Limitations of the Thevenin and Norton equivalent circuits for a receiving antenna

Abstract

The investigation carried out in this paper was stimulated by a recent paper published by Love (2002), in which the appropriateness of the use of the Thevenin and Norton equivalent circuits for a receiving antenna was questioned. A review of the available literature led to the conclusion that the limitations inherent in the Thevenin and Norton equivalent circuits had not been adequately examined, and this led to the investigation that is reported on in this paper. The Thevenin and Norton equivalent circuits are useful in the reduction of the equivalent circuit for a transmitting-receiving antenna system to simpler networks that facilitate the evaluation of the received power. One finds in the literature that the calculated power dissipation within these equivalent circuits is often equated to the reradiated and scattered power from the receiving antenna. Such calculations are not correct, because power dissipation in the network from which the Thevenin and Norton equivalent circuits were obtained cannot be made using the Thevenin and Norton equivalent circuits. However, as we will show, the Thevenin and Norton equivalent circuits can be used to find a reradiated electromagnetic field that is a part of the total field scattered by a receiving antenna. As part of the derivation of this new result, we develop a derivation of the Thevenin and Norton equivalent circuits from the basic principles of uniqueness and superposition applied to electromagnetic fields.