The Design of an Anti-Aliasing Filter for the Next Generation Digitiser

MeerKAT, is a 64-element radio astronomy antenna array which has been recently constructed in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa. It serves as South Africa's contribution towards the international Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project. The MeerKAT array has been designed to observe radio signals produced by celestial sources at UHF-Band, L-Band, S-Band and X-Band frequencies. The first phase of the construction included the design, development and integration of the UHF-Band, L-Band and S-band Receivers, whilst the X-band design has been superseded by the incorporation of the next phase of the SKA international project. In preparation of the next the roll-out, research is required to determine optimal wideband filter topologies suitable for direct digitisation of signal frequencies over the frequency range of 3-6 GHz. In this thesis, exploration of suitable wideband planar filters is performed, noting those with an improved out-of-band rejection. The outcome of the investigation leads into the design and development of the suitable wideband planar filter based on key performance specifications. The performance of the manufactured wideband planar filter is then compared to the theoretical design, and validated against the key performance requirements

Optical Switching for Scalable Data Centre Networks

This thesis explores the use of wavelength tuneable transmitters and control systems within the context of scalable, optically switched data centre networks. Modern data centres require innovative networking solutions to meet their growing power, bandwidth, and scalability requirements. Wavelength routed optical burst switching (WROBS) can meet these demands by applying agile wavelength tuneable transmitters at the edge of a passive network fabric. Through experimental investigation of an example WROBS network, the transmitter is shown to determine system performance, and must support ultra-fast switching as well as power efficient transmission. This thesis describes an intelligent optical transmitter capable of wideband sub-nanosecond wavelength switching and low-loss modulation. A regression optimiser is introduced that applies frequency-domain feedback to automatically enable fast tuneable laser reconfiguration. Through simulation and experiment, the optimised laser is shown to support 122×50 GHz channels, switching in less than 10 ns. The laser is deployed as a component within a new wavelength tuneable source (WTS) composed of two time-interleaved tuneable lasers and two semiconductor optical amplifiers. Switching over 6.05 THz is demonstrated, with stable switch times of 547 ps, a record result. The WTS scales well in terms of chip-space and bandwidth, constituting the first demonstration of scalable, sub-nanosecond optical switching. The power efficiency of the intelligent optical transmitter is further improved by introduction of a novel low-loss split-carrier modulator. The design is evaluated using 112 Gb/s/λ intensity modulated, direct-detection signals and a single-ended photodiode receiver. The split-carrier transmitter is shown to achieve hard decision forward error correction ready performance after 2 km of transmission using a laser output power of just 0 dBm; a 5.2 dB improvement over the conventional transmitter. The results achieved in the course of this research allow for ultra-fast, wideband, intelligent optical transmitters that can be applied in the design of all-optical data centres for power efficient, scalable networking

Compact Microwave Dual-band Bandpass Filter Design

The modern wireless communication systems require dual-band bandpass filters to support the standards that work at multiple frequency bands. This thesis demonstrates two design approaches for the development of compact microwave dual-band bandpass filters. The first approach is based on synthesising a dual-passband filter response utilising only one resonant frequency of the resonators. The second approach employs dual-band resonators that have tuneable the first and the second resonant frequencies to form the dual-passbands filter response. The dual-passband response synthesis method synthesises a response with dual passbands that is generated by a frequency transformation that places a finite frequency zero within the single- passband of a filter to split it into dual passbands. The transformed dual-passband response is characterised by the synthesised coupling matrix that consists of the coupling coefficients between coupled resonators. Two filters have been designed and fabricated using microstrip square open-loop and TE01δ mode quarter cylindrical dielectric resonators. The investigation based on simulation studies and measured results revealed that unloaded quality factor of the resonator is required to be ten times greater than the quality factor of each passband in order to realise the narrow passbands. The dual-band resonator methods employ multiple resonant modes of the resonator operating at different frequencies to implement the multiple passbands, respectively. Stepped impedance resonators in stripline and coaxial configurations have been presented and analysed for the realisation of dual-band bandpass filters. A second order dual-band bandpass filter formed by coaxial stepped impedance resonators has been designed, fabricated and tested. The measured frequency response agree well with the simulated response. The estimated breakdown power shows that the filter is capable of high power applications. Non-uniform pitch helical resonators are also proposed for the implementation of dual-band bandpass filters. Two non-uniform pitch helical resonator structures have been analytically modelled. The theoretical models of the non- uniform pitch helical resonators have been developed for accurate prediction of its dual-band characteristics. It is also employed in the general design process of the non-uniform pitch helical resonators. Resonator examples have been presented to show the applicability and validity of the analysis and simulation. Three dual-band bandpass filters have been designed and implemented using non-uniform pitch helical resonators. Their measured frequency responses agree reasonably with the ideal responses. Additionally, the simulation shows that the designed dual-band bandpass filters have relatively high power handling capability

The design of a two-element radio interferometer using satellite TV equipment

This research presents the design of a two-element radio interferometer capable of performing complex correlation. With the development of sophisticated radio astronomy instruments, particularly in South Africa, there is a need to develop an affordable educational instrument which can be used to demonstrate the fundamental concepts of radio interferometry to university students. The mass production of satellite TV equipment has resulted in relatively sensitive radio frequency (RF) equipment such as parabolic reflector dishes and low-noise block down-converters (LNBs) being available at significantly reduced costs. This served as the front-end of the interferometer which was used to observe the sun between 10.70 GHz - 12.75 GHz (RF). The LNB then down-converted these to an intermediate frequency (IF) between 0.95 GHz - 2.15 GHz. The LNBs were modified to make use of a common 25 MHz reference, which ensured that the observed fringes were only as a result of the source's geometric time delay. A power detector was also designed since the adding interferometer architecture was chosen. This power detector included the Analog Devices LT 5534 power detector integrated circuit (IC) and a Teensy 3.6 microcontroller. The calibrated power detector could detect signals as weak as - 60 dBm and showed less than 21 mV error in output for input signals in the range [- 50 dBm, -30 dBm]. The modified LNBs experienced issues, in particular the presence of a spurious LO signal, which distorted initial observations of the sun. This was resolved by the design and manufacture of narrowband hairpin filters and quarterwavelength stub filters which were used to isolate the IF band between 1.05 GHz - 1.15 GHz (corresponding RF between 10.80 GHz - 10.90 GHz). This also improved the interferometer's resolution. A series of filter-integrated Wilkinson power dividers and branchline couplers were designed to filter and further separate signals into in-phase and quadrature-phase (I-Q) components - these were required for complex correlation. The integrated quarter-wavelength stub filter and Wilkinson power divider achieved a maximum amplitude imbalance of 0.13 dB and phase imbalance of 0.9◦ between output ports. The integrated quarter-wavelength stub filter and branchline coupler achieved a maximum amplitude imbalance of 0.13 dB and phase imbalance of 91.1◦ between output ports. These results closely agreed with the simulated performance. First light was observed on the 5th December 2020 when the sun was successfully detected using the coherent two-element interferometer along a 1.1 m baseline. Other tests included using the observed fringe phase to verify the physical baseline. A theoretical baseline of 1.11 m was calculated for a physical baseline of 1.3 m indicating an error of less than 0.2 m. The sun's fringe frequency and amplitude was also observed for varying baselines - the sun was resolved along a 3 m baseline. Finally, full-system observations of the sun were conducted. These included observing the sun's cosine and sine fringes, which indicated that the analogue complex correlator was operating correctly. Thus, the primary goal of this project had been fulfilled. Specifically, developing a low-cost, educational two-element radio interferometer capable of detecting the sun

Design, implementation, and characterisation of a novel lidar ceilometer

A novel lidar ceilometer prototype based on divided lens optics has been designed, built, characterised, and tested. The primary applications for this manufacturable ground-based sensor are the determination of cloud base height and the measurement of vertical visibility. First, the design, which was developed in order to achieve superior performance at a low cost, is described in detail, along with the process used to develop it. The primary design considerations of optical signal to noise ratio, range-dependent overlap of the transmitter and receiver channels, and manufacturability, were balanced to develop an instrument with good signal to noise ratio, fast turn-on of overlap for detection of close range returns, and a minimised number of optical components and simplicity of assembly for cost control purposes. Second, a novel imaging method for characterisation of transmitter-receiver overlap as a function of range is described and applied to the instrument. The method is validated by an alternative experimental method and a geometric calculation that is specific to the unique geometry of the instrument. These techniques allow the calibration of close range detection sensitivity in order to acquire information prior to full overlap. Finally, signal processing methods used to automate the detection process are described. A novel two-part cloud base detection algorithm has been developed which combines extinction-derived visibility thresholds in the inverted cloud return signal with feature detection on the raw signal. In addition, standard approaches for determination of visibility based on an iterative far boundary inversion method, and calibration of attenuated backscatter profile using returns from a fully-attenuating water cloud, have been applied to the prototype. The prototype design, characterisation, and signal processing have been shown to be appropriate for implementation into a commercial instrument. The work that has been carried out provides a platform upon which a wide range of further work can be built

Spectrally and Energy Efficient Wireless Communications: Signal and System Design, Mathematical Modelling and Optimisation

This thesis explores engineering studies and designs aiming to meeting the requirements of enhancing capacity and energy efficiency for next generation communication networks. Challenges of spectrum scarcity and energy constraints are addressed and new technologies are proposed, analytically investigated and examined. The thesis commences by reviewing studies on spectrally and energy-efficient techniques, with a special focus on non-orthogonal multicarrier modulation, particularly spectrally efficient frequency division multiplexing (SEFDM). Rigorous theoretical and mathematical modelling studies of SEFDM are presented. Moreover, to address the potential application of SEFDM under the 5th generation new radio (5G NR) heterogeneous numerologies, simulation-based studies of SEFDM coexisting with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) are conducted. New signal formats and corresponding transceiver structure are designed, using a Hilbert transform filter pair for shaping pulses. Detailed modelling and numerical investigations show that the proposed signal doubles spectral efficiency without performance degradation, with studies of two signal formats; uncoded narrow-band internet of things (NB-IoT) signals and unframed turbo coded multi-carrier signals. The thesis also considers using constellation shaping techniques and SEFDM for capacity enhancement in 5G system. Probabilistic shaping for SEFDM is proposed and modelled to show both transmission energy reduction and bandwidth saving with advantageous flexibility for data rate adaptation. Expanding on constellation shaping to improve performance further, a comparative study of multidimensional modulation techniques is carried out. A four-dimensional signal, with better noise immunity is investigated, for which metaheuristic optimisation algorithms are studied, developed, and conducted to optimise bit-to-symbol mapping. Finally, a specially designed machine learning technique for signal and system design in physical layer communications is proposed, utilising the application of autoencoder-based end-to-end learning. Multidimensional signal modulation with multidimensional constellation shaping is proposed and optimised by using machine learning techniques, demonstrating significant improvement in spectral and energy efficiencies