Radiation of a Vertical Dipole Antenna over Flat and Lossy Ground: Accurate Electromagnetic Field Calculation using the Spectral Domain Approach along with Redefined Integral Representations and corresponding Novel Analytical Solution

A recently developed high-frequency asymptotic solution for the famous “Sommerfeld radiation problem” is revisited. The solution is based on an analysis performed in the spectral domain, through which a compact asymptotic formula describes the behavior of the EM field, which emanates from a vertical Hertzian radiating dipole, located above flat, lossy ground. The paper is divided into two parts. We first demonstrate an efficient technique for the accurate numerical calculation of the well-known Sommerfeld integrals. The results are compared against alternative calculation approaches and validated with the corresponding Norton figures for the surface wave. In the second part, we introduce the asymptotic solution and investigate its performance; we compare the solution with the accurate numerical evaluation for the received EM field and with a more basic asymptotic solution to the given problem, obtained via the application of the Stationary Phase Method. Simulations for various frequencies, distances, altitudes, and ground characteristics are illustrated and inferences for the applicability of the solution are made. Finally, special cases leading to analytical field expressions close as well as far from the interface are examined.

In this paper we re-consider the problem of radiation from a vertical short (Hertzian) dipole above flat lossy ground, which represents the well-known in the literature ‘Sommerfeld radiation problem’. Particularly, we expand on the problem’s solution in the spectral domain, which ends up into simple one dimensional (1-D) integral expressions for the received EM field and represent the exact EM solution to the aforementioned problem. The advantage of the derived expressions is based on the fact that they can be analytically evaluated through the use of the Stationary Phase Method (SPM), which however is valid in the high frequency regime. To our knowledge, the literature lacks specifying the exact frequency range over which the SPM method is applicable. Hence, in this paper numerical integration on the above mentioned integral expressions is applied and the results are compared with those obtained through the SPM. These comparisons are then used as the basis of determining the frequency limits of applicability of the SPM solution. In fact it is shown that due to the specific peculiarities of the integrated expressions, which possess certain singularities, it is often preferable to use the SPM method as the best estimate for the received signal level, especially for most practical frequencies of interest in the area of wireless telecommunications. Additional practical implications that these findings suggest, as well as further research to be triggered, as a result of the overall progress that has been made by our research group so far on the specific subject, are provided as well.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.eee.21.3.10268

In this paper, we introduce a novel method for calculating the electromagnetic (EM) field below a flat interface between two lossless media when a radiating vertical Hertzian dipole (VHD) is located far from the interface. The method uses a Geometrical Optics (GOs) approach based on the concept of ‘equal optical lengths’, in the framework of which the location of the ‘virtual image’ of the original source is calculated. Using the well-known formulae for the far EM field of a vertical Hertzian dipole, the EM field at a point below the flat interface is calculated in a closed mathematical form.