An approach to harmonic load- and source-pull measurements for high-efficiency PA design

High-efficiency power-amplifier design requires numerous efforts to investigate both input and output harmonic terminations effects. A simplified theoretical approach to clarify the relevance of such terminations is presented here, and design criteria to improve efficiency for high-frequency applications are briefly discussed. An advanced active load/source-pull test-bench has been used to validate theoretical harmonic tuning techniques, characterizing an active device. The adopted optimization strategy is presented, together with measured results obtained with a medium-power 1-mm MESFET at 1 GHz. Input second harmonic impedances effects are stressed, showing a drain efficiency spread between 37%-49% for a fixed input power level, corresponding to 1-dB compression. Finally, as predicted by the presented theory, after input second harmonic tuning, further improvements are obtained, increasing fundamental output load resistive part, demonstrating an additional drain efficiency enhancement, which reaches a level of 55% at 1-dB compression

Recent Advances in Real-Time Load-Pull Systems

In this paper, some of the latest advances in real-time load-pull technologies will be described. A recently introduced ultralow-loss directional coupler, which has been designed and realized by the authors, provides a number of advantages when used in load-pull test sets. This device has been called the load-pull head. The new ultralow-loss load-pull head can transform any passive precalibrated load-pull system into an easily calibrated and accurate real-time load-pull test set, without losing highreflection- coefficient capabilities. Moreover, if used to realize an active loop, the load-pull head reduces the risks of oscillations and the amount of the loop amplifier output power. As an example application, measurements with a passive real-time load-pull setup of a 30-W laterally diffused MOS (LDMOS) transistor are presented. Furthermore, some advice to bypass the remaining unavoidable losses due to probes and cables is given.We will show, with measurements and with very simple calculations, that the combined use of load-pull heads, a passive tuner, and an active loop not only boosts the available ΓL but also decreases the loop amplifier output power, with a sensible reduction in the overall cost of the syste

TEFC Induction Motors Thermal Models: A parameter Sensitivity Analysis

With the increasing pressures on electric motor manufacturers to develop smaller and more efficient electric motors, there is a trend to carry out more thermal analysis in parallel with the traditional electromagnetic design. It has been found that attention to thermal design can be rewarded by major improvements in the overall performance. Thus, there is a requirement for accurate and reliable thermal analysis models that can be easily incorporated into motor design software. In this paper, emphasis is given to thermal sensitivity analysis of totally enclosed fan-cooled induction motors. In particular, thermal parameters are modified and their effects on the temperature rise shown. The results are useful for identifying the most important thermal parameters and enable robust designs to be developed that are insensitive to manufacturing tolerances

Simple Technique for source reflection coefficient measurement while characterizing active devices

This paper describes a simple, yet rigorous technique for fast and accurate determination of the source reflection coefficient during the characterization of microwave active devices. The solution consists in measuring the waves at the DUT reference plane under two different bias conditions. Since the DUT small signal impedance value depends on the bias voltage, the waves at the DUT input port changes as well. We proved that their measurements give enough information to compute the source reflection coefficient with accuracy suitable for most applications. The correction for systematic errors is based in the traditional error-box model and it does not require any exotic calibration procedures. Experimental results are presented and compared to data obtained with more traditional technique

Integrated surface-subsurface model to investigate the role of groundwater in headwater catchment runoff generation : a minimalist approach to parameterisation

This work was funded by NERC/JPI SIWA project (NE/M019896/1) and the European Research Council ERC (project GA 335910 VeWa). Numerical simulations were performed using the Maxwell High Performance Computing Cluster of the University of Aberdeen IT Service, provided by Dell Inc. and supported by Alces Software. Aquanty Inc. is acknowledged for support in providing HGS simulation software compatible with the Maxwell High Performance Computing Cluster. We would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments that improved the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Efficient method for aeroelastic tailoring of composite wing to minimize gust response

Aeroelastic tailoring of laminated composite structure demands relatively high computational time especially for dynamic problem. This paper presents an efficient method for aeroelastic dynamic response analysis with significantly reduced computational time. In this method, a relationship is established between the maximum aeroelastic response and quasi-steady deflection of a wing subject to a dynamic loading. Based on this relationship, the time consuming dynamic response can be approximated by a quasi-steady deflection analysis in a large proportion of the optimization process. This method has been applied to the aeroelastic tailoring of a composite wing of a tailless aircraft for minimum gust response. The results have shown that 20%–36% gust response reduction has been achieved for this case. The computational time of the optimization process has been reduced by 90% at the cost of accuracy reduction of 2~4% comparing with the traditional dynamic response analysis

Creating Simplified 3D Models with High Quality Textures

This paper presents an extension to the KinectFusion algorithm which allows creating simplified 3D models with high quality RGB textures. This is achieved through (i) creating model textures using images from an HD RGB camera that is calibrated with Kinect depth camera, (ii) using a modified scheme to update model textures in an asymmetrical colour volume that contains a higher number of voxels than that of the geometry volume, (iii) simplifying dense polygon mesh model using quadric-based mesh decimation algorithm, and (iv) creating and mapping 2D textures to every polygon in the output 3D model. The proposed method is implemented in real-time by means of GPU parallel processing. Visualization via ray casting of both geometry and colour volumes provides users with a real-time feedback of the currently scanned 3D model. Experimental results show that the proposed method is capable of keeping the model texture quality even for a heavily decimated model and that, when reconstructing small objects, photorealistic RGB textures can still be reconstructed.Comment: 2015 International Conference on Digital Image Computing: Techniques and Applications (DICTA), Page 1 -