Dual band fss with fractal elements

Experimental and computed results of a frequency selective surface (FSS) based on a certain type of fractal element are presented. The fractal element is a two iteration Sierpinski gasket dipole. Owing to the dual band behaviour of the two iteration Sierpinski gasket dipole, two stopbands are exhibited within the operating frequency band. This behaviour is obtained by arraying one simple element in a single layer frequency selective surface (FSS)Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

A comparison of reflector antenna designs for wide-angle scanning

Conventional reflector antennas are typically designed for up to + or - 20 beamwidths scan. An attempt was made to stretch this scan range to some + or - 300 beamwidths. Six single and dual reflector antennas were compared. It is found that a symmetrical parabolic reflector with f/D = 2 and a single circular waveguide feed has the minimum scan loss (only 0.6 dB at Theta sub 0 = 8 deg, or a 114 beamwidths scan). The scan is achieved by tilting the parabolic reflector by an angle equal to the half-scan angle. The f/D may be shortened if a cluster 7 to 19 elements instead of one element is used for the feed. The cluster excitation is adjusted for each new beam scan direction to compensate for the imperfect field distribution over the reflector aperture. The antenna can be folded into a Cassegrain configuration except that, due to spillover and blockage considerations, the amount of folding achievable is small

Wideband E-shaped Patch Antennas for Advanced Wireless Terminals

Low-profile patch antennas have become ubiquitous in wireless terminals, especially as devices have become smaller and demand more functionality out of their RF subsystems. While their shape and size is attactive for many applications, their narrow bandwidth hinders their usage in many systems. With the rise of computer-aided design, many patch antenna design concepts have been presented with enhanced bandwidth capabilities. The E-shaped patch antenna, whose original shape presented in the early 2000’s resembles the letter E, offers compelling performance with reasonable manufacturing complexity. In it most basic form, this antenna was linearly polarized and either wideband or dual-band. Over the last two decades, many variations of the E-shaped patch have been presented in literature: circularly polarized, miniaturized, frequency reconfigurable, or even polarization reconfigurable. This paper summarizes these efforts in realizing novel functionalities with a relatively simple design geometry

Compact Quad-band Meandered Implantable PIFA for Wireless Brain Care

In the growing efforts of promoting patients' life quality through health technology solutions, implantable wireless biomedical telemetry systems have been identified as one of the frontrunners. In these systems, the design of implantable antennas is of prime importance in establishing the wireless data link. Small multitasking implantable antennas are an evolving wireless health technology for monitoring medical conditions. These implantable antennas are intended for different functions including wireless data transmission at Medical Device Radiocommunication Service (MedRadio) band (401-406 MHz) and Wireless Medical Telemetry Service (WMTS) bands (1395-1400, and 1427-1432), wireless power transfer, and control signals between sleep/wake-up modes at Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) bands (902-928 MHz and 2400-2483.5 MHz), respectively. In this paper, we present a meandered quad-band planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA) for wireless brain care. Employing the meandering miniaturizing technique, shorting the radiator to the ground plane, and high-permittivity substrate/superstrate layers (Rogers RO3210; varepsilon {r}=10.2, tan delta=0.003, h=0.635 mm) lead to downsizing the antenna volume greatly to 11 times 20.5 times 1.8 mm{3} that includes the biocompatible silicone coating. We developed and characterized the proposed antenna numerically utilizing a 7-layer human head model in full-wave electromagnetic field simulation, where the antenna was implanted in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) layer at the depth of 13.25 mm in the cranial cavity. Overall, we achieve a compact quad-band implantable PIFA with-42.3 dBi of gain with a radiation efficiency of 0.003 % at 402 MHz,-22.7 dBi gain with a radiation efficiency of 0.1 % at 902 MHz,-23.7 dBi gain with a radiation efficiency of 0.1 % at 1430 MHz, and-29.7 dBi gain with a radiation efficiency of 0.02 % at 2450 MHz. To our knowledge, this is the first self-matched quad-band antenna proposed for wireless implant communications.Peer reviewe

An Effective Satellite Remote Sensing Tool Combining Hardware and Software Solutions

In this paper we propose a new effective remote sensing tool combining hardware and software solutions as an extension of our previous work. In greater detail the tool consists of a low cost receiver subsystem for public weather satellites and a signal and image processing module for several tasks such as signal and image enhancement, image reconstruction and cloud detection. Our solution allows to manage data from satellites effectively with low cost components and portable software solutions. We aim at sampling and processing of the modulated signal entirely in software enabled by Software Defined Radios (SDR) and CPU computational speed overcoming hardware limitation such as high receiver noise and low ADC resolution. Since we want to extend our previous method to demodulate signals coming from various meteorological satellites, we propose a new high frequency receiving system designed to receive and demodulate signals transmitted at 1.7 GHz. The signals coming from satellites are demodulated, synchronized and enhanced by using low level image processing techniques, then cloud detection is performed by using the well known K-means clustering algorithm. The hardware and software architecture extensions make our solution able to receive and demodulate high frequency and bandwidth meteorological satellite signals, such as those transmitted by NOAA POES, NOAA GOES, EUMETSAT Metop, Meteor-M and FengYun

The Optical Design and Characterization of the Microwave Anisotropy Probe

The primary goal of the MAP satellite, now in orbit, is to make high fidelity polarization sensitive maps of the full sky in five frequency bands between 20 and 100 GHz. From these maps we will characterize the properties of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy and Galactic and extragalactic emission on angular scales ranging from the effective beam size, <0.23 degree, to the full sky. MAP is a differential microwave radiometer. Two back-to-back shaped offset Gregorian telescopes feed two mirror symmetric arrays of ten corrugated feeds. We describe the prelaunch design and characterization of the optical system, compare the optical models to the measurements, and consider multiple possible sources of systematic error.Comment: ApJ in press; 22 pages with 11 low resolution figures; paper is available with higher quality figures at http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_mm/tp_links.htm

Higher-order acoustic diffraction by edges of finite thickness

Author Posting. © Acoustical Society of America, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of Acoustical Society of America for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 122 (2007): 3177-3194, doi:10.1121/1.2783001.A cw solution of acoustic diffraction by a three-sided semi-infinite barrier or a double edge, where the width of the midplanar segment is finite and cannot be ignored, involving all orders of diffraction is presented. The solution is an extension of the asymptotic formulas for the double-edge second-order diffraction via amplitude and phase matching given by Pierce [A. D. Pierce, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 55, 943–955 (1974)]. The model accounts for all orders of diffraction and is valid for all kw, where k is the acoustic wave number and w is the width of the midplanar segment and reduces to the solution of diffraction by a single knife edge as w→0. The theory is incorporated into the deformed edge solution [Stanton et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 122, 3167 (2007)] to model the diffraction by a disk of finite thickness, and is compared with laboratory experiments of backscattering by elastic disks of various thicknesses and by a hard strip. It is shown that the model describes the edge diffraction reasonably well in predicting the diffraction as a function of scattering angle, edge thickness, and frequency.This work was supported by the US Office of Naval Research and by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Resonances On-Demand for Plasmonic Nano-Particles

A method for designing plasmonic particles with desired resonance spectra is presented. The method is based on repetitive perturbations of an initial particle shape while calculating the eigenvalues of the various quasistatic resonances. The method is rigorously proved, assuring a solution exists for any required spectral resonance location. Resonances spanning the visible and the near-infrared regimes, as designed by our method, are verified using finite-difference time-domain simulations. A novel family of particles with collocated dipole-quadrupole resonances is designed, demonstrating the unique power of the method. Such on-demand engineering enables strict realization of nano-antennas and metamaterials for various applications requiring specific spectral functions

A functional variant in the Stearoyl-CoA desaturase gene promoter enhances fatty acid desaturation in pork

There is growing public concern about reducing saturated fat intake. Stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD) is the lipogenic enzyme responsible for the biosynthesis of oleic acid (18:1) by desaturating stearic acid (18:0). Here we describe a total of 18 mutations in the promoter and 3′ non-coding region of the pig SCD gene and provide evidence that allele T at AY487830:g.2228T>C in the promoter region enhances fat desaturation (the ratio 18:1/18:0 in muscle increases from 3.78 to 4.43 in opposite homozygotes) without affecting fat content (18:0+18:1, intramuscular fat content, and backfat thickness). No mutations that could affect the functionality of the protein were found in the coding region. First, we proved in a purebred Duroc line that the C-T-A haplotype of the 3 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (g.2108C>T; g.2228T>C; g.2281A>G) of the promoter region was additively associated to enhanced 18:1/18:0 both in muscle and subcutaneous fat, but not in liver. We show that this association was consistent over a 10-year period of overlapping generations and, in line with these results, that the C-T-A haplotype displayed greater SCD mRNA expression in muscle. The effect of this haplotype was validated both internally, by comparing opposite homozygote siblings, and externally, by using experimental Duroc-based crossbreds. Second, the g.2281A>G and the g.2108C>T SNPs were excluded as causative mutations using new and previously published data, restricting the causality to g.2228T>C SNP, the last source of genetic variation within the haplotype. This mutation is positioned in the core sequence of several putative transcription factor binding sites, so that there are several plausible mechanisms by which allele T enhances 18:1/18:0 and, consequently, the proportion of monounsaturated to saturated fat.This research was supported by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (AGL2009-09779 and AGL2012-33529). RRF is recipient of a PhD scholarship from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (BES-2010-034607). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of manuscript