rudish, “Non-Foster Impedance Matching of

Electrically-Small Antennas,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol.57, no.8,
pp.2230-2241, Aug. 2009.