This Inside Wireless episode is about Beam Efficiency - the most important antenna parameter describing its' noise rejecting capability in Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) but also any other wireless industry.

Beam Efficiency says what portion of the total power radiated by an antenna is contained in the main lobe. In other words, it is the ultimate measure of side lobes. The higher the average Beam Efficiency is, the better an antenna suppresses noise.

Beam Efficiency can be obtained from 3D full-wave simulation or from gain measurement data. Ideally, it is calculated from full 3D measured/simulated data. To calculate Beam Efficiency, the main beam needs to be defined first. Here we use the first null definition. The main beam is defined up to the first null, or minimum, in the radiation pattern.

Beam Efficiency is then calculated by integrating the absolute values of radiated power and then divided by the total radiated power. The result is a fractional number with values from 0 to 100 %.
Beam Efficiency can thus have values only between these two limits.

1. The best case is when BE = 100 %. In this case all the power an antenna radiates is contained in the main lobe - no signal is radiated / received from unwanted directions.

2. The worst case is when BE = 0 %. Here no power is contained in the main lobe, making an antenna practically a huge side lobe (   • Inside Wireless: Side Lobes  )

3. Beam Efficiency between 0 and 100 % is typical for vast majority of real world antennas. The higher the Beam Efficiency is the better.

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Users often know Front to Back ratio (   • Inside Wireless: Front to Back ratio  ) which says how strong the back-lobe is compared to the main lobe. Unfortunately they give it way too much importance, since it only quantifies one side lobe (the back lobe) out of many an antenna typically has.

Beam Efficiency on the other hand considers the whole 3D radiation pattern data, meaning its calculation includes ALL the side lobes an antennas has, making it the most complete side lobe measure out there.

On top of that, it makes perfect sense to average Beam Efficiency over the whole useful bandwidth of an antenna. This way, Beam Efficiency becomes extremely robust parameter giving the users a reliable information about noise rejecting capability of an antenna.

https://rfelements.com/

0:00 Intro
0:20 Front to Back ratio & Side lobe level
0:35 Beam efficiency (BE) definition
1:00 Beam efficiency averaging
1:35 Complete side lobe measure

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