Design of spiral labyrinth microstrip antenna for DVB-T application

Digital television broadcasting is technologies that have been developed by any country in the world. The advantages implementations of digital television broadcasting include reception of picture and sound sharper and better. This paper proposes a new design of spiral labyrinth microstrip antenna feed by microstrip line with array two element for Digital Video Broadcasting Technology (DVB-T) application at work frequency of 586 MHz. The design of spiral labyrinth is used to minimize the dimensions of microstrip patch antenna while maintaining the working frequency at 586 MHz and array technique used to improve gain of antenna. The proposed antenna design was originally a rectangular patch that has been modified by the labyrinth spiral method. From the measurement result obtained return loss of -14.15 dB and VSWR of 1.54 at working frequency of 586 MHz. Bandwidth of proposed antenna is 117 MHz (547 MHz–664 MHz) while gain of antenna is 7.78 dBi. Beside that, using of the labyrinth spiral patch successfully reduced the dimensions of the microstrip antenna until 62.2% compared with the conventional rectangular patch of microstrip antenna. This study is usefull for DVB-T application in order to achieve the maximum signal quality and picture

A novel low-profile high-gain UHF antenna using high-impedance surfaces

A novel wideband low-profile planar antenna design based on the use of a high-impedance surface (HIS) is presented for digital television (DTV) reception in the UHF band. The proposed design is based on a wideband monopole antenna in close proximity to an artificial ground plane, composed of an array of square metal loops at the top, an air gap and a ground plane at the bottom, without grounded vias. Low-cost substrates are employed in the design: rigid PVC for the antenna and foamed PVC for the artificial ground plane. The advantages of the proposed design for DTV applications are high gain, low profile, light weight, low cost and large bandwidth. Details of the proposed antenna design are described, and measurements together with a comparison to a conventional antenna with PEC ground plane are presented.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under Projects TEC2010-20841-C04-01, TEC2013-47360-C3-3-P, and CSD2008-00068.Mohamed Mohamed-Hicho, N.; Antonino Daviu, E.; Cabedo Fabres, M.; Ferrando Bataller, M. (2015). A novel low-profile high-gain UHF antenna using high-impedance surfaces. IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters. 14:1014-1017. doi:10.1109/LAWP.2015.2389274S101410171

Microwave Antennas for Energy Harvesting Applications

In the last few years, the demand for power has increased; therefore, the need for alternate energy sources has become essential. Sources of fossil fuels are finite, are costly, and causes environmental hazard. Sustainable, environmentally benign energy can be derived from nuclear fission or captured from ambient sources. Large-scale ambient energy is widely available and large-scale technologies are being developed to efficiently capture it. At the other end of the scale, there are small amounts of wasted energy that could be useful if captured. There are various types of external energy sources such as solar, thermal, wind, and RF energy. Energy has been harvested for different purposes in the last few recent years. Energy harvesting from inexhaustible sources with no adverse environmental effect can provide unlimited energy for harvesting in a way of powering an embedded system from the environment. It could be RF energy harvesting by using antennas that can be held on the car glass or building, or in any places. The abundant RF energy is harvested from surrounding sources. This chapter focuses on RF energy harvesting in which the abundant RF energy from surrounding sources, such as nearby mobile phones, wireless LANs (WLANs), Wi-Fi, FM/AM radio signals, and broadcast television signals or DTV, is captured by a receiving antenna and rectified into a usable DC voltage. A practical approach for RF energy harvesting design and management of the harvested and available energy for wireless sensor networks is to improve the energy efficiency and large accepted antenna gain. The emerging self-powered systems challenge and dictate the direction of research in energy harvesting (EH). There are a lot of applications of energy harvesting such as wireless weather stations, car tire pressure monitors, implantable medical devices, traffic alert signs, and mars rover. A lot of researches are done to create several designs of rectenna (antenna and rectifier) that meet various objectives for use in RF energy harvesting, whatever opaque or transparent. However, most of the designed antennas are opaque and prevent the sunlight to pass through, so it is hard to put it on the car glass or window. Thus, there should be a design for transparent antenna that allows the sunlight to pass through. Among various antennas, microstrip patch antennas are widely used because they are low profile, are lightweight, and have planar structure. Microstrip patch-structured rectennas are evaluated and compared with an emphasis on the various methods adopted to obtain a rectenna with harmonic rejection functionality, frequency, and polarization selectivity. Multiple frequency bands are tapped for energy harvesting, and this aspect of the implementation is one of the main focus points. The bands targeted for harvesting in this chapter will be those that are the most readily available to the general population. These include Wi-Fi hotspots, as well as cellular (900/850 MHz band), personal communications services (1800/1900 MHz band), and sources of 2.4 GHz and WiMAX (2.3/3.5 GHz) network transmitters. On the other hand, at high frequency, advances in nanotechnology have led to the development of semiconductor-based solar cells, nanoscale antennas for power harvesting applications, and integration of antennas into solar cells to design low-cost light-weight systems. The role of nanoantenna system is transforming thermal energy provided by the sun to electricity. Nanoantennas target the mid-infrared wavelengths where conventional photo voltaic cells are inefficient. However, the concept of using optical rectenna for harvesting solar energy was first introduced four decades ago. Recently, it has invited a surge of interest, with different laboratories around the world working on various aspects of the technology. The result is a technology that can be efficient and inexpensive, requiring only low-cost materials. Unlike conventional solar cells that harvest energy in visible light frequency range. Since the UV frequency range is much greater than visible light, we consider the quantum mechanical behavior of a driven particle in nanoscale antennas for power harvesting applications

Design Method for Wideband Circularly Polarized Slot Antennas

A compact ultrawideband (UWB) circularly polarized (CP) slot antenna is proposed with a methodology for automated reoptimization for packaging with proprietary devices. The slot structure employs a dual-feed with an integrated compact UWB phase shifter. The design process involves an advanced optimization algorithm and demonstrates the use of spline curves for generation of CP signals. These allow easy optimization, while preserving phase coherency across a wideband. The prototyped antennahas a CP bandwidth of 54% (from 3.2 to 6.1 GHz)

Radio frequency energy harvesting for autonomous systems

A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of PhilosophyRadio Frequency Energy Harvesting (RFEH) is a technology which enables wireless power delivery to multiple devices from a single energy source. The main components of this technology are the antenna and the rectifying circuitry that converts the RF signal into DC power. The devices which are using Radio Frequency (RF) power may be integrated into Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), biomedical implants, Internet of Things (IoT), Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), smart meters, telemetry systems and may even be used to charge mobile phones. Aside from autonomous systems such as WSNs and RFID, the multi-billion portable electronics market – from GSM phones to MP3 players – would be an attractive application for RF energy harvesting if the power requirements are met. To investigate the potential for ambient RFEH, several RF site surveys were conducted around London. Using the results from these surveys, various harvesters were designed and tested for different frequency bands from the RF sources with the highest power density within the Medium Wave (MW), ultra- and super-high (UHF and SHF) frequency spectrum. Prototypes were fabricated and tested for each of the bands and proved that a large urban area around Brookmans park radio centre is suitable location for harvesting ambient RF energy. Although the RFEH offers very good efficiency performance, if a single antenna is considered, the maximum power delivered is generally not enough to power all the elements of an autonomous system. In this thesis we present techniques for optimising the power efficiency of the RFEH device under demanding conditions such as ultra-low power densities, arbitrary polarisation and diverse load impedances. Subsequently, an energy harvesting ferrite rod rectenna is designed to power up a wireless sensor and its transmitter, generating dedicated Medium Wave (MW) signals in an indoor environment. Harvested power management, application scenarios and practical results are also presented

Investigations on some compact wideband fractal antennas

Today’s small handheld and other portable devices challenge antenna designers for ultrathin, and high performances that have the ability to meet multi standards. In the context, fractal geometries have significant role for antenna applications with varying degree of success in improving antenna characteristics. In this thesis, we have investigated several wideband fractal monopole antennas. This work starts with design and implementation of Koch fractal, hybrid fractal, sectoral fractal, semi-circle fractal monopole antennas with discussion, covering their operations, electrical behavior and performances. The performances of these designs have been studied using standard simulation tools used in industry/academia and are experimentally verified. Frequency reconfigurable Koch snowflake fractal monopole antenna is also introduced. The present antenna can be used as an array element and has a wideband frequency of operation. A square Sierpinski monopole antenna has been designed, which is suitable for use in indoor UWB radio system and outdoor base station communication systems. Technique for obtaining a band stop function in the 5-6 GHz frequency band is numerically and experimentally presented. In addition to examining the performance of UWB system, the transfer function and waveform distortion are discussed. Finally, fractal antenna for array with MIMO environment is developed for mobile communication devices. Aim of this work is to achieve the acceptable performances in terms of isolation, envelope correlation coefficient, capacity loss, radiation patterns and efficiency. Furthermore, a wideband feed network prototype based on a modified Wilkinson power divider is designed. The designed feed network has been used in constructing 2-element and 4-element linear antenna arrays for high gain. This research work has addressed the effectiveness of fractal geometries in antenna and to bring-out the true advantages of their in antenna engineering