Hidetsugu Yagi | |
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| 八木 秀次 | |
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| Born | (1886-01-28)January 28, 1886 |
| Died | January 19, 1976(1976-01-19) (aged 89) |
| Alma mater | Tokyo Imperial University |
| Occupation | Engineering scientist |
| Known for | Yagi–Uda antenna |
| Awards | Blue Ribbon Award (1951), theOrder of Culture (1956) and theOrder of the Rising Sun, First Class (1976) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Electrical engineering |
Hidetsugu Yagi (八木 秀次,Yagi Hidetsugu; January 28, 1886 – January 19, 1976) was a Japaneseelectrical engineer fromOsaka, Japan. When working atTohoku Imperial University, he wrote several articles that introduced a newantenna designed by his assistantShintaro Uda to the English-speaking world.
TheYagi-Uda antenna, patented in 1926, allows directional transmission usingradio waves, and is especially useful in thevery high frequency andultra high frequency radio bands . Antennas of this type were widely used for television and radio reception, and are still common in communication andradar systems.[citation needed] Yagi also tried, unsuccessfully, to introduce awireless power transmission system.[citation needed] He participated in establishing theChiba Institute of Technology.[1][citation needed] He was the fourth president ofOsaka University from February 1946 to December 1946.[2]
In 1942, he became the President of Tokyo Institute of Technology, in 1944 he became the President of the Technical Institution, and in 1946 also the President of the Osaka Imperial University. He was decorated with the Medal of Honor with Blue Ribbon Award in 1951, with theOrder of Culture in 1956, and posthumously with the Grand Cordon of theOrder of the Rising Sun in 1976.[citation needed]
Hidetsugu Yagi was born on January 28, 1886, in Osaka Prefecture. He graduated from the Department of Electronic Engineering of theTokyo Imperial University, Faculty of Sciences, in 1909. From 1913 he studied in Germany where he worked withHeinrich Barkhausen on generating CW oscillations by electric arcs; England where he worked withJ.A. Fleming who invented the vacuum diode; and the United States where he worked withG. W. Pierce at Harvard who invented thePierce oscillator which generated a continuous wave. He earned his doctorate from Tokyo Imperial University in 1921.[3] In Germany he continued research on generation of electric waves used forwireless communication. He returned to Japan in 1930.[citation needed]After 1930, Hidetsugu Yagi was involved, as a adviser, in the operation of theNumber Nine Research Laboratory run byIwakuro Hideo.[4]
The topic of wireless communication, which he pursued during his studies abroad, would become a research theme to which he would dedicate his entire life. In 1919, he became a professor at the Faculty of Engineering Sciences of the Tohoku Imperial University which was then established and during the same year, he also attained the title of Doctor of Engineering. He was able to foresee that short waves or ultra-short waves would become the main element for communication using radio waves and he aimed his research in this direction. This resulted in the publication of his papers called "Generation of Short Wavelength Waves", "Measuring Specific Wavelengths with Short Wavelengths", and other papers. The so-called Yagi antenna is based on these published articles. He invented it as an antenna using his "method for directional electric waves". He obtained the patent rights to his invention (patent number 69115, issued in 1926).
Because this invention uses a very simple construction, it enabled directional communication with electric waves. This construction is still used basically in any type of antenna which is used today for ultra short or extremely short waves.
On April 18, 1985, theJapan Patent Office selected him as one ofTen Japanese Great Inventors.[5]
On January 28, 2016, Google published an animated Google Doodle to honor his work.[6]
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