A compact and low-profile tunable loop antenna integrated with inductors

We present a frequency-tunable, compact loop antenna which consists of a transmission line on a ground plane, two shorting posts, and two inductors which are serially connected between the posts and the edge of the transmission line. By properly choosing the inductance of the inductors, the operating frequency of the antenna can be controlled without seriously sacrificing fractional bandwidth. To demonstrate the operating mechanism, the equivalent circuit of this antenna is included. The characteristics of the antenna with various inductors integrated are also investigated. Fabricated antennas show that the operating frequency can be shifted from 2.07 GHz to 1.2 GHz using off-the-shelf inductors. Using two 33-nH inductors achieves an antenna with an electrical size as small as 0.118lambda times 0.013lambda times 0.047lambda. The validity of this antenna is demonstrated by experimental results

Origami Reconfigurable Electromagnetic Systems

With the ever-increasing demand for wireless communications, there is a great need for efficient designs of electromagnetic systems. Reconfigurable electromagnetic systems are very useful because such designs can provide multi-functionality and support different services. The geometrical topology of an electromagnetic element is very important as it determines the element’s RF performance characteristics. Origami geometries have significant advantages for launch-and-carry electromagnetic devices where devices need to fold in order to miniaturize their size during launch and unfold in order to operate after the platform has reached orbit. This dissertation demonstrates a practical process for designing reconfigurable electromagnetic devices using origami structures. Four different origami structures are studied and the integrated Mathematical-Computational-Electromagnetic models of origami antennas, origami reflectors and origami antenna arrays are developed and analyzed. These devices provide many unique capabilities compared with the traditional designs, such as band-switching, frequency tuning, polarization adjustment and mode reconfigurability. Prototypes are also manufactured to validate the performances of the designs. These designs change their geometry naturally, and they can be compactly packaged into small volume, which make them very suitable for spaceborne and satellite communication. Origami antennas and origami electromagnetics are expected to impact a variety of applications related to communications, surveillance and sensing

Miniaturized antenna and transponder based wireless sensors for internet of things in healthcare

Future medical and healthcare systems will be largely improved by the wide-spreading of internet of things (IoTs). One of the crucial challenges of IoTs for healthcare is at the wireless sensors. Miniaturization of sensor node profile, minimizing power consumption as well as lowering down design/production cost of antenna, RF circuits and sensor modules have become the key issues for realizing more exciting applications in medical and healthcare fields that never seemed to be possible before. In this dissertation work, we first focus on electrically small antenna (ESA) design and fabrication for medical telemetry. A comprehensive analysis of the radiation properties of a novel electrically small folded ellipsoidal ESA is presented, showing its ability to self-resonate and impedance match without external components. It will benefit various size-restricted applications especially with wireless medical implants. The second focus is on healthcare sensors using ESA as the sensing agent, which saves the power and cost by eliminating the need of extra sensing modules. Specifically, miniaturized helix ESAs are integrated with drug reservoirs to function as wireless transponder sensors for real-time drug dosage monitoring. We also introduce a system level innovation of a passive wireless harmonic transponder/harmonic sniffer/frequency hopped interrogator based sensing system. The μL- liquid level resolution and absolute-accuracy passive sensing is demonstrated in the presence of strong direct coupling, background scatters, distance variance as well as near-filed human body movement interference. Furthermore, we investigate how modern ubiquitous wireless sensor networks could take advantage of sensitive nanostructure materials for enhanced performance. Here we propose a new paradigm of chemically-gated mixed modulation on a single homogeneous graphene device in which the chemical exposure directly modulates an electrical carrier signal. To make the device ubiquitously reusable, a method of precisely tuning the charge neutrality point (Vcnp) is introduced by electrochemical calibration with gate voltage pulse sequence. Such chemically gated graphene modulator can be potentially used in a harmonic transponder as a passive ubiquitous sensor node for chemical and bio sensing applications. Overall the research work presented in the dissertation will help enable cost and power-efficient wireless sensor networks in future healthcare IoTs.Electrical and Computer Engineerin

Radar Sub-surface Sensing for Mapping the Extent of Hydraulic Fractures and for Monitoring Lake Ice and Design of Some Novel Antennas.

Hydraulic fracturing, which is a fast-developing well-stimulation technique, has greatly expanded oil and natural gas production in the United States. As the use of hydraulic fracturing has grown, concerns about its environmental impacts have also increased. A sub-surface imaging radar that can detect the extent of hydraulic fractures is highly demanded, but existing radar designs cannot meet the requirement of penetration range on the order of kilometers due to the exorbitant propagation loss in the ground. In the thesis, a medium frequency (MF) band sub-surface radar sensing system is proposed to extend the detectable range to kilometers in rock layers. Algorithms for cross-hole and single-hole configurations are developed based on simulations using point targets and realistic fractured rock models. A super-miniaturized borehole antenna and its feeding network are also designed for this radar system. Also application of imaging radars for sub-surface sensing frozen lakes at Arctic regions is investigated. The scattering mechanism is the key point to understand the radar data and to extract useful information. To explore this topic, a full-wave simulation model to analyze lake ice scattering phenomenology that includes columnar air bubbles is presented. Based on this model, the scattering mechanism from the rough ice/water interface and columnar air bubbles in the ice at C band is addressed and concludes that the roughness at the interface between ice and water is the dominate contributor to backscatter and once the lake is completely frozen the backscatter diminishes significantly. Radar remote sensing systems often require high-performance antennas with special specifications. Besides the borehole antenna for MF band subsurface imaging system, several other antennas are also designed for potential radar systems. Surface-to-borehole setup is an alternative configuration for subsurface imaging system, which requires a miniaturized planar antenna placed on the surface. Such antenna is developed with using artificial electromagnetic materials for size reduction. Furthermore, circularly polarized (CP) waveform can be used for imaging system and omnidirectional CP antenna is needed. Thus, a low-profile planar azimuthal omnidirectional CP antenna with gain of 1dB and bandwidth of 40MHz is designed at 2.4GHz by combining a novel slot antenna and a PIFA antenna.PhDElectrical EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/120674/1/wujf_1.pd

Reconfigurable Antennas

In this new book, we present a collection of the advanced developments in reconfigurable antennas and metasurfaces. It begins with a review of reconfigurability technologies, and proceeds to the presentation of a series of reconfigurable antennas, UWB MIMO antennas and reconfigurable arrays. Then, reconfigurable metasurfaces are introduced and the latest advances are presented and discussed

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

Periodic Structures With Higher Symmetries: Their Applications in Electromagnetic Devices

Higher symmetries frequently amaze human beings because of the illusions and incredible landscapes such symmetries can produce. For example, imagine the unearthly pictures of the Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher. He made use of glide symmetry and reflection to produce unbelievable transitions and transformations of objects and beings, as illustrated in Figure 1(a). However, the history of higher symmetries started much earlier. Escher was partially inspired by the Moorish tessellations in the Alhambra in Granada, Spain, such as the ones pictured in Figure 1(b).The authors would like to thank Oskar Zetterström for providing the photo in Figure 5(a). This work was partly funded by the Spanish Government, under grant TEC2016-79700-C2-2-R; the French Government, under National Research Agency (ANR) Modeling and De - sign of Holey Metasurfaces project grant ANR JCJC 2016, ANR-16-CE24-0030; the Vinnova project High-5 (grant 2018-01522), under the Strategic Program on Smart Electronic Systems; the Stiftelsen Åforsk project Higher-Symmetric Materials for 5G Communications (grant 18-302); and COST Action SyMat CA18223, supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology), www.cost.eu

Synthetic aperture radar-based techniques and reconfigurable antenna design for microwave imaging of layered structures

In the past several decades, a number of microwave imaging techniques have been developed for detecting embedded objects (targets) in a homogeneous media. New applications such as nondestructive testing of layered composite structures, through-wall and medical imaging require more advanced imaging systems and image reconstruction algorithms (post-processing) suitable for imaging inhomogeneous (i.e., layered) media. Currently-available imaging algorithms are not always robust, easy to implement, and fast. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) techniques are some of the more prominent approaches for image reconstruction when considering low loss and homogeneous media. To address limitations of SAR imaging, when interested in imaging an embedded object in an inhomogeneous media with loss, two different methods are introduced, namely; modified piecewise SAR (MPW-SAR) and Wiener filter-based layered SAR (WL-SAR). From imaging system hardware point-of-view, microwave imaging systems require suitable antennas for signal transmission and data collection. A reconfigurable antenna which its characteristics can be dynamically changed provide significant flexibility in terms of beam-forming, reduction in unwanted noise and multiplicity of use including for imaging applications. However, despite these potentially advantageous characteristics, the field of reconfigurable antenna design is fairly new and there is not a methodical design procedure. This issue is addressed by introducing an organized design method for a reconfigurable antenna capable of operating in several distinct frequency bands. The design constraints (e.g., size and gain) can also be included. Based on this method, a novel reconfigurable coplanar waveguide-fed slot antenna is designed to cover several different frequency bands while keeping the antenna size as small as possible --Abstract, page iii