Radius correction formula for capacitances and effective length vectors of monopole and dipole antenna systems

Abstract

In the investigation of antenna systems which consist of one or several monopoles, a realistic modeling of the monopole radii is not always feasible. In particular, physical scale models for electrolytic tank measurements of effective length vectors (rheometry) of spaceborne monopoles are so small that a correct scaling of monopole radii often results in very thin, flexible antenna wires which bend too much under their own weight. So one has to use monopoles in the model which are thicker than the correct scale diameters. The opposite case, where the monopole radius has to be modeled too thin, appears with certain numerical antenna programs based on wire grid modeling. This problem arises if the underlying algorithm assumes that the wire segments are much longer than their diameters. In such a case it is eventually not possible to use wires of correct thickness to model the monopoles. In order that these numerical and experimental techniques can be applied nonetheless to determine the capacitances and effective length vectors of such monopoles (with an inaccurate modeling of monopole diameters), an analytical correction method is devised. It enables one to calculate the quantities for the real antenna system from those obtained for the model antenna system with wrong monopole radii. Since a typical application of the presented formalism is the analysis of spaceborne antenna systems, an illustration for the monopoles of the WAVES experiment on board the STEREO‐A spacecraft is given.