WHY SHOULD WE CARE ABOUT INNOVATION? WHAT ARE THE KEY ARGUMENTS TO SAY THAT “NEW TECHNOLOGY” NECESSARILY CAUSES WEALTH AND BENEFIT FOR SOCIETY? WHAT ARE THE LIMITS OF THESE ARGUMENTS?

This paper discussed the importance of innovation generally and also taking into account the ASP project “Integrated Technologies for the Sustainable Management of Underwater Cultural Heritage (TETI)” as a case study. The paper elaborated the feathers of innovation that can affect the innovative process and the necessity to develop innovative solutions for the success and development of the market. The paper also discussed the key arguments like “new technology” necessarily causes wealth and benefit for society, the factors that can affect the new technology and the limits of these arguments

Design and Performance Study of a Dual-Element Multiband Printed Monopole Antenna Array for MIMO Terminals

This letter presents a study on linearly polarized compact multiband multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) antenna system for small mobile terminals. The MIMO antenna system consists of two symmetric printed monopole antennas with edge-to-edge separation of 0.097 λ 0 at 900 MHz. Each antenna element has a capacitive feed and is composed of two twisted lines, a parasitic loop, and a shorting trip that generate five resonant modes around 900, 1800, 2100, 3500, and 5400 MHz, covering GSM850/900, DCS, PCS, UMTS, WLAN, and WiMAX frequency bands. Two inverted-L shaped branches and a rectangular slot with one circular end, etched on the ground plane, were introduced to improve the isolation between antenna elements. The isolation achieved is higher than 15 dB in the lower band and 20 dB in the upper bands, leading to an envelope correlation coefficient of less than 0.025. The simulated performance of the designed antenna system has been verified in the experiment

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

Two different ways in evaluating the uncertainty of S-parameter measurements

The expression of uncertainty of scattering parameter measurements in vector network analysis is an active research subject, since no full consensus about proper algorithms for such expression has been reached so far. Recently, two software packages have been acquired at INRIM, which allow to perform this task in a metrological framework. In this paper we compare the result of analysis performed by two packages, VNA Tools II and Multiport Measurement Software version 4 (MMS4). Both packages claim to perform uncertainty analyses fully compliant to the Guide of expression of uncertainty in measurement, but following completely different approaches. We organized a comparison by performing, with both packages, analyses of the very same datasets. These have been generated by real measurements on passive standards with a commercial vector network analyzer. Results of the comparison give consistency of the uncertainty analyses performed by the software packages, which can be therefore considered equivalent and mutually validated

MIMO Antennas for Smart 5G Devices

This paper presents the design of 8 x 8 MIMO antennas for future 5G devices such as smart watches and dongles etc. Each antenna of the MIMO configuration occupies 3 x 4 mm2 and is printed on the top layer of the substrate in the form of a rotated H-shaped patch. The substrate used for the design is a 31.2 x 31.2 x 1.57 mm3, Rogers RT-5880 board, with dielectric constant of 2.2. The top layer of the substrate has eight MIMO antennas whereas, the bottom layer is composed of ground plane. The ground plane is an Electromagnetic Band Gap (EBG) based structure designed for the enhancement of gain and efficiency. Each antenna is fed from the bottom layer of the substrate through vias to avoid any spurious radiation. The MIMO antennas resonate at 25.2 GHz with a 6 dB percentage bandwidth of 15.6%. The gain attained by the antennas in the entire bandwidth is above 7.2 dB with maximum value of 8.732 dB at the resonant frequency. Likewise, the value of efficiency attained by the antennas in the entire bandwidth is above 65% with maximum of 92.7% at the resonant frequency. The simulation and measurement results have substantiated a good performance of the MIMO antennas, thus making them suitable for compact 5G devices

Design and development of a multi-functional bi-anisotropic metasurface with ultra-wide out of band transmission

This paper presents a multi-functional bi-anisotropic metasurface having ultra-wide out of band transmission characteristics. The proposed metasurface is comprised of 90° rotated T-shaped configuration yielding greater than or equal to 50% out-of-band transmission from above L- to X-band. Moreover, this metasurface achieves a maximum of 99% out-of-band transmission at lower frequency bands (i.e., L-band). The simultaneous absorptive and controlled reflection functionalities are achieved at 15.028 to 15.164 GHz along with polarization-insensitive and angular stable properties. The proposed metasurface yields state-of-the-art features compared to already published papers and has broader scope for Fabry Perot cavity, Radar cross-section (RCS) reduction, electromagnetic compatibility and interference (EMC/I) shielding, selective multi-frequency bolometers, ultrathin wave trapping filters, sensors and beam-splitters in the microwave domain

Reconfigurable absorptive and polarization conversion metasurface consistent for wide angles of incidence

In this paper, a single-layer reconfigurable reflective metasurface is presented. The proposed metasurface operates at 5.4 GHz and can achieve either absorption or cross-polarization conversion corresponding at two different diode biasing states. The reflective metasurface acts as an absorber for an incident wave when the diodes are forward-biased. Similarly, it changes the polarization state of the reflected wave for a linearly polarized incident wave when the diodes are reverse-biased. The proposed structure maintains the aforementioned performance characteristics for oblique incidence, up to 60° compared to the perpendicular incidence. The proposed metasurface can achieve linear to linear polarization conversion with polarization conversion ratio (PCR) > 95% and absorption, with absorption ratio (AR) > 80% in the same frequency band just by reconfiguring the state of the PIN diodes

A multifunctional ultrathin flexible bianisotropic metasurface with miniaturized cell size

In this paper, a flexible bianisotropic metasurface possessing omega-type coupling is presented. The designed metasurface behaves differently when excited from either forward (port 1) or back (port 2) sides. It provides an absorption of 99.46% at 15.1 Gigahertz (GHz), when illuminated from port 1, whereas, on simultaneous illumination from port 2, it behaves like a partially reflective surface (PRS). Furthermore, the presented metasurface not only acts as an in-band absorptive surface (port 1) and partially reflective surface (port 2), but it also provides 97% out-of-band transmission at 7.8 GHz. The response of the presented metasurface remains the same for both transverse Electric (TE) and transverse magnetic (TM) polarized wave or any arbitrary linearly polarized wave. Additionally, the response of the metasurface is angularly stable for any oblique incidence up to 45º. The proposed ultrathin flexible metasurface with absorption, partial reflection and out-of-band transmission properties can be used in the Fabry Perrot cavity antenna for gain enhancement with radar cross-section (RCS) reduction both for passband and stop-band filtering, and conformal antenna applications

A multiband circular polarization selective metasurface for microwave applications

In this research article, a multiband circular polarization selective (CPS) metasurface is presented. A reciprocal bi-layered metasurface is designed by introducing the chirality in the structure. The top layer of the proposed metasurface is composed of circular split-ring resonator with a cross shape structure inside it. The same structure is printed on the bottom side of the proposed metasurface by rotating it at an angle of 90° to achieve chirality in the structure. The proposed metasurface is able to add CPS surface capability between 5.18 and 5.23 GHz for y-polarized incident wave. For the frequency band of 5.18–5.23 GHz, the transmission goes up to − 4 dB, while the polarization extinction ratio (PER) reaches up to − 27.4 dB at 5.2 GHz. Similarly, for x-polarized incident wave, three strategic CPS operating bands are achieved within the frequency ranges of 10.64–10.82 GHz, 12.25–12.47 GHz, and 14.42–14.67 GHz. The maximum PER of 47.16 dB has been achieved for the 14.42–14.67 GHz frequency band at 14.53 GHz. Furthermore, the response of the metasurface does not vary against oblique incidences up to 45°. The simple structure, angular stability, multiband and miniaturized size make this metasurface an outstanding applicant for polarization conversion and biomedical applications

Vector network analyzer (VNA) measurements and uncertainty assessment

This book describes vector network analyzer measurements and uncertainty assessments, particularly in waveguide test-set environments, in order to establish their compatibility to the International System of Units (SI) for accurate and reliable characterization of communication networks. It proposes a fully analytical approach to measurement uncertainty evaluation, while also highlighting the interaction and the linear propagation of different uncertainty sources to compute the final uncertainties associated with the measurements. The book subsequently discusses the dimensional characterization of waveguide standards and the quality of the vector network analyzer (VNA) calibration techniques. The book concludes with an in-depth description of the novel verification artefacts used to assess the performance of the VNAs. It offers a comprehensive reference guide for beginners to experts, in both academia and industry, whose work involves the field of network analysis, instrumentation and measurements