A Compact Dual-Polarized 4-Port Eleven Feed with High Sensitivity for Reflectors over 0.35-1.05 GHz

We present significant improvements to the circular Eleven feed technology for a dual-reflector system operating over 0.35-1.05 GHz as a backup for the square kilometer array (SKA) project Band 1. In this work, the number of the feed ports is reduced to 4 from the previous 8 for dual polarization using a novel geometry at the center. The design is carried out by optimizing with a social civilization algorithm. The resulting improvements include a reflection coefficient below -12dB, an aperture efficiency above 70% at the upper end of the band, a maximum cross-polar level under -15dB, and an ohmic loss about 0.05 dB. A prototype based on this design has been manufactured and the design simulations have been verified against measurements. A simulated sensitivity of the dual-reflector receiver system for the SKA project based on the measured data is also presented in this communication

The Circular Eleven Antenna: A New Decade-Bandwidth Feed for Reflector Antennas With High Aperture Efficiency

Future ultra-wideband (UWB) radio telescopes require UWB feeds for reflector antennas, and many new UWB feed technologies have gained substantial progress to satisfy the tough specifications for future radio telescope projects, such as the square kilometer array (SKA). It has been noticed that, different from traditional narrow-band horn feeds, all UWB feeds are non-BOR (Body of Revolution) antennas. Therefore BOR1, efficiency becomes an important characterization for the modern UWB feed technologies. We present a novel circular Eleven feed, constructed of "circularly" curved folded dipoles printed on flat circuit boards, in order to have high BOR1 efficiency at a low manufacture cost. The Genetic Algorithm (GA) optimization scheme has been applied to the design for achieving a low reflection coefficient. Simulated and measured results show that the circular Eleven feed has a reflection coefficient below -6 dB over 1.6-14 GHz and below -10 dB over 78% of the band, and an aperture efficiency higher than 60% over 1-10 GHz and 50% up to 14 GHz

Advanced Radio Frequency Antennas for Modern Communication and Medical Systems

The main objective of this book is to present novel radio frequency (RF) antennas for 5G, IOT, and medical applications. The book is divided into four sections that present the main topics of radio frequency antennas. The rapid growth in development of cellular wireless communication systems over the last twenty years has resulted in most of world population owning smartphones, smart watches, I-pads, and other RF communication devices. Efficient compact wideband antennas are crucial in RF communication devices. This book presents information on planar antennas, cavity antennas, Vivaldi antennas, phased arrays, MIMO antennas, beamforming phased array reconfigurable Pabry-Perot cavity antennas, and time modulated linear array

Time domain synthesis of pulsed arrays

Pulsed arrays are becoming popular in new ultrawideband applications to enhance the robustness of transmitted and received signals in complex environments and to identify the angle of arrival of multiple echoes. A global synthesis technique is here proposed to shape the array field in accordance to given angle-time constraints. The synthesis problem is cast as the inverse Radon transform of a desired array mask, applying the alternate projections method to include constraints over the input signals' waveform and to improve the synthesis robustness. The unknown array currents are generated as linear combinations of Hermite-Rodriguez functions in order to achieve a simple and realizable beamforming network. The effectiveness of the method is demonstrated by many examples

An evaluation of the performance of multi-static handheld ground penetrating radar using full wave inversion for landmine detection

This thesis presents an empirical study comparing the ability of multi-static and bi-static, handheld, ground penetrating radar (GPR) systems, using full wave inversion (FWI), to determine the properties of buried anti-personnel (AP) landmines. A major problem associated with humanitarian demining is the occurrence of many false positives during clearance operations. Therefore, a reduction of the false alarm rate (FAR) and/or increasing the probability of detection (POD) is a key research and technical objective. Sensor fusion has emerged as a technique that promises to significantly enhance landmine detection. This study considers a handheld, combined metal detector (MD) and GPR device, and quantifies the advantages of the use of antenna arrays. During demining operations with such systems, possible targets are detected using the MD and further categorised using the GPR, possibly excluding false positives. A system using FWI imaging techniques to estimate the subsurface parameters is considered in this work.A previous study of multi-static GPR FWI used simplistic, 2D far-field propagation models, despite the targets being 3D and within the near field. This novel study uses full 3D electromagnetic (EM) wave simulation of the antenna arrays and propagation through the air and ground. Full EM simulation allows the sensitivity of radio measurements to landmine characteristics to be determined. The number and configuration of antenna elements are very important and must be optimised, contrary to the 2D sensitivity studies in (Watson, Lionheart 2014, Watson 2016) which conclude that the degree (number of elements) of the multi-static system is not critical. A novel sensitivity analysis for tilted handheld GPR antennas is used to demonstrate the positive impact of tilted antenna orientation on detection performance. A time domain GPR and A-scan data, consistent with a commercial handheld system, the MINEHOUND, is used throughout the simulated experiments which are based on synthetic GPR measurements.Finally, this thesis introduces a novel method of optimising the FWI solution through feature extraction or estimation of the internal air void typically present in pressure activated mines, to distinguish mines from non-mine targets and reduce the incidence of false positives

Ground‐Penetrating Radar for Close‐in Mine Detection

In this chapter, two of the major challenges in the application of ground‐penetrating radar in humanitarian demining operations are addressed: (i) development and testing of affordable and practical ground penetrating radar (GPR)‐based systems, which can be used off‐ground and (ii) development of robust signal processing techniques for landmines detection and identification. Different approaches developed at the Royal Military Academy in order to demonstrate the possibility of enhancing close‐range landmine detection and identification using ground‐penetrating radar under laboratory and outdoor conditions are summarized here. Data acquired using different affordable and practical GPR‐based systems are used to validate a number of promising developments in signal processing techniques for target detection and identification. The proposed approaches have been validated with success in laboratory and outdoor conditions and for different scenarios, including antipersonnel, low‐metal content landmines, improvised explosive devices and real mine‐affected soils

Microwave power imaging for ultra-wide band early breast cancer detection

Due to the critical need for complementary or/and alternative modalities to current X-ray mammography for early-stage breast cancer detection, a 3D active microwave imaging system has been developed. This thesis presents a detailed method for rapid, high contrast microwave imaging for the purpose of breast survey. In the proposed imaging system, several transmitters polarized in different directions take turns sending out a low-power UWB pulse into the breast; backscattered signals are recorded by a synthetic aperture antenna array. These backscattered signals are passed through a beamformer, which spatially focuses the waveforms to image backscattered energy as a function of location in the breast. A simple Delay-and-Sum algorithm is applied to test the proposed multistatic multi-polarized detection scheme. The obtained 2-D and 3-D numerical results have demonstrated the feasibility and superiority of detecting small malignant breast tumors using our antenna strategy. An improved algorithm of microwave power imaging for detecting small breast tumors within an MRI-derived phantom is also introduced. Our imaging results demonstrate that a high-quality image can be reached without solving the inverse problem. To set up an experimental system for future clinical investigation, we developed two Vivaldi antennas, which have a notable broad band property, good radiation pattern, and a suitable size for breast cancer detection. Finally, an antenna array which consists of eight proposed Vivaldi antennas is introduced. By conveniently moving up/down and rotating this antenna array, it can be used for the multistatic breast cancer imaging and qualified for our multi-polarized scan mode