Small Footprint Multilayered Millimeter-Wave Antennas and Feeding Networks for Multi-Dimensional Scanning and High-Density Integrated Systems

This paper overviews the state-of-the-art of substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) techniques in the design and realization of innovative low-cost, low-profile and low-loss (L3) millimeter-wave antenna elements, feeding networks and arrays for various wireless applications. Novel classes of multilayered antenna structures and systems are proposed and studied to exploit the vertical dimension of planar structures to overcome certain limita-tions in standard two-dimensional (2-D) topologies. The developed structures are based on two techniques, namely multi-layer stacked structures and E-plane corners. Differ-ent E-plane structures realised with SIW waveguide are presented, thereby demonstrating the potential of the proposed techniques as in multi-polarization antenna feeding. An array of 128 elements shows low SLL and height gain with just 200g of the total weight. Two versions of 2-D scanning multi-beam are presented, which effectively combine frequency scanning with beam forming networks. Adding the benefits of wide band performance to the multilayer structure, two bi-layer structures are investigated. Different stacked antennas and arrays are demonstrated to optimise the targeted antenna performances in the smallest footprint possible. These structures meet the requirement for developing inexpensive compact millimeter-wave antennas and antenna systems. Different structures and architectures are theoretically and experimentally studied and discussed for specific space- and ground-based appli-cations. Practical issues such as high-density integration and high-volume manufacturability are also addressed

Wideband and UWB antennas for wireless applications. A comprehensive review

A comprehensive review concerning the geometry, the manufacturing technologies, the materials, and the numerical techniques, adopted for the analysis and design of wideband and ultrawideband (UWB) antennas for wireless applications, is presented. Planar, printed, dielectric, and wearable antennas, achievable on laminate (rigid and flexible), and textile dielectric substrates are taken into account. The performances of small, low-profile, and dielectric resonator antennas are illustrated paying particular attention to the application areas concerning portable devices (mobile phones, tablets, glasses, laptops, wearable computers, etc.) and radio base stations. This information provides a guidance to the selection of the different antenna geometries in terms of bandwidth, gain, field polarization, time-domain response, dimensions, and materials useful for their realization and integration in modern communication systems

A Narrow-wall Complementary-split-ring Slotted Waveguide Antenna for High-power-microwave Applications

A narrow-band, rugged, complementary-split-ring (CSR) slotted waveguide antenna (SWA) with significant size reduction is presented. The antenna is to be vertically front mounted on a land vehicle, with a horizontally polarized fan-beam radiation pattern. The radiation characteristics of a CSR slot in the narrow-wall of a rectangular waveguide are studied for the first time in this work. Both simulation and experimental results show that the complementary-split-ring slot radiates a linearly polarized wave with a total efficiency and gain close to those of conventional longitudinal slots, while the proposed CSR slots have a maximal outer diameter of 0.23λ0, much smaller compared to conventional half-wavelength longitudinal slots. The CSR slotted waveguide antenna provides, approximately, 55% size reduction, with high directivity, low return loss, and very high power handling capability for S-band applications. A set of periodic air-filled corrugations is added to the other narrow-wall of the rectangular waveguide to improve the overall gain of the antenna. Experimental data is presented to further validate simulation results

2009 Index IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters Vol. 8

This index covers all technical items - papers, correspondence, reviews, etc. - that appeared in this periodical during the year, and items from previous years that were commented upon or corrected in this year. Departments and other items may also be covered if they have been judged to have archival value. The Author Index contains the primary entry for each item, listed under the first author\u27s name. The primary entry includes the coauthors\u27 names, the title of the paper or other item, and its location, specified by the publication abbreviation, year, month, and inclusive pagination. The Subject Index contains entries describing the item under all appropriate subject headings, plus the first author\u27s name, the publication abbreviation, month, and year, and inclusive pages. Note that the item title is found only under the primary entry in the Author Index

An Overview of Recent Development of the Gap-Waveguide Technology for mmWave and Sub-THz Applications

The millimeter-wave (mmWave) and sub-terahertz (sub-THz) bands have received much attention in recent years for wireless communication and high-resolution imaging radar applications. The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of recent developments in the design and technical implementation of GW-based antenna systems and components. This paper begins by comparing the GW-transmission line to other widely used transmission lines for the mmWave and sub-THz bands. Furthermore, the basic operating principle and possible implementation technique of the GW-technology are briefly discussed. In addition, various antennas and passive components have been developed based on the GW-technology. Despite its advantages in controlling electromagnetic wave propagation, it is also widely used for the packaging of electronic components such as transceivers and power amplifiers. This article also provided an overview of the current manufacturing technologies that are commonly used for the fabrication of GW-components. Finally, the practical applications and industry interest in GW technology developments for mmWave and sub-THz applications have been scrutinized.Funding Agencies|European Union - Marie Sklodowska-Curie [766231WAVECOMBEH2020-MSCA-ITN-2017]</p

2008 Index IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology Vol. 16

This index covers all technical items - papers, correspondence, reviews, etc. - that appeared in this periodical during the year, and items from previous years that were commented upon or corrected in this year. Departments and other items may also be covered if they have been judged to have archival value. The Author Index contains the primary entry for each item, listed under the first author\u27s name. The primary entry includes the coauthors\u27 names, the title of the paper or other item, and its location, specified by the publication abbreviation, year, month, and inclusive pagination. The Subject Index contains entries describing the item under all appropriate subject headings, plus the first author\u27s name, the publication abbreviation, month, and year, and inclusive pages. Note that the item title is found only under the primary entry in the Author Index

Technologies for injection molded antennas for mass production

Tesi en modalitat de compendi de publicacions. In reference to IEEE copyrighted material which is used with permission in this thesis, the IEEE does not endorse any of Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya's products or services. Internal or personal use of this material is permitted. If interested in reprinting/republishing IEEE copyrighted material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution, please go to http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/rights_link.html to learn how to obtain a License from RightsLink.(English) The deployment of 5G antenna infrastructure and the mandatory adoption of anti-collision radars for automotive cars will require large amount of antennas operating in the millimeter and sub-millimeter wavelength. These antennas are usually arrays and the possibility to manufacture the antenna array including the feeding network and the radiating element as a plastic piece reducing the need to use large (Printed Circuit Boards) PCB’s on expensive dielectric substrates, can be an interesting manufacturing technology. In this regard, waveguide-based antennas can be assembled using plastic technology with a proper metallization procedure. They are more scalable in terms of efficiency than microstrip line (ML) antennas and as the number of antennas in the array increases the gain is not reduced due to the losses in the substrate. In this thesis, the industrial challenges of this technology are addressed. A detailed tolerance study by including the plastic manufacturing errors, typically +-0.1mm, is carried out in order to check the feasibility of plastic antennas to address mass production. The antennas will need to be integrated with the radar chipsets, so a transition between the chip and the waveguide-antennas will be presented. These transitions can act as a direct chip-waveguide launcher, potentially reducing the need of using large substrates, hence reducing the cost of the antenna. Also, the need to apply metal coating is also explored to achieve the desired performance. Conventional techniques such as copper electrodeposition is used. The main drawback is that the copper has a lot of difficulties depositing into right angle surfaces. Eventually, these antennas will have to be integrated in the aesthetics of a car, usually behind a plastic radome (with its respective manufacturing errors as well) that will need to be designed and optimized properly in order to introduce the minimum distorsions to the radar. Optimization based on simulators done with commercial electromagnetic softwares like CST is not feasible due to the required large computation time. In this regard an ad-hoc ray-tracing based simulator has been developed to asses radome induced errors in radar performance. All these industrial problems are taken into account from the design stage where the time, price, fabrication tolerances and radiation requirements have to be compromised at the same time increasing dramatically the design complexity.(Español) El despliegue de infraestructura de antenas 5G y la adopción obligatoria de radares anticolisión para automóviles requerirá una gran cantidad de antenas que operen en longitudes de onda milimétricas y submilimétricas. Estas antenas suelen ser agrupaciones y la posibilidad de fabricar la agrupación de antenas, incluida la red de alimentación y el elemento radiante como una pieza de plástico, lo que reduce la necesidad de usar PCB grandes (placas de circuito impreso) en sustratos dieléctricos costosos, puede ser una tecnología de fabricación interesante. En este sentido, las antenas basadas en guía de ondas se pueden ensamblar utilizando tecnología plástica con un procedimiento de metalización adecuado. Son más escalables en términos de eficiencia que las antenas de línea microstrip (ML) y, a medida que aumenta el número de antenas en el arreglo, la ganancia no se reduce debido a las pérdidas en el sustrato. En esta tesis se abordan los retos industriales de esta tecnología. Se lleva a cabo un estudio de tolerancia detallado que incluye los errores de fabricación de plástico, normalmente +- 0,1 mm, para comprobar la viabilidad de las antenas de plástico para hacer frente a la producción en masa. Las antenas deberán integrarse junto con los chips de radar, por lo que se presentará una transición entre el chip y las antenas de guía de ondas. Estas transiciones pueden actuar como una transición directa de chip-guía, lo que podría reducir la necesidad de usar sustratos grandes y, por lo tanto, reducir el costo de la antena. Además, también se explora la necesidad de aplicar un recubrimiento metálico para lograr el rendimiento deseado. Se utilizan técnicas convencionales como la electrodeposición de cobre. El principal inconveniente es que el cobre tiene muchas dificultades para depositarse en superficies en ángulo recto. Eventualmente, estas antenas deberán integrarse en la estética de un automóvil, generalmente detrás de un radomo de plástico (con sus respectivos errores de fabricación también) que deberá diseñarse y optimizarse adecuadamente para introducir las mínimas distorsiones al radar. La optimización basada en simuladores realizados con software electromagnético comercial como CST no es factible debido al gran tiempo de cálculo requerido. En este sentido, se ha desarrollado un simulador basado en trazado de rayos ad-hoc para evaluar los errores inducidos por el radomo en el rendimiento del radar. Todos estos problemas industriales se tienen en cuenta desde la etapa de diseño donde el tiempo, el precio, las tolerancias de fabricación y los requisitos de radiación tienen que verse comprometidos al mismo tiempo que aumentan drásticamente la complejidad del diseño.Postprint (published version

Ku band linear slot-array in ridge gapwaveguide technology

A Ku band 4×1 linear slot array antenna design based on recently developed gap waveguide technology is presented. The complete antenna has been built using two parallel plates where the bottom metal plate has the guiding ridge and periodic pins and the top metal plate is smooth. The antenna feed network consists of power dividers has been realized on the bottom metal plate, and the radiating slots are placed on the top metal plate. Design and simulation results of the linear array show that it is possible to have a slot array antenna with 20 % bandwidth based on ridge gap waveguide technology

Enhancement of Millimeter-Band Transceivers with Gap Waveguide Technology

Mención Internacional en el título de doctorIt is known to all that year after year in modern society there is an urgent demand to consume wirelessly, and even stream ever larger multimedia content. High-frequency technologies have made it possible to go from transmitting analog voice and SMS text messages, to now transmitting live video in 4K quality from a mid-range smartphone. The way to measure these advances is by the bandwidth (Mb/s) reserved for each network user and the cost required to achieve it. To achieve even higher bandwidths, it is essential to improve signal coding techniques or increase the frequency of the signal, for example: to the mmWave bands (25GHz - 100 GHz), where these high-frequency techniques come into play. However, there is a frequency limit where current planar technology materials - such as the printed circuit boards used to build RF devices - are so lossy that they are not suitable at these mmWave frequencies. Current commercial solutions consist of guiding the electromagnetic energy with hollow metallic waveguides, but they suffer from the problem that as the frequency increases the diameter of these waveguides gets smaller and smaller, so manufacturing tolerances increase exorbitantly. Not to mention that they are usually manufactured in two parts, one upper and one lower, whose joints are not always perfect and produce energy losses. With these issues in mind, in 2009 the theory and basic science of a new electromagnetic energy guidance technology called Gap Waveguide was proposed, which is based on the use of metasurfaces constructed with periodic elements similar to a bed of nails. There are several implementations of this technology, but the three main ones are: Ridge, Groove and Inverted Microstrip Gap Waveguide. The latter is the most compatible with conventional planar manufacturing technologies and therefore the most cost-effective, although it also has drawbacks mainly in terms of losses when compared to the other versions. This thesis aims to deepen the study of the Inverted Microstrip guidance technology, its limitations and to develop with it some of the needed components in RF systems such as filters, diplexers, amplifiers, antennas, etc. Regarding the methodology for this thesis, a commercial simulation software for the analysis of antennas and components, CST Microwave Studio [1], has been used. AWR Microwave Office [2], a circuit simulator, has also been used to complement the simulations. On the other hand, there is a laboratory for the manufacture of prototypes in printed technology (with some limitations in terms of resolution) and the corresponding measurement laboratory, which includes network analyzers up to 40 GHz, spectrum analyzers and an anechoic chamber.This thesis arose under the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MINECO) and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) project, called "Antenna for Mobile Satellite Communications (SATCOM) in Ka-Band by means of metasurfaces (2016-2019)", with reference TEC2016-79700-C2-2-R. Under this contract, the author signed an FPI research contract.Programa de Doctorado en Multimedia y Comunicaciones por la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid y la Universidad Rey Juan CarlosPresidente: Íñigo Cuiñas Gómez.- Secretario: Ángela María Coves Soler.- Vocal: Astrid Algaba Brazále