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

Antenna Designs for 5G/IoT and Space Applications

This book is intended to shed some light on recent advances in antenna design for these new emerging applications and identify further research areas in this exciting field of communications technologies. Considering the specificity of the operational environment, e.g., huge distance, moving support (satellite), huge temperature drift, small dimension with respect to the distance, etc, antennas, are the fundamental device allowing to maintain a constant interoperability between ground station and satellite, or different satellites. High gain, stable (in temperature, and time) performances, long lifecycle are some of the requirements that necessitates special attention with respect to standard designs. The chapters of this book discuss various aspects of the above-mentioned list presenting the view of the authors. Some of the contributors are working strictly in the field (space), so they have a very targeted view on the subjects, while others with a more academic background, proposes futuristic solutions. We hope that interested reader, will find a fertile source of information, that combined with their interest/background will allow efficiently exploiting the combination of these two perspectives

Design and fabrication of multi-fingered lines and antenna

Master'sMASTER OF ENGINEERIN

Compact and broadband antenna system at UHF

The aim of this research was to study a novel, broadband, low cost, low profile and a high-medium gain antenna in the UHF band. This has been achieved through numerical modelling, theoretical investigation and physical measurements. In this study two commercially available antenna systems are investigated in order to compare and establish potential deficiencies in the UHF antenna systems. A number of disadvantages are resolved within a novel antenna system design. The parametric study is performed for each element of the novel antenna system in order to optimise its overall performance. The indoor and outdoor measurements have been carried out in house, in order to validate the predicted results. The novel antenna system is compared to the most popular and commercially available UHF antenna systems. The study demonstrates that the novel antenna system has clear advantages such as broadband, balanced, compact and low cost when compared to the commercial antenna designs studied here. The comparison of the manufacturers’ data to the measured results shows a good match, validating the outdoor measurements technique used in this research

Metamaterials for Decoupling Antennas and Electromagnetic Systems

This research focuses on the development of engineered materials, also known as meta- materials, with desirable effective constitutive parameters: electric permittivity (epsilon) and magnetic permeability (mu) to decouple antennas and noise mitigation from electromagnetic systems. An interesting phenomenon of strong relevance to a wide range of problems, where electromagnetic interference is of concern, is the elimination of propagation when one of the constitutive parameters is negative. In such a scenario, transmission of electromagnetic energy would cease, and hence the coupling between radiating systems is reduced. In the first part of this dissertation, novel electromagnetic artificial media have been developed to alleviate the problem of mutual coupling between high-profile and ow-profile antenna systems. The developed design configurations are numerically simulated, and experimentally validated. In the mutual coupling problem between high-profile antennas, a decoupling layer based on artificial magnetic materials (AMM) has been developed and placed between highly-coupled monopole antenna elements spaced by less than Lambda/6, where Lambda is the operating wavelength of the radiating elements. The decoupling layer not only provides high mutual coupling suppression (more than 20-dB) but also maintains good impedance matching and low correlation between the antenna elements suitable for use in Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) communication systems. In the mutual coupling problem between low-profile antennas, novel sub-wavelength complementary split-ring resonators (CSRRs) are developed to decouple microstrip patch antenna elements. The proposed design con figuration has the advantage of low-cost production and maintaining the pro file of the antenna system unchanged without the need for extra layers. Using the designed structure, a 10-dB reduction in the mutual coupling between two patch antennas has been achieved. The second part of this dissertation utilizes electromagnetic artificial media for noise mitigation and reduction of undesirable electromagnetic radiation from high-speed printed-circuit boards (PCBs) and modern electronic enclosures with openings (apertures). Numerical results based on the developed design configurations are presented, discussed, and compared with measurements. To alleviate the problem of simultaneous switching noise (SSN) in high-speed microprocessors and personal computers, a novel technique based on cascaded CSRRs has been proposed. The proposed design has achieved a wideband suppression of SSN and maintained a robust signal integrity performance. A novel use of electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) structures has been proposed to mitigate undesirable electromagnetic radiation from enclosures with openings. By using ribbon of EBG surfaces, a significant suppression of electromagnetic radiation from openings has been achieved

Design of new radiating systems and phase shifters for 5G communications at millimeter-wave frequencies

With the arrival of the new generation of communications, known as 5G, the systems that constitute it must offer better performance in terms of data speed, latency and connection density than the previous generation of communications. For 5G, an allocation of the frequency ranges that will support future wireless communications has been established. This allocation is formed by a range of frequencies corresponding to bands below 6 GHz and the other range of frequencies includes bands above 24 GHz. In the latter frequency range, which includes part of the millimeter-wave frequency band (from 30 GHz to 300 GHz), the development of new radio frequency (RF) components is necessary because their design and manufacture is a technological challenge. As the frequency that supports wireless communications increases, propagation losses also increase. Therefore, these losses must be compensated by the radiating systems in 5G to make these communications possible. The RF devices that make up these new systems must provide high antenna gain, be power efficient and offer spatial reconfigurability of the radiated signal. In this thesis, the main objective is the design of both guided and radiating RF devices to provide design solutions for future 5G systems at millimeter-wave frequencies. In particular, the contributions made have been to the design of phase shifters and antenna arrays. To improve efficiency at millimeter-wave frequencies, these devices have been designed in waveguide technology. Phase shifters are essential RF devices to control the phase shift of the electromagnetic wave that will be radiated to a certain spatial direction by an antenna array. The design of beamforming networks requires the implementation of phase shifters that produce a fixed or variable phase shift value. However, the design and fabrication of these devices at millimeter-wave frequencies is a complex task. In this thesis, four designs of waveguide phase shifters that produce both fixed and variable phase shift are presented. For phase shifters that provide a fixed phase shift, the value of this phase shift along the frequency is tuned in a desired manner by using periodic structures with higher symmetries. These types of configurations provide both flexibility in the design process and improved electromagnetic performance such as greater operating bandwidth. All the phase shifters have been implemented in gap-waveguide technology to demonstrate its effectiveness in these devices for millimeter-wave frequencies. Regarding the radiating systems, two feeding strategies have been considered in the design process. First, the design of a 70 GHz centered antenna array implemented in gap-waveguide technology combined with the use of separate waveguides in E-plane is proposed. In this design, the feed is guided through a waveguide corporate-feed network. Second, the design of a reflectarray whose unit cells are formed using three-dimensional geometries is presented. In this case, the feeding is done in free space by radiation from a source antenna. In the previous designs, the fabrication of the prototypes was done by 3D printing based on stereolithography. Finally, using unit cells with three-dimensional geometries, the design of radiating devices with more complex functionalities such as reflection/transmission with high directivity and reconfiguration of the reflected radiation by means of graphene structures are proposed.Con la llegada de la nueva generación de comunicaciones, denominada 5G, los sistemas que la conforman deben ofrecer unas mejores prestaciones en términos de velocidad de datos, latencia y densidad de conexiones respecto a la generación de comunicaciones anterior. Para 5G se ha establecido una asignación de los rangos de frecuencia que van a soportar las futuras comunicaciones inalámbricas. Esta asignación se compone por un rango de frecuencias correspondiente a las bandas por debajo de los 6 GHz y el otro rango de frecuencias engloba a las bandas por encima de los 24 GHz. En este ´ultimo rango de frecuencias, en el cual están incluidas parte de la banda de las frecuencias milimétricas (desde 30 GHz a 300 GHz), es necesario el desarrollo de nuevos componentes de radiofrecuencia (RF) ya que su diseño y fabricación supone un reto tecnológico. Al aumentar la frecuencia que soporta las comunicaciones inalámbricas, las pérdidas por propagación también aumentan. Es por ello por lo que estas pérdidas deben ser compensadas por los sistemas radiantes en 5G para que las comunicaciones sean posibles. Los dispositivos de RF que componen estos nuevos sistemas deben proporcionar una alta ganancia de antena, ser eficientes en términos de potencia y ofrecer reconfigurabilidad espacial de la señal radiada. En esta tesis, el objetivo principal es el diseño de dispositivos de RF tanto guiados como radiantes para ofrecer soluciones de diseño a los futuros sistemas 5G en frecuencias milimétricas. De manera particular, las contribuciones realizadas han sido al diseño de desfasadores y agrupaciones de antenas. Para mejorar la eficiencia en frecuencias milimétricas, estos dispositivos han sido diseñados en tecnología en guía de ondas. Los desfasadores son dispositivos RF esenciales para controlar el desfase de la onda electromagnética que será radiada hacia una cierta dirección espacial por una agrupación de antenas. Las redes de beamforming tienen la necesidad de implementar en su diseño desfasadores que producen un valor de desfase fijo o variable. Sin embargo, el diseño y fabricación de estos dispositivos en frecuencias milimétricas resulta una tarea de alta dificultad. En esta tesis se presenta cuatro diseños de desfasadores en guía de onda que producen un desfase tanto fijo como variable. Para los desfasadores que proporcionan un desfase fijo, el valor de este desfase a lo largo de la frecuencia es ajustado de manera deseada mediante el uso de estructuras periódicas con simetrías superiores. Este tipo de configuraciones proporcionan tanto flexibilidad en el proceso de diseño como una mejora de las características electromagnéticas como puede ser un mayor ancho de banda de operación. Todos los desfasadores realizados han sido implementados en tecnología gap waveguide para demostrar su efectividad en estos dispositivos para frecuencias milimétricas. Respecto a los sistemas radiantes, se han considerado dos estrategias de alimentación en el proceso diseño. En primer lugar, se propone el diseño de un array centrado a 70 GHz implementado en tecnología gap waveguide combinado con el uso de guías de onda separadas en plano E. En este diseño, la alimentación es guiada a través de una red de alimentación corporativa en guía de onda. En segundo lugar, se presenta el diseño de un reflectarray cuyas celdas unitarias son formadas mediante geometrías tridimensionales. En este caso, la alimentación se hace en el espacio libre mediante la radiación de una antena fuente. En los anteriores diseños, la fabricación de los prototipos se realizó mediante impresión 3D basado en estereolitografía. Finalmente, a través del uso de celdas unitarias con geometrías tridimensionales, se proponen el diseño de dispositivos radiantes con funcionalidades más complejas como la reflexión/transmisión con alta directividad y la reconfiguración de la radiación reflejada mediante estructuras con grafeno.Tesis Univ. Granada

Hybrid integration of synthesized dielectric image waveguides in substrate integrated circuit technology and its millimeter wave applications

Analysis, design, and fabrication of the SIIG -- Mode excitation in the SIIG -- Integrated dielectric antennas -- SIIG bends and power splitting/combining -- The SIIG in the context of substrate integrated circuits

Low-Cost Beam Steerable Antennas Using Parasitic Elements

Beam steerable antennas are considered as a possible solution for meeting challenges in military and civilian systems such as satellite communication networks, automotive collision avoidance radar, base stations and biomedical applications. Phased array antennas are a natural choice as the foundation for many steerable antenna platform due to its exibility and gain scalability. The implementation of a phased array requires a large number of electronic components, tending to drive the cost of phased arrays and limit their usage to military applications. The electrically steerable parasitic array radiator (ESPAR) has been introduced as an antenna which is capable of adaptively controlling its beam pattern using parasitic elements loaded with varactors. ESPAR has attracted the attention of researchers from the desire for electrically scanned beams with inexpensive fabrication and has found as a suitable candidate for communication systems applications, including advanced radars, cellular base stations and space communications. The ultimate goal of this research is to design and propose state of the art designs in the �eld of ESPAR that can satisfy the requirements of today's advanced communication systems, which should be cost-e�ective and can compete with other rival technologies. Considering the potentials of ESPAR, it can be proved that it is a good candidate for modern wireless communications. The thesis presents several contributions related to the design and analysis of ESPAR technology using dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) as the main radiator element. First, the thesis presents solutions to alleviate the problems associated in implementing a large ESPAR. The large array is useful in many applications since some required recon�gurable radiation characteristics may not be achievable with a single ESPAR element. The proposed structure consists of 240 perforated DRAs, whichare uniformly excited by a parallel-series feeding network. By employing the perforation technique, the need for aligning and bonding individual DRA is eliminated. The subarrays are placed in an interleaved arrangement to suppress the grating lobes. The proposed large ESPAR can incredibly reduce the number of phase shifter by 80% in comparison with the conventional phased array, which makes it inexpensive. Second, the thesis investigates potentials of ESPAR for massive multi-input multiple output (MIMO) communication. Massive MIMO technology has attracted tremendous interest due to its capabilities in enhancing the data transmission capacity, increasing the reliability, and reducing the multipath fading. However, in this technology for feeding each individual antenna, one radio frequency chain is required that can increase the power consumption and complexity of the structure. Moreover, to obtain decorrelated channels and to reduce mutual coupling, the antenna should be spaced suffciently far from each other that imposes increased physical dimensions. In contrast to the conventional MIMO structures, in ESPAR only one RF chain is needed and the small size constraint turns to be an advantage as the mutual coupling is exploited to form the desired signals. Furthermore, by controlling the tunable loads at each parasitic antenna element, different radiation patterns can be formed which can signi�cantly improve the performance of a MIMO antenna system operating in a changing environment. Thus, by using the advantages of ESPAR, a design approach to address the size and cost issues is proposed through this work. The proposed design is validated by simulation and measurement of a prototype, and results include the antenna and MIMO �gure of merits such as radiation patterns, efficiency, S-parameters, signal correlations, total active reection coeffcient (TARC), and channel capacity. These results have demonstrated that the proposed ESPAR design can be successfully implemented for a massive MIMO structure. Finally, the thesis presents an effective method to design a ESPAR with a circularly polarized (CP) beam-scanning feature. Circular polarization is an ideal polarization due to its advantages in signal propagation properties, which can address the di�culties associated with mobility, inclement weather conditions, and immunity to multi path distortion. In this work, the CP beam steering is achieved by adopting a sequential rotation approach for placing the parasitic antennas that are loaded with tunable varactors. The proposed CP-ESPAR technique eliminates the need of expensive phase shifters, which signi�cantly reduces cost and fabrication complexity. For performance evaluation, a prototype of the proposed antenna is designed, fabricated, and measured. It is observed that the proposed antenna has a monotonic CP beam scanning from { 22 to 22 operating at 10.5 GHz

New Integrated Waveguides Concept and Development of Substrate Integrated Antennas with Controlled Boundary Conditions

The unprecedented development of substrate integrated circuits (SICs) has made a widespread necessity for further studies and development of waveguides and antennas based on this technology. As the operating frequency is on the rise, the conventional designs of the substrate integrated components are becoming more problematic and costly. Therefore, some techniques are proposed to improve the performance of the waveguides and antennas based on the concept of substrate integrated technology. First, the problems of the recently developed ridge gap waveguide (RGW) are resolved by introducing a new configuration of this technology which has considerable advantages over the original version of the RGW regarding its construction technology, propagation mode, characteristic impedance, and insertion loss. Second, the configuration of substrate integrated waveguide (SIW), which has been widely accepted for planar and integrated microwave circuits, is modified to operate with low insertion loss at high frequencies without bearing the anisotropic nature of the dielectric material. The substrate integrated antennas have a strong potential to be used in the compact wireless devices as they can be easily integrated with the baseband circuits. In the horn family, the H-plane horn antenna that can be implemented in the integrated form has received considerable attention in recent years. However, numerous problems are associated with this antenna such as limited bandwidth, tapered aperture distribution, high back radiation, and E-plane asymmetry. Several new techniques are introduced to improve the performance of this antenna, especially at millimeter wave frequencies

Analytical Equivalent Circuits for Three-dimensional Metamaterials and Metagratings

In recent times, three-dimensional (3D) metamaterials have undergone a revolution driven mainly by the popularization of 3D-printing techniques, which has enabled the implementation of modern microwave and photonic devices with advanced functionalities. However, the analysis of 3D metamaterials is complex and computationally costly in comparison to their 1D and 2D counterparts due to the intricate geometries involved. In this paper, we present a fully-analytical framework based on Floquet-Bloch modal expansions of the electromagnetic fields and integral-equation methods for the analysis of 3D metamaterials and metagratings. Concretely, we focus on 3D configurations formed by periodic arrangements of rectangular waveguides with longitudinal slot insertions. The analytical framework is computationally efficient compared to full-wave solutions and also works under oblique incidence conditions. Furthermore, it comes associated with an equivalent circuit that allows to gain physical insight into the scattering and diffraction phenomena. The analytical equivalent circuit is tested against full-wave simulations in commercial software CST. Simulation results show that the proposed 3D structures provide independent polarization control of the two orthogonal polarizations states. This key property is of potential interest for the production of full-metal polarizers, such as the one illustrated