Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Cardama Aznar, Ángel

English

Angel Cardama

Crossref

Perspectives of the European academic research in the microwave and millimeter wave area

UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC

Perspectives of the European academic research inthe microwave and millimeter wave areaAngel CardamaPolytechnic University of Catalonia, P.O.Barcelona, SpoinBox 30002, 08071-When the Chairman invited me to present this talk on our futureperspectives, he pointed out I should consider emphasizing thegeneral aspects, leaving out the more detailed technical features.I was at first concerned by the difficulties of addressing thoseissues, instead of the more narrow technical ones, that we are allmore familiar with, and feel more comfortable presenting. Giventhat the conference program has an in-depth coverage of the mostrecent and relevant work performed in the field, and we have asizeable number of invited papers that will give you a tutorialperspective of the topics of present interest, I hope not todisappoint many of you by bringing up some points morefrequently debated around a cup of coffee than in the conferencefloor.I will take the view of considering only the European academiccommunity, giving you some candid personal opinions and tryingnot to exhaust the time allowed, so some of you in the audiencecould bring up different comments or opinions, and arguedifferently on this subject.I feel it is appropriate to bring forward this matter at this time,when we have a very successful conference in terms of attendanceand technical quality of the contributions and, at the same time,one can perceive a general atmosphere of economic, social andindustrial crisis. It is in those moments, when one is at acrossroad, that the possible paths to follow should be consideredand its difficulties assessed.Let me start by asking some key questions on aspects that Ibelieve will greatly influence our future:* Are we a well established community, working in a field withmost of its groundwork already done and its research tools wellknown?Is there any room for future breakthroughs?Will they occur in other related fields with little participationand benefit on our part?Where are they most likely to appear?In what areas will our technology be applied to solve existing ornew problems, or to satisfy social needs or demands?* Is our an aging field where we can only foresee minor growth?If so, how should we position ourselves, both individually and asa group?* Is the size of our community appropriate?Is it oversized or there is still room for growth?Is there any real academic future for our young researchers andgraduate students?Is this a field they should enter confidently or will they be betteroff pursuing a career elsewhere?* What will be the impact of the European Community policyregarding research and development funding, and researchersmobility?Will it have an strong impact or national policies will continueto set the trends of our research efforts?This is a sample of what I feel are some of the questions thatmany of us ask ourselves quite frequently, especially in very hardtimes. I will try to comment on some of them, for others, Ihonestly do not have a clear answer, and its perception could bequite different depending on country, university or researchgroup.From a very general point of view, ours is what we may call aclassical field, in the sense this word is used in physics, forexample. In many aspects, most of the basics are well established,so we keep increasing the realm of knowledge by building on verysolid foundations, with new tools introduced from time to time.Fortunately, we are a technology driven field, sustained by newdevices and systems with a final aim of commercial application.Radio is the backbone of broadcasting, satellite communications,mobile communications, both outdoor and indoor, remote sensingand global positioning, that will support those emergingtechnologies of wireless personal communications, (imaginecalling from anyplace and at anytime!), or intelligent highwaysand navigation systems. It is evident that research efforts in thisarea are more and more centered around industries than inacademic institutions.Also, one should not forget that, in most instances, universitypositions are opened (or closed!) on the basis of teaching loads,although a research profile is in some way always considered.Broadly speaking, two kind of courses can be found in ourcurricula, very basic core courses, that can be taught by a broadspectrum of faculty members and a highly specialized set ofadvanced courses taken only by a reduced number of highlymotivated, usually very bright students. This tends to make thingsharder, since, unless there is an strong research activity in thefield, EM theory related courses in an institution could very wellbe taught by a faculty with research interests in a different field.This is a trend that has been going on in some US Universities formany years, even though it has to be said that new successfulprograms have also been established in others.Looking into the past, one may find fields where we havemaintained a solid grasp, while others have developed very fast ina large community on its own. Examples of the first arecomputational methods for microwave structures and devicesantennas and guided and non-guided wave propagation, whilelightwave communications or adaptive arrays are examples of thelast.Fiber opitics communications is an area worth dwelling on for asecond, given its past, and the future implications it will continueto have. I1. grew up with the very active participation of prominentmembers of our community, drawing expertise from people with abackground on wave and beam propagation, optics, materialssciences, microelectronics and communications. At present, I cansee more or less the same kind of situation in the areas of nonguided optical communications (inter-satellite links and opticalground -stations), quasi-optical techniques for wave beampropagation at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths, andoptical-microwave interactions, all three of them fields that mayhave a rapid development in the future, and we should explorecarefully in search of opportunities.Looking into another closely related field of activity, thecontinuous trend in microelectronics towards sizes deep into thesubmicron region, and multi-gigabit logic, will keep demandingwave-like methods of analysis. In this context, interconnectionand packaging problems will continue to require full wavesolutions. Also, in present day high capacity communicationssystems, intermediate frequencies or even baseband signals fallinto the microwave region, requiring in its design well knowntools of our trade.Compatibility problems will increase steadily and the need ofinterference suppression techniques will accompany us in thefuture. Again, this is a multidisciplinary field whereelectromnagnetics will play an important role.Going into more closely related fields, antennas is one of themost amazing ones to comment. If Hertz were to revive, he wouldundoubtedly recognize many of the types of antennas he would beseeirng around, and still, it is a burgeoning field with new types of6antennas coexisting with very old ones, where also a very highdegree of refinement in performance evaluation and design hasbeen achieved. Just to show an example, microstrip antennas, analready heavily worked topic, hold a promising future for its lowcost, simplicity of fabrication, conformability, and easy integrationwith circuits. Computed aided design and modelling of thepatches and arrays, broadbanding, incorporation of newsubstrates (superconductors, anisotropic or low-loss materials)and integration with electro-optics and optical fiber devices areareas that will continue to require large research efforts. Antennaintegration with transceiver modules in large arrays is anotherarea of great interest.Adaptive arrays is a topic that has grown mostly outside theradiofrequency community, with most of the work done by signalprocessing people. There is ample room for work in this field asmost of the sensors used are electromagnetic. Besides theclassical uses as side lobe cancellers, direction of arrivalestimators or adaptive nulling, the great recent advances in theperformance of analog-to-digital converters could also foster theuse of digital beamforming in communications systems.Mobile communications have seen an explosive growth in recentyears, and propagation models are still the subject of activeresearch, as much as devices and subsystems. An unexpectedconcern for the effects of radiofrequencies on the human body, asa consequence of the widespread use of portable equipment, hasarisen and there is a renewed interest on evaluating theinteraction of electromagnetic fields with human tissues.Bioelectromagnetics, a subject that seems to be fading away, isnot really doing so, and activity in this area should go on in thefuture.Satellite communications systems will always be a highlyspecialized field, with most of the work directly supported by ESAor industrial companies. Some university groups are maintaining,and will continue to do so in the future, very successful researchprograms on antennas and beamforming networks.Remote sensing is an area that will maintain an interest. Newsystems are been considered and there is a social awareness and apolitical acceptance of its needs, that can be also extended to allthe environmental matters. Microwave systems are now in anearly stage, as were optical systems some years ago, and they areexpected to reach also widespread use. A somewhat related field,microwave imaging is slowly progressing into industrialapplications, as well as microwave power is finding its way intothe processing of materials.Radar will find an extensive use in civilian applications, outsideair traffic control and navigation. Any intelligent highway systemwill depend both on radio for communications and positioning,and on radar for cruising control and collision avoidance.Surveillance systems will also be using microwave technologies,and data fusion from very different sensors is an area widely open.To sum up and answer some of the starting questions, ours iscertainly not an exhausted field, but is the subject of vigorouscompetition, where no simple problem remain to be solved orgroundbreaking technologies are bringing up new easy unsolvedquestions. Most of our work, either involve complex fieldoperators and require sofisticated numerical codes, or is stronglydependent on technology. This defines a mature field, dynamicallygrowing from well established grounds.Research has never been an easy task, besides performing it, weare all expert administrators, accountants, negotiators, salesmen,and even typists. On top of that, it might be the time to consideropening up new research lines, without abandoning present daytopics. The problems are becoming more and more complex, theyare often dependent on available technologies and frequentlyrequire an industrial partner. Given that, one should considerentering a new field or at least exploring selectively the topics inrelated areas where his background or expertise could be applied.As pointed out, in a very general way, there are some open fieldsof activity in addition to the ones we are all deeply involved with.I do not see, in the future, many growth opportunities in theacademic community. First of all because of demographic reasons,at least in western Europe, secondly because this is a wellestablished field with most of the available positions alreadyfilled, and finally because I feel it is oversized in general terms.There is little to comment on the first two reasons. The third onemay riot be easy to sustain. I have run a very simple test, that itmay not be statistically correct, but I think points out in thatdirection. Taking the full year of 1992 of the IEEE Transactions onMTT and checking the authors with a permanent status, thenumber from European academic organizations was about 40%higher than those from north-American institutions, and roughlyeight times the number from Japanese universities. Those figureshave a very positive reading on the quality of our research groups,but also, if one takes into account the disparity on publicationhabits, the different national scientific outputs across Europe,and a natural tendency to publish in national journals andsymposia, I believe the size of our community is larger thanexpected and this should be a point of consideration regarding afuture academic career in this field.Let me comment briefly on the European Community policyregarding research and development. As is well known, most ofthe fuinding is directed to industrial consortia, that almost alwaysinclude university partners. The latest workplan of RACEcontemplated tasks on personal communications systems,integration of satellites in the future mobile networks, andcomponents for mobile telecommunications systems. The otherlarge Information Technologies program, ESPRIT, contained, in itslatest workplan, activities on MMICs and on high performancecomputers. Those were the only microwave related tasks. By far,the program that will have a wider impact is the human capitaland mobility, that is promoting networking between academicinstitutions and awarding fellowships for the mobility of younggraduates. It is open to all fields of sciences and technologies. Inall, except for this last program, the community funding will havea minor effect on setting the pace of university research in themicrowave field. Scientific guidelines will have to be issued bynational bodies and financial support should keep coming fromnationial sources.There are some research topics that will be sustained byexisting resources or that will only require access tocomputational facilities already available. Many others requireexternal resources and equipment, so they will be dependent onindust;rial contracts or funding from national agencies. A short listof some topics that will continue to receive support follows.Automobile and transport applicationsBioelectromagneticsCAD and modelling of circuits and componentsComputational electromagneticsElectromagnetic compatibilityMIMICMicrowave imagingMicrowave industrial applicationsMillimeter wave systemsMobile communicationsNavigation and positioning systemsOptical communicationsRemote sensingSatellite communications

Perspectives of the european academic research in the microwave..

UPCommons

UPCommons (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya)

https://upcommons.upc.edu/bitstream/2117/100932/1/04136515.pdf

Perspectives of the european academic research in the microwave..

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Crossref

UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC

UPCommons

UPCommons (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya)