Super-Directive Antenna Arrays: How Many Elements Do We Need?

Super-directive antenna arrays have faced challenges in achieving high realized gains ever since their introduction in the academic literature. The primary challenges are high impedance mismatches and resistive losses, which become increasingly more dominant as the number of elements increases. Consequently, a critical limitation arises in determining the maximum number of elements that should be utilized to achieve super-directivity, particularly within dense array configurations. This paper addresses precisely this issue through an optimization study to design a super-directive antenna array with a maximum number of elements. An iterative approach is employed to increase the array of elements while sustaining a satisfactory realized gain using the differential evolution (DE) algorithm. Thus, it is observed that super-directivity can be obtained in an array with a maximum of five elements. Our results indicate that the obtained unit array has a $67.20\%$ higher realized gain than a uniform linear array with conventional excitation. For these reasons, these results make the proposed architecture a strong candidate for applications that require densely packed arrays, particularly in the context of massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO)

Analysis of a Waveguide-Fed Metasurface Antenna

The metasurface concept has emerged as an advantageous reconfigurable antenna architecture for beam forming and wavefront shaping, with applications that include satellite and terrestrial communications, radar, imaging, and wireless power transfer. The metasurface antenna consists of an array of metamaterial elements distributed over an electrically large structure, each subwavelength in dimension and with subwavelength separation between elements. In the antenna configuration we consider here, the metasurface is excited by the fields from an attached waveguide. Each metamaterial element can be modeled as a polarizable dipole that couples the waveguide mode to radiation modes. Distinct from the phased array and electronically scanned antenna (ESA) architectures, a dynamic metasurface antenna does not require active phase shifters and amplifiers, but rather achieves reconfigurability by shifting the resonance frequency of each individual metamaterial element. Here we derive the basic properties of a one-dimensional waveguide-fed metasurface antenna in the approximation that the metamaterial elements do not perturb the waveguide mode and are non-interacting. We derive analytical approximations for the array factors of the 1D antenna, including the effective polarizabilities needed for amplitude-only, phase-only, and binary constraints. Using full-wave numerical simulations, we confirm the analysis, modeling waveguides with slots or complementary metamaterial elements patterned into one of the surfaces.Comment: Original manuscript as submitted to Physical Review Applied (2017). 14 pages, 14 figure

Computational polarimetric microwave imaging

We propose a polarimetric microwave imaging technique that exploits recent advances in computational imaging. We utilize a frequency-diverse cavity-backed metasurface, allowing us to demonstrate high-resolution polarimetric imaging using a single transceiver and frequency sweep over the operational microwave bandwidth. The frequency-diverse metasurface imager greatly simplifies the system architecture compared with active arrays and other conventional microwave imaging approaches. We further develop the theoretical framework for computational polarimetric imaging and validate the approach experimentally using a multi-modal leaky cavity. The scalar approximation for the interaction between the radiated waves and the target---often applied in microwave computational imaging schemes---is thus extended to retrieve the susceptibility tensors, and hence providing additional information about the targets. Computational polarimetry has relevance for existing systems in the field that extract polarimetric imagery, and particular for ground observation. A growing number of short-range microwave imaging applications can also notably benefit from computational polarimetry, particularly for imaging objects that are difficult to reconstruct when assuming scalar estimations.Comment: 17 pages, 15 figure

The Road to 6G: Ten Physical Layer Challenges for Communications Engineers

While the deployment of 5G cellular systems will continue well in to the next decade, much interest is already being generated towards technologies that will underlie its successor, 6G. Undeniably, 5G will have transformative impact on the way we live and communicate, yet, it is still far away from supporting the Internet-of-Everything (IoE), where upwards of a million devices per $\textrm{km}^3$ (both terrestrial and aerial) will require ubiquitous, reliable, low-latency connectivity. This article looks at some of the fundamental problems that pertain to key physical layer enablers for 6G. This includes highlighting challenges related to intelligent reflecting surfaces, cell-free massive MIMO and THz communications. Our analysis covers theoretical modeling challenges, hardware implementation issues and scalability among others. The article concludes by delineating the critical role of signal processing in the new era for wireless communications.Comment: IEEE Communications Magazine, Accepte

Computational Microwave Imaging Using 3D Printed Conductive Polymer Frequency-Diverse Metasurface Antennas

A frequency-diverse computational imaging system synthesized using three-dimensional (3D) printed frequency-diverse metasurface antennas is demonstrated. The 3D fabrication of the antennas is achieved using a combination of PolyLactic Acid (PLA) polymer material and conductive polymer material (Electrifi), circumventing the requirement for expensive and time-consuming conventional fabrication techniques, such as machine milling, photolithography and laser-etching. Using the 3D printed frequency- diverse metasurface antennas, a composite aperture is designed and simulated for imaging in the K-band frequency regime (17.5-26.5 GHz). The frequency-diverse system is capable of imaging by means of a simple frequency-sweep in an-all electronic manner, avoiding mechanical scanning and active circuit components. Using the synthesized system, microwave imaging of objects is achieved at the diffraction limit. It is also demonstrated that the conductivity of the Electrifi polymer material significantly affects the performance of the 3D printed antennas and therefore is a critical factor governing the fidelity of the reconstructed images.Comment: Original manuscript as submitted to IET Microwaves, Antennas & Propagation (2017). 17 pages, 8 figure