Ultra Wideband

Ultra wideband (UWB) has advanced and merged as a technology, and many more people are aware of the potential for this exciting technology. The current UWB field is changing rapidly with new techniques and ideas where several issues are involved in developing the systems. Among UWB system design, the UWB RF transceiver and UWB antenna are the key components. Recently, a considerable amount of researches has been devoted to the development of the UWB RF transceiver and antenna for its enabling high data transmission rates and low power consumption. Our book attempts to present current and emerging trends in-research and development of UWB systems as well as future expectations

Design and Development of MIMO Antennas for WiGig Terminals

This article presents a design for high-gain MIMO antennas with compact geometry. The proposed design is composed of four antennas in MIMO configuration, wherein, each antenna is made up of small units of microstrip patches. The overall geometry is printed on the top layer of the substrate, i.e., Rogers RT-5880 with permittivity of 2.2, permeability of 1.0, dielectric loss of 0.0009, and depth of 0.508 mm. The proposed design covers an area of 29.5 × 61.4 mm2, wherein each antenna covers an area of 11.82 × 25.28 mm2. The dimensions of the microstrip lines in each MIMO element were optimized to achieve a good impedance matching. The design is resonating at 61 GHz, with a wide practical bandwidth of more than 7 GHz, thereby covering IEEE 802.11ad WiGig (58–65 GHz). The average value of gain ranges from 9.45 to 13.6 dBi over the entire frequency bandwidth whereas, the average value of efficiency ranges from 55.5% to 84.3%. The proposed design attains a compact volume, wide bandwidth, and good gain and efficiency performances, which makes it suitable for WiGig terminals

Design and analysis of two port MIMO antennas with wideband isolation

Ultrawideband (UWB) technology has rapidly gained popularity and demand for recent wireless communication systems after the allocation of 3.1- 10.6 GHz by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for UWB applications. Since then, a myriad of research opportunities and challenges exist for the design of UWB antenna systems for application in high speed wireless devices. Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) systems provide a significant increase in channel capacity without the need of additional bandwidth or transmit power by deploying multiple antennas for transmission to achieve an array gain and diversity gain, thereby improving the spectral efficiency and reliability. Since MIMO systems employ multiple antennas, they require high decoupling between antenna elements. Overall UWB MIMO systems require a high isolation of less than -16 dB and also a compact size for compatibility with integrated circuits. This thesis focuses on the analysis and design of MIMO antennas with a compact planar profile that have an operating range in the entire UWB (3.1- 10.6 GHz) and desired antenna performance characteristics. This dissertation presents the work on the design of two- element MIMO antennas and various isolation structures and mechanisms to reduce the mutual coupling between the two elements, out of which two major antenna designs are proposed and analyzed separately for their isolation, bandwidth and radiation characteristics. Both MIMO antenna systems have a significant operating bandwidth covering almost the entire UWB and together with the proposed isolation structures are able to achieve isolation more than -16 dB

DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF ANTENNA-ON-CHIP AND ANTENNA-IN-PACKAGE FOR 60-GHZ WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Some studies on designs of planar antennas for UWB applications

In Ultra-Wideband (UWB) wireless system, considerable research efforts have been put into the design of UWB antennas and communication systems. These UWB antennas are essential for providing wireless wideband communications based on the use of very narrow pulses on the order of nanoseconds, covering a very wide bandwidth in the frequency domain and over very short distance at very low power densities. Also it is well known that, in traditional narrow-band communications, multiple antenna systems offer attractive aspects in wireless communication by means of Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) techniques. These techniques either give out high channel capacities through spatial multiplexing, or offer an increase of link robustness. The present work deals with four new compact broadband antennas, suitable for portable applications are designed and characterized, namely-octagon shaped monopole, semicircular disk monopole, semi-octagon shaped diversity, semi-circular diversity. The performances of these designs have been studied using standard simulation tools used in industry or academy and experimentally verified. One of the major contributions of the thesis lies in the analysis of the frequency and time-domain response of the designed UWB antennas to confirm their suitability for portable pulsed-UWB system. A technique to avoid narrow band interference by etching narrow slot resonators on the antenna is also proposed and their effects on a nano-second pulse have been investigated

Reconfigurable pixel antennas for communications

The explosive growth of wireless communications has brought new requirements in terms of compactness, mobility and multi-functionality that pushes antenna research. In this context, recon gurable antennas have gained a lot of attention due to their ability to adjust dynamically their frequency and radiation properties, providing multiple functionalities and being able to adapt themselves to a changing environment. A pixel antenna is a particular type of recon gurable antenna composed of a grid of metallic patches interconnected by RF-switches which can dynamically reshape its active surface. This capability provides pixel antennas with a recon guration level much higher than in other recon gurable architectures. Despite the outstanding recon guration capabilities of pixel antennas, there are important practical issues related to the performance-complexity balance that must be addressed before they can be implemented in commercial systems. This doctoral work focuses on the minimization of the pixel antenna complexity while maximizing its recon guration capabilities, contributing to the development of pixel antennas from a conceptual structure towards a practical recon gurable antenna architecture. First, the conceptualization of novel pixel geometries is addressed. It is shown that antenna complexity can be signi cantly reduced by using multiple-sized pixels. This multi-size technique allows to design pixel antennas with a number of switches one order of magnitude lower than in common pixel structures, while preserving high multiparameter recon gurability. A new conceptual architecture where the pixel surface acts as a parasitic layer is also proposed. The parasitic nature of the pixel layer leads to important advantages regarding the switch biasing and integration possibilities. Secondly, new pixel recon guration technologies are explored. After investigating the capabilities of semiconductors and RF-MEMS switches, micro uidic technology is proposed as a new technology to create and remove liquid metal pixels rather than interconnecting them. Thirdly, the full multi-parameter recon guration capabilities of pixel antennas is explored, which contrasts with the partial explorations available in the literature. The maximum achievable recon guration ranges (frequency range, beam-steering angular range and polarization modes) as well as the linkage between the di erent parameter under recon guration are studied. Finally, the performance of recon gurable antennas in beam-steering applications is analyzed. Figures-of-merit are derived to quantify radiation pattern recon gurability, enabling the evaluation of the performance of recon gurable antennas, pixel antennas and recon guration algorithms

HIGH-PERFORMANCE PERIODIC ANTENNAS WITH HIGH ASPECT RATIO VERTICAL FEATURES AND LARGE INTERCELL CAPACITANCES FOR MICROWAVE APPLICATIONS

Modern communications systems are evolving rapidly to address the demand for data exchange, a fact which imposes stringent requirements on the design process of their RF and antenna front-ends. The most crucial pressure on the antenna front-end is the need for miniaturized design solutions while maintaining the desired radiation performance. To satisfy this need, this thesis presents innovative types of periodic antennas, including electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) antennas, which are distinguished in two respects. First, the periodic cells contain thick metal traces, contrary to the conventional thin-trace cells. Second, such thick traces contain very narrow gaps with very tall sidewalls, referred to as high aspect ratio (HAR) gaps. When such cells are used in the structure of the proposed periodic antennas, the high capacitance of HAR gaps decreases the resonance frequency, mitigates conduction loss, and thus, yields considerably small high efficiency antennas. For instance, one of the sample antenna designs with only two EBG cells offers a very small XYZ volume of 0.25λ×0.28λ×0.037λ with efficiency of 83%. Also, a circularly polarized HAR EBG antenna is presented which has a footprint as small as 0.26λ×0.29λ and efficiency as high as 94%. The main analysis method developed in this thesis is a combination of numerical and mathematical analyses and is referred to as HFSS/Bloch method. The numerical part of this method is conducted using a High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS), and the mathematical part is based on the classic Bloch theory. The HFSS/Bloch method acts as the mainstay of the thesis and all designs are built upon the insight provided by this method. A circuit model using transmission line (TL) theory is also developed for some of the unit cells and antennas. The HFSS/Bloch perspective results in a HAR EBG TL with radiation properties, a fragment of which (2 to 6 cells) is introduced as a novel antenna, the self-excited EBG resonator antenna (SE-EBG-RA). Open (OC) and short circuited (SC) versions of this antenna are studied and the inherently smaller size of the SC version is demonstrated. Moreover, the possibility of employing the SE-EBG-RA as the element of a series-fed array structure is investigated and some sample high-efficiency, flat array antennas are rendered. A microstrip antenna is also developed, the structure of which is composed of 3×3 unit cells and shows fast-wave behaviors. Most antenna designs are resonant in nature; however, in one case, a low-profile efficient leaky-wave antenna with scanning radiation pattern is proposed. Several antenna prototypes are fabricated and tested to validate the analyses and designs. As the structures are based on tall metal traces, two relevant fabrication methods are considered, including CNC machining and deep X-ray lithography (DXRL). Hands-on experiments provide an outlook of possible future DXRL fabricated SE-EBG-RAs