Diseño y aplicaciones de sistemas de antenas inteligentes para redes inalámbricas en el contexto de la internet de las cosas

[SPA] Esta tesis doctoral se presenta bajo la modalidad de compendio de publicaciones. Las antenas de onda de fuga (LWA) consisten en una estructura de guía de onda que permite la fuga de parte de la potencia a lo largo de la estructura. Por esta razón, la radiación de la antena se produce por la fuga de energía. Para producir una radiación coherente, es necesario controlar esta tasa de radiación a lo largo de la estructura radiante. Así, ajustando con precisión la tasa de radiación, se controla la forma del diagrama de radiación. Las LWAs han sido ampliamente estudiadas por la comunidad científica debido a sus ventajas, tales como, red de alimentación simple, alta directividad y escaneo en frecuencia pasivo. Sin embargo, presentan ciertas desventajas entre las cuales, la más importante a destacar es el efecto de beam-squinting. Éste se produce por la propiedad dispersiva inherente a este tipo de antenas. Además, presentan dificultades a la hora de generar radiación coherente en las direcciones broadside y endfire, aumentando la complejidad del diseńo para la radiación en dichas direcciones. Las LWA han sido relativamente poco utilizadas en aplicaciones prácticas hasta la fecha, a pesar de sus ventajas. Las pocas aplicaciones en las que se han utilizado son los radares de onda continua modulada en frecuencia y los sistemas de enfoque controlado en frecuencia de campo cercano. Esta tesis propone el uso de las LWAs en aplicaciones prácticas aprovechando las ventajas mencionadas anteriormente y teniendo en cuenta los inconvenientes de este tipo de antenas para que su uso no sea limitado. Recientemente, las LWAs han sido propuestas para aplicaciones de localización de bajo coste, ya que permiten el diseńo de estructuras planas con haces directivos. Además, debido al aumento exponencial del uso de la tecnología, es necesario encontrar nuevas tecnologías para una transmisión de datos mayor, más rápida y más eficiente, manteniendo bajos costes de fabricación. Por lo tanto las LWAs pueden ser una solución crucial al mezclar bajos costes de fabricación, alta integrabilidad en diferentes sistemas debido a su tecnología impresa planar y alta directividad al mismo tiempo que se aprovecha su característica dispersiva que proporciona un escaneo pasivo en frecuencia. En este contexto, la principal aportación de esta Tesis consiste en el estudio, análisis, diseńo e integración de LWAs en aplicaciones reales y prácticas. Esta Tesis presenta las siguientes tres contribuciones principales, definidas en los tres bloques principales de este documento: • Estudio y análisis de LWAs para su uso en sistemas de estimación de dirección de llegada basados en técnicas de amplitud de monopulso. Comparar las características y prestaciones de las LWAs junto con las antenas comerciales más utilizadas. Para ello, diseńar y fabricar las HWM-LWAs con el fin de comparar sus prestaciones con las antenas de panel adquiridas comercialmente. Dado que cada aplicación requiere el diseńo de una HWM-LWA nueva y diferente, estudiar y proponer una técnica eficiente de análisis y diseńo de antenas para obtener fácilmente diagramas de radiación monopulso escaneados en frecuencia. • Una vez analizado que las HWM-LWA son una solución factible para su uso en aplicaciones reales de localización debido a sus diversas ventajas. Integrar las HWM-LWAs diseńadas en sistemas digitales para estimación del ángulo de llegada en interiores. Por lo tanto, diseńar, desarrollar, configurar e integrar las LWAs en diferentes sistemas basados en las bandas de frecuencia Wi-Fi ISM de 2,4 GHz y 5 GHz. Finalmente, comparar los resultados de estimación obtenidos con otras soluciones propuestas para corroborar que los LWAs pueden ser utilizados en aplicaciones reales. • Asimismo, debido a su bajo coste de fabricación y a su principal propiedad de escaneo en frecuencia. Ampliar el uso de las LWAs para la localización angular en redes de sensores inalámbricas (WSN) utilizando la banda de frecuencias UHF de 900 MHz. Utilizando así etiquetas RFID pasivas. También estudiar su aplicabilidad en WSNs utilizando etiquetas LoRa activas. Este documento se presenta como una Tesis por compendio, por lo que se presentarán y explicarán brevemente los 4 artículos de revistas que se han publicado durante el programa de doctorado. Además, también se presentarán algunos artículos de conferencias y otros trabajos en revisión para exponer algunas de las investigaciones que no han sido publicadas en revistas hasta la fecha de depósito de tesis. El documento está organizado como se indica a continuación: En la Introducción, se presenta una contextualización del estado del arte y una explicación rigurosa sobre las LWAs y las aplicaciones anteriormente mencionadas. Las dos partes siguientes se vi dedican a presentar y explicar brevemente los trabajos publicados que contribuyen a esta Tesis. En la parte II, se presentan los cuatro artículos que conforman el compendio. Esto es, el análisis de las LWAs para la estimación de la dirección del ángulo de llegada y la integración de las LWAs en sistemas de localización digital usando el protocolo Wi-Fi en el Capítulo 1, la banda de frecuencias ISM UHF 900 MHz se utiliza junto con los HWM-LWAs en el Capítulo 2, luego se implementa en un sistema en tiempo real para la estimación de la dirección de llegada de múltiples tags pasivos en el Capítulo 3 y la integración de LoRa en el Capítulo 4. Finalmente, en la Parte III, se discuten las conclusiones generales y las futuras líneas de investigación. [ENG] This doctoral dissertation has been presented in the form of thesis by publication. Leaky-Wave Antennas (LWA) consist on a waveguide structure which allows the leakage of part of the power along the structure. For this reason, the radiation of the antenna is produced by the leakage of power. In order to produce coherent radiation, it is necessary to control this leakage rate along the radiating structure. Thus, precisely adjusting the leakage rate, the shape of the radiation pattern is controlled. LWAs have been widely studied by the scientific community due to their advantages, such as, simple feeding network, high directivity and passive frequency-scanning performance. However, they present certain disadvantages among which, the most important to highlight is the beam-squinting effect. TThis is due to the inherent dispersion property of this type of antenna. In addition, LWAs present difficulties when generating coherent radiation in broadside and endfire directions, increasing the complexity of the design for radiation in these directions. LWAs have been relatively unused in practical applications to date, despite of their benefits. The few applications in which they have been used are frequency modulated continuous wave radars and near-field frequency controlled focusing systems.This thesis proposes the use of LWAs in practical applications by exploiting the advantages mentioned above while taking into account the drawbacks of this type of antennas so that their use is not limited. Recently, LWAs have been proposed for low-cost localization applications, as they allow the design of planar structures with directive beams. In addition, due to the exponential increase in the use of technology, it is necessary to find new technologies for higher, faster and more efficient data transmission while maintaining low manufacturing costs. Therefore, LWAs can be a crucial solution mixing low manufacturing costs, high integrability in different systems due to their planar printed technology and high directivity while taking advantage of their dispersive characteristic that provides passive frequency scanning. In this context, the main contribution of this Thesis consist of the study, analysis, design and integration of LWAs in real and practical applications. This Thesis presents the following three main contributions, defined in the three main blocks of this document: • Study and analysis of LWAs for its use in direction of arrival estimation systems based on monopulse amplitude techniques. Compare the characteristics and performance of LWAs along with widely used commercial antennas. For this purpose, design and manufacture the HWM-LWAs in order to compare their performance with commercially acquired panel antennas. Since each application requires the design of a new and different HWM-LWA, a main objective of this block is to study and propose an efficient antenna analysis and design technique to facilitate obtaining frequency-scanned monopulse patterns. • Once analyzed that LWAs are a feasible solution for its use in real localization applications due to their several advantages, integrate the designed half-width microstrip (HWM-LWAs) in digital indoor angle-of-arrival estimation systems. Therefore, design, develop, configure and integrate LWAs in different systems based on the Wi-Fi ISM 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequency bands. Finally, compare the obtained estimation results with other proposed solutions to corroborate that LWAs can be used in real applications. • Extending the use of antennas for angular localization in sensor networks using the 900 MHz UHF frequency band: the main properties of low manufacturing cost and passive frequency beam scanning can be used in other applications. Thus, the localization estimation of passive RFID tags is studied, as well as their application in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) using active tags with LORA technology. This document is presented as a Thesis by compilation, so the 4 journal articles that have been published during the Ph.D program will be presented and briefly explained. Besides, some conference articles and other work under review will be also presented to expose some of the research that has not been published in journals. The document is organized as outlined hereafter: In Part I, a state-of-the-art contextualization, a rigorous explanation about LWAs and the previous applications mentioned above is presented. The next two parts are dedicated to present and briefly explain the published works included in this Thesis and their main contributions. In Part II the explanation of the four papers which compose the compendium are presented. This is, LWAs analysis for direction of arrival estimation and the integration of LWAs in digital Wi-Fi localization systems in chapter 1, the UHF 900 MHz ISM frequency band is used in conjunction with HWM-LWAs in chapter 2, then, it is implemented in a real time system for direction of arrival estimation of multi RFID tags in chapter 3 and LoRa integration in chapter 4. Finally, in Part III, the overall conclusions and the future research lines are discussed.Esta tesis doctoral se presenta bajo la modalidad de compendio de publicaciones. Está formada por un total de cuatro artículos. Article 1.-: A. Gil-Martinez, M. Poveda-Garcia, J. A. Lopez-Pastor, J. C. Sanchez-Aarnoutse and J. L. Gomez-Tornero, Wi-Fi Direction Finding with Frequency-Scanned Antenna and Channel Hopping Scheme IEEE sensors Journal, , vol. 22, no. 6, pp. 5210-5222, 2022. DOI: 10.1109/JSEN.2021.3122232. Article 2.-: A. Gil-Martinez, M. Poveda-Garcia, D. Cañete-Rebenaque, and J. L. Gomez-Tornero, Frequency-Scanned Monopulse Antenna for RSSI-based Direction Finding of UHF RFID tags IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters,, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 158-162, 2022. DOI: 10.1109/LAWP.2021.3122232. Article 3.-: A. Gil-Martinez, M. Poveda-Garcia, J. Garcia-Fernandez, M. Campo-Valera, D. Cañete-Rebenaque, and J. L. Gomez-Tornero, Direction Finding of RFID tags in UHF Band Using a Passive Beam-Scanning Leaky-Wave Antenna IEEE Journal of Radio Frequency Identi cation, doi: 10.1109/JRFID.2021.3122233. Article 4.-: J. L. Gomez-Tornero, A. Gil-Martinez, M. Poveda-Garcia and D. Cañete-Rebenaque, ARIEL: Passive Beam-Scanning Antenna TeRminal for Iridiscent and E cient LEO Satellite Connectivity in IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, doi: 10.1109/LAWP.2022.3193040.Escuela Internacional de Doctorado de la Universidad Politécnica de CartagenaUniversidad Politécnica de CartagenaPrograma Doctorado en Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicacione

An RFID Directional Antenna for Location Positioning

This thesis presents a new antenna design for passive RFID tags operating at super high frequency band. The proposed antenna includes a cross-array of five elements supporting beam-scanning range over two perpendicular planes. The beam-scanning capability allows the tag to communicate over longer distances without demanding extra power. A matching network between antenna elements and front-end circuitry has also been designed to eliminate phase shift. 3D full-wave electromagnetic simulation results using HFSS CAD tool indicate that the proposed antenna supports 10 dB gain and beam-scanning of more than 180o over two planes which can be exploited to provide location positioning services

Design and development of triangular, spiral, and fractal antennas for radio frequency identification tags

This dissertation reports on the design and development of three compact, non-meandered microstrip patch antennas for ultra high frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) applications. The monopole antennas considered in this work are an inset-fed triangular antenna, one arm Archimedes spiral antenna and a Half-Sierpinski fractal antenna. These antennas with small length to width ratios (\u3c 2/1), can be the preferred choice, in the tagging of small size consumer end products, over the ubiquitous meandered dipole antenna (length/width \u3e 5/1), which is often the antenna of choice, due to its high gain for UHF RFID applications. The lengths and widths of all three antennas are less than 5.5 cm. Earlier reports of planar antennas for RFID applications in the UHF range have lengths larger than 9 cm on one side or are developed on a rigid substrate. All three antennas have a surface area of about 30 cm2 and are designed for a flexible polyimide substrate. The new antennas satisfy the requirement of a voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) \u3c 2 and exhibit a gain close to or greater than 0 dBi at the operation frequency of 915 MHz. All three antennas have a return-loss less than -10 dB at 915 MHz and a -10 dB bandwidth greater than 12 MHz. While the triangular and spiral antennas display peak gains of over 2 dBi, the fractal antenna has a gain close to 0 dBi (-0.64 dBi). The effect of ground geometry on the radiation performance of the antennas has been analyzed using ANSOFT Designer software. Slots, aligned to the top patch were introduced in the antenna ground plane to increase the gain of the antennas. The fabricated and tested antennas were then employed in the transmission-delay-line-based passive radio-frequency identification tag. The location of the antenna with respect to the transmission line on the tag was found to affect the radiation pattern of the antenna. A circular disc monopole antenna having a gain of 8.88 dBi and having a -10 dB bandwidth greater than 300 MHz was employed to transmit and receive the interrogating and back-scattered signals, respectively. The generation of bits, employing On-Off Keying (OOK) modulation technique was successfully demonstrated. The tag, fabricated with the triangular antenna is found to perform the best

Chipless Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Tag Utilizing Beamforming Technique

This work is a paper based dissertation which presents a new method to design low cost chipless radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags using MEMS technology. The proposed chipless tag can be batch-fabricated using a basic MEMS fabrication process. The chipless tag can operate over a wide range of frequencies including the conventional UHF band for RFID applications. The elimination of the chip can reduces the tag price to the extent that it becomes an alternative solution to barcode labels. A prototype of the tag is implemented using a basic fabrication process and measurements are performed to validate its functionality. For the RFID reader, a direct conversion passive micro-mixer combined with a 180 degrees ring hybrid coupler is realized to operate over the unlicensed 60 GHz frequency band. This is followed by a low phase error Rotman lens combined with a patch antenna array in each output port to support beam steering and increasing the communication range. Experimental measurements on a fabricated 3-bit chipless tag show that the tag can backscatter a unique identification code to an RFID interrogator

Automated Attendance System using Active RFID

The main focus ofthis project is to enhance the integrity and the authenticity ofdata, whereby, conventional system couldn't ensure the safety of the data. As the result, many employees neglect the importance of attitude in working environment. This project offers a safety towards the data, and in the same time helping in monitoring the movement of employees. Given a number of time, this project will undergo several phases which are planning, analysis, design and implementation. Lastly, the success ofthis project will be determined, and a conclusion should be made based on the result obtained, whether the objective has been met or not

Signaali tugevusel põhinev esemete otsimise süsteem

In this thesis, work regarding to development a system that would help finding lost objects based on RSSI is presented. The thesis gives a basic overview of the theory behind RF modulation, antennas and PCB design. Based on the presented theory, the technology and system parameters are chosen to design and ultimately complete the system. To improve the performace of the system the RF parts of the circuits are optimized using a vector network analyzer. As a result of this thesis a periodically transmitting battery-powered beacon that works at 433.92MHz is designed and completed. To read the transmitted data and the signal strength a receiver is also designed and completed to receive the data transmitted by the beacon and display the RSSI on a smart-phone screen using the micro-USB port

Reconfigurable Antennas Using Liquid Crystalline Elastomers

This dissertation demonstrates the design of reversibly self-morphing novel liquid crystalline elastomer (LCE) antennas that can dynamically change electromagnetic performance in response to temperature. This change in performance can be achieved by programming the shape change of stimuli-responsive (i.e., temperature-responsive) LCEs, and using these materials as substrates for reconfigurable antennas. Existing reconfigurable antennas rely on external circuitry such as Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems (MEMS) switches, pin diodes, and shape memory alloys (SMAs) to reconfigure their performance. Antennas using MEMS or diodes exhibit low efficiency due to the losses from these components. Also, antennas based on SMAs can change their performance only once as SMAs response to the stimuli and is not reversible. Flexible electronics are capable of morphing from one shape to another using various techniques, such as liquid metals, hydrogels, and shape memory polymers. LCE antennas can reconfigure their electromagnetic performance, (e.g., frequency of operation, polarization, and radiation pattern) and enable passive (i.e., battery-less) temperature sensing and monitoring applications, such as passive radio frequency identification device (RFID) sensing tags. Limited previous work has been performed on shape-changing antenna structures based on LCEs. To date, self-morphing flexible electronics, including antennas, which rely on stimuli-responsive LCEs that reversibly change shape in response to temperature changes, have not been previously explored. Here, LCE antennas will be studied and developed. Also, the metallization of LCEs with different metal conductors and their fabrication process, by either electron beam (E-Beam) evaporation or optical gluing of the metal film will be observed. The LCE material can have a significant impact on sensing applications due to its reversible actuation that can enable a sensor to work repeatedly. This interdisciplinary research (material polymer science and electrical engineering) is expected to contribute to the development of morphing electronics, including sensors, passive antennas, arrays, and frequency selective surfaces (FSS)

Hybrid Wi-Fi Localization using RFID and UWB sensors

The pursuit of a more accurate localization technique has been a challenge throughout this past decade. After the release of Google Indoor Maps, Wi-Fi localization has an increase in demand. The purpose of this MQP was to create a hybrid localization algorithm that uses Wi-Fi as a foundation, and utilizes Radio Frequency Identification and Ultra Wide-Band sensors. We test each sensor in order to evaluate their individual performance in terms of localization accuracy. Ultimately, we combine each sensor in MATLAB using Kalman Filter and a geometric algorithm