Offset Fresnel zone plate antennas

The theory of offset Fresnel zone plate antennas is presented. Explicit formulae for the design of the zone boundaries for the offset Fresnel zone plate are given. Theorectical equations and numerical results for the far-field analysis are presented. It is found that when the offset angle increases, the zone boundaries become more elliptic and the plate becomes more asymmetric in the E-plane. With the number of full wave zones and the plate width in the W-plane fixed, the plate width in the E-plane increases with the offset angle, which keeps the projected aperture area constant. Within a limited range of offset angles, the offset configuration can be employed without degrading the radiation performance much. For large offset angles, however, the asymmetry of the configuration may lead to increased sidelobes and decreased antenna directivity. An experiment with one particular phase reversal zone plate antenna with 30° offset angle shows good agreement between the measured antenna pattern and the theoretical prediction.     

Multilayer phase correcting fresnel zone plate reflector antennas

Owing to its flat nature and light weight etc., the Fresnel zone plate antenna is becoming very attractive for such applications as DBS reception and receive-only VSAT. The disadvantages of low efficiency and high sidelobes of the simple and the phase reversing zone plates can be improved by using phase correcting techniques. In this paper, a systematic investigation on the efficiency and sidelobe performance of subzone phase correcting zone plate antennas is presented. The design of a form of multilayer phase correcting zone plate reflector is described. A quarter-wave zone plate reflector constructed with three dielectric layers and metallized rings is reported, with measured peak efficiency of 55 per cent.     

Compound Fresnel Zone Lens Conformal to Truncated Cone: Antenna Application

A millimeter wave antenna consisting of two Fresnel zone plate lenses, plane and conical, is examined numerically by use of the vector diffraction theory. The lenses are of Wood-Wiltse (double-dielectric) or Soret (half-open) type, and are designed for the frequency of 117 GHz. The lenses are made conformal to a truncated circular cone with a base diameter of 500 mm and a plateau diameter of 250 mm. Designs for two opening semi-angles, 45° and 75° each of them with a particular lens thickness are presented. For the angle of 90° the cone lens becomes a plane ring lens, which in combination with the plateau zone lens forms a plane lens of size equal to the cone base diameter. Illuminated by directive feeds set at a focal distance of 525 mm from the cone apex, the double-dielectric and half-open compound and plane lenses, form three pairs of Fresnel zone lens antennas, the co-polar and cross-polar radiation characteristics of which have been compared numerically. The double-dielectric lens antennas examined are about 5 dB superior in gain to the half-open lens antennas, which has a gain of approximately 45 dBi. Because all lenses are of equal transverse aperture, the corresponding lens antennas exhibit the same ?3 dB beamwidth of about 0.33 degrees. The plane zone lens antenna is very thin and simple. Instead, the antenna comprising a 3-D compound Fresnel zone lens is thicker but can be made conformal to a specific surface shape and possesses more levels of design and optimization freedom.     

A Full Electromagnetic Analysis of Grooved-Dielectric Fresnel Zone Plate Antennas for Microwave and Millimeter-Wave Applications

Grooved-dielectric, phase-correcting, Fresnel zone plate antennas are analyzed using the body-of-revolution finite-difference time-domain (BOR-FDTD) method. Parametric studies of the focusing ability of these antennas are performed to examine the effects of the focal length, diameter, number of zones, and the thickness of the lens, as well as the number of phase corrections per zone. The results of these studies are presented as design graphs and are used to lend insight into the focusing mechanism of phase-correcting zone plates. The BOR-FDTD analysis is validated by comparison with previous measurements.     

SEP calculations for coherent M‐ary FSK in different fading channels with MRC diversity

In this paper, the authors derive symbol error probability (SEP) expressions for coherent M‐ary frequency shift keying (MFSK) modulation schemes in multipath fading channels. The multipath or small‐scale fading process is assumed to be slow and frequency non‐selective. In addition, the channel is also subjected to the usual degradation caused by the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN). Different small‐scale fading statistics such as Rayleigh, Rician (Nakagami‐n), Hoyt (Nakagami‐q), and Nakagami‐m have been considered to portray diverse wireless environments. Further, to mitigate fading effects through space diversity, the receiver front‐end is assumed to be equipped with multiple antennas. Independent and identically distributed (IID) as well as uncorrelated signal replicas received through all these antennas are combined with a linear combiner before successive demodulation. As the detection is coherent in nature and thus involves phase estimation, optimum phase‐coherent combining algorithms, such as predetection maximal ratio combining (MRC), may be used without any added complexity to the receiver. In the current text, utilizing the alternate expressions for integer powers (1≤n≤4) of Gaussian Q function, SEP values of coherent MFSK are obtained through moment generating function (MGF) approach for all the fading models (with or without MRC diversity) described above. The derived end expressions are composed of finite range integrals, which can be numerically computed with ease, dispenses with the need of individual expressions for different M, and gives exact values up to M=5. When the constellation size becomes bigger (M≥6), the same SEP expressions provide a quite realistic approximation, much tighter than the bounds found in previous literatures. Error probabilities are graphically displayed for each fading model with different values of constellation size M, diversity order L, and for corresponding fading parameters (K, q, or m). To validate the proposed approximation method extensive Monte‐Carlo simulations were also performed, which show a close match with the analytical results deduced in the paper. Both these theoretical and simulation results offer valuable insight to assess the efficacy of relatively less studied coherent MFSK in the context of the optimum modulation choice in wireless communication. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Curvilinear Fresnel-Zone Plate Lens Antenna: Vector Radiation Theory

A generalized vector diffraction theory of the half-open curvilinear Fresnel zone plate (FZP) tens antenna that is valid for any lens profile shape is presented. It is an extension to the vector Kirchhoff diffraction theory for the plane half-open FZP lens antenna and is based on the conical-segment lens profile approximation. An equation for the electric far-field vector is derived from which follow the expressions for the co- and cross-polarization radiation patterns and directive gain. The proposed theory is utilized for a numerical analysis and comparison of 140-GHz curvilinear half-open FZP lens antennas grouped in two distinct sets:

1. (a)
   Set I: antennas with different in shape FZP lenses (plane, conical, parabolic and spherical) having the same number of zones. All eurvilinear FZP antenna lenses are designed for similar gain, co- and cross-polarization performance and bandwidth, regardless of the lens-profile.
    
2. (b)
   Set II: antennas with different in shape FZP lenses and different number of zones. Since this affects gain, polarization and bandwidth performance, to make the characteristics of these FZP lens antennas practically equal to those of Set I, antenna feeds with different gain patterns have been used.
    

     

On the relationship between fractal dimension and the performance of multi-resonant dipole antennas using Koch curves

This paper relates for the first time, multiple resonant frequencies of fractal element antennas using Koch curves to their fractal dimension. Dipole and monopole antennas based fractal Koch curves studied so far have generally been limited to certain standard configurations of the geometry. It is possible to generalize the geometry by changing its indentation angle, to vary its fractal similarity dimension. This variation results in self-similar geometry which can be generated by a recursive algorithm. Such a variation is found to have a direct influence on the input characteristics of dipole antennas. The primary resonant frequency, the input resistance at this resonance, and the ratio of first two resonant frequencies, have all been directly related to the fractal dimension. Curve-fit expressions can also be obtained for the performance of antennas at their primary resonance, in terms of fractal iteration and fractal dimension. The antenna characteristics have been studied using extensive numerical simulations and are experimentally verified. These findings underscore the significance of fractal dimension as an important mathematical property of fractals that can be used as a design parameter for antennas. The use of these ideas would not only reduce the computational intensity of optimization approaches for design of fractal shaped antennas, but also help antenna designers approach the problem systematically. Design formulation for antennas based on other fractal geometries can be similarly obtained after identifying suitable parameters of variation. This would therefore help analytical design of multiband and multifunctional antennas using fractal geometries.     

Analysis of Antenna Gain Enhancement with a New Planar Metamaterial Superstrate: an Effective Medium and a Fabry-Pérot Resonance Approach

We have compared gain enhancement behavior of patch and horn antennas from two different points of view: namely, effective medium analysis and a Fabry-Pérot cavity resonance approach. To examine how a near-zero refractive index (n) affects the performance of antennas, we designed a new planar metamaterial (MTM) superstrate, which can produce negative, zero, and positive values of n at around 2 GHz. We placed the MTM superstrate very close to the patch and horn antennas to see whether an n value that is effectively near zero can collimate antenna beams and increase antenna gain, which provided opposite gain behavior for the two antennas. To explain the dissimilar enhancement in the gain of the patch and horn antennas, we retrieved constitutive parameters from the proposed MTM superstrate and discussed the effect of various incidence angles upon the superstrate. In addition, to increase the gain further, we examined appropriate resonant heights between the antennas and the superstrate. Consequently, with the help of Fabry-Pérot cavity resonance, we obtained relatively high antenna gain. Moreover, the results of the prediction are in good agreement with the results of the measurement.     

Continuous Phase Modulation and Space-Time Coding: A Candidate for Wireless Robotics

The physical layer(s) of wireless robotics take advantage of current standards, like Bluetooth, Wifi, etc., each of them addressing a specific segment of wireless robotics. Wireless robotics has a wide range of needs, comprising low power, robustness and high data rate when video is used as well as the opportunity to use a large number of transceivers. To cover these needs and take benefit from these opportunities, we propose a new physical layer, based on continuous phase modulation (CPM) and space-time coding. CPM, already used in some standards like GSM and Bluetooth, enables the development of low power devices, but presents a low spectral efficiency. Space-time coding on the other hand yields high spectral efficiency as well as enhanced robustness against the wireless channel. Moreover, space-time coding can take benefit of the large number of transceivers using cooperative communications. In this paper, after analysing the opportunities given by wireless robotics as well as its specific needs, we propose a new physical layer based on L ²-orthogonality for non-linear space-time codes. L ²-orthogonality of our codes is ensured by a bank of phase correction functions, maintaining phase continuity, but at the same time enabling low complexity decoding. We show that the code achieves full diversity and has full rate, for any number of transmit/receive antennas and any CPM parameter.     

Design and analysis of a folded Fresnel Zone Plate antenna

Based on the Kirchhoff-Huygens diffraction theory, a simple analytical method of a planar folded Fresnel zone-plate (FZP), that is the case when a planar reflector is placed behind the zone plates, has been developed. According to the numerical calculation results, the design procedure of the FZP antenna has been presented, and its focusing characteristics and gain-optimized conditions have been discussed. The variations of the focal field distribution with the antenna parameters such as zone numbers, focal length and antenna diameter and the radiation power patterns of the FZP have been simulated numerically. To take a good balance of both receiving and transmitting antennas, at 60GHz operating frequency, the focal length should be designed as a half of the antenna diameter and the zone number should be from 10 to 15. The results in this work show that the folded FZP has good focal characteristics and off-axis performance, and its antenna gain can be optimized by the suitable antenna parameter design. The possibility of applying the folded FZP as a low cost and high gain antenna without strict manufacturing requirement for millimeter-wave communications has been shown.     

CPW-fed stacked microstrip antennas

This paper presents a systematic parameter study of aperture-coupled stacked patch antennas fed by coplanar waveguide. These antennas are to be used at millimeter-wave frequencies in the 30-GHz range. The influence of the most important design parameters, such as patch dimensions, aperture dimensions, and substrate thicknesses, was studied extensively. It has been found that these antennas can easily be impedance-matched by tuning the dimensions of the excitation slot and adding a small tuning stub. In this way, an antenna element with a -10 dB impedance bandwidth of 36.8% has been designed. Furthermore, the results of this parameter study have allowed to formulate some general guidelines concerning the design of this type of antenna element.     

基于超表面的天线多波束偏转技术研究北大核心CSCD

5G移动通信对天线提出了多极化、多频段、多波束等更高的技术需求。超表面具有很强的电磁调控能力,利用这一特性可以实现天线多波束偏转。本文首先提出新型的基于行波激励网络的双波束偏转方法,利用超表面实现定向波束可控,设计了单频低副瓣高增益的双波束超表面天线。其次,提出基于多相位自由度理论的双频行波激励网络,结合双频超表面,设计了双频双波束偏转角可独立控制的超表面天线。在此基础上,提出基于正相位响应理论的稳定波束偏转角的方法,设计了具有稳定波束的±45°双极化超表面天线。与传统多波束方法相比,本方法省略了复杂的波束形成网络,设计简单、结构紧凑,而且能够实现双频、双极化等特性,可为新一代移动通信天线的研制提供技术思路。     

Determination of the Phase Centers of Millimeter-Wave Horn Antennas Using a Holographic Interference Technique

In this paper, we discuss how a holographic interference technique can be applied in the experimental determination of the phase centers of non-standard horn antennas in the millimeter-waveband. The phase center is the point inside the horn from which the radiation appears to emanate when viewed from the far-field, and knowing its location is necessary for optimizing coupling efficiencies to quasi-optical systems. For non-standard horn designs, and other feed structures, the phase center may be difficult to reliably predict by simulation, in which case, before committing to antenna manufacture, there is a requirement for it to be determined experimentally. Although the phase center can be recovered by direct phase measurement of the far-field beam pattern, this usually involves expensive instrumentation such as a vector network analyzer for millimeter wave horn antennas. In this paper, we describe one inexpensive alternative, which is based on measuring the interference pattern in intensity between the radiation from the horn of interest and a reference beam derived from the same coherent source in an off-axis holography setup. The accuracy of the approach is improved by comparison with the interference pattern of a well-understood standard horn (such as a corrugated conical horn) in the same experimental setup. We present an example of the technique applied to a profiled smooth-walled horn antenna, which has been especially designed for cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization experiments.     

Two signaling schemes for improving the error performance of frequency division duplex (FDD) transmission systems using transmitter antenna diversity

We propose two signaling schemes that exploit the availability of multiple (N) antennas at the transmitter to provide diversity benefit to the receiver. This is typical of cellular radio systems where a mobile is equipped with only one antenna while the base station is equipped with multiple antennas. We further assume that the mobile-to-base and base-to-mobile channel variations are statistically independent and that the base station has no knowledge of the base-to-mobile channel characteristics. In the first scheme, a channel code of lengthN and minimum Hamming distanced _minN is used to encode a group ofK information bits. Channel code symbolc _i is transmitted with thei th antenna. At the receiver, a maximum likelihood decoder for the channel code provides a diversity ofd _min as long as each transmitted code symbol is subjected to independent fading. This can be achieved by spacing the transmit antennas several wavelengths apart. The second scheme introduces deliberate resolvable multipath distortion by transmitting the data-bearing signal with antenna 1, andN–1 delayed versions of it with antennas 2 throughN. The delays are unique to each antenna and are chosen to be multiples of the symbol interval. At the receiver, a maximum likelihood sequence estimator resolves the multipath in an optimal manner to realize a diversity benefit ofN. Both schemes can suppress co-channel interference. We provide code constructions and simulation results for scheme 1 to demonstrate its merit. We derive the receiver structure and provide a bound on the error probability for scheme 2 which we show to be tight, by means of simulations, for the nontrivial and perhaps the most interesting caseN=2 antennas. The second scheme is backward-compatible with two of the proposed digital cellular system standards, viz., GSM for Europe and IS-54 for North America.     

Coupler-Type Bend for Pillbox Antennas

A new type of 180/spl deg/ H-plane bend has been developed for use in double-layer pillbox antennas. This bend, called a coupler-type bend, permits complete coupling between two pillbox layers with a minimum of reflection, cross-polarization, and defocusing. It can be used with short focus antennas where large feed angles are involved. The coupler-type bend utilizes a metal plate between the pillbox layers; the plate coutains a pattern of holes which achieves the desired coupling. Analytical and experimental programs have been implemented to determine the optimum hole size and distribution. Simulation techniques in rectangular waveguide were employed for convenience in measurements. The bend design was measured to have a reflection less than 2 dB SWR over a ten percent frequeucy band; this is computed to contribute less than 0.2 dB SWR to the reflection seen by the feed-horn of a double-layer pillbox. The bend introduces less than --22 dB of cross-polarization in the antenna radiation. Measurements of a pillbox model incorporating the bend design have verified the predicted performance of the coupler-type bend.     

Adaptive Channel‐Matched Extended Alamouti Space‐Time Code Exploiting Partial Feedback

Since the publication of Alamouti's famous space‐time block code, various quasi‐orthogonal space‐time block codes (QSTBC) for multi‐input multi‐output (MIMO) fading channels for more than two transmit antennas have been proposed. It has been shown that these codes cannot achieve full diversity at full rate. In this paper, we present a simple feedback scheme for rich scattering (flat Rayleigh fading) MIMO channels that improves the coding gain and diversity of a QSTBC for 2ⁿ (n = 3, 4,…) transmit antennas. The relevant channel state information is sent back from the receiver to the transmitter quantized to one or two bits per code block. In this way, signal transmission with an improved coding gain and diversity near to the maximum diversity order is achieved. Such high diversity can be exploited with either a maximum‐likelihood receiver or low‐complexity zero‐forcing receiver.     

Dual-Mode Space-Temporal Simultaneous Processing Equalizer

A tapped delayed line adaptive array antenna (TDL-AAA) and a space-temporal simultaneous processing equalizer (ST-SPE) are proposed as simple space-temporal equalizers based on minimum mean square error (MMSE) criterion. The ST-SPE has a compact hardware with a small number of taps compared to that of the TDL-AAA. The ST-SPE can reduce the computational complexity of the space-temporal joint equalization and it works effectively under the minimum phase condition such as appeared at line-of-sight (LOS) propagation environments at a high antenna height base station. However the ST-SPE cannot work under a non-minimum phase condition caused under N-LOS (non-line-of-sight). On the other hand, the TDL-AAA whose reference signal is synchronized at the center tap (TDL-AAA_C) can work even in the non-minimum phase condition. In this paper, we propose a dual-mode space-temporal simultaneous processing equalizer (Dual-mode ST-SPE) which has a simple configuration and also works in non-minimum phase condition. The Dual-mode ST-SPE can reduce the computational complexity compared to the TDL-AAA_C. Yoshihiro Ichikawa received the B.E. degree in department of communication engineering, in National Defense Academy in 1995, and M.E. and D.E. degree from Ibaraki University in 2001 and 2004, respectively. He joined the Japan Air Self Defense Force in 1995. His research interests are an adaptive algorithm, an antenna design, and an adaptive array antenna. Shigeki Obote received his B.E., M.E. and D.E. degrees in electrical and electronic engineering from Tottori University, Tottori, Japan, in 1996, 1998 and 2000, respectively. Since 2000, he has been with department of media and telecommunications engineering, faculty of engineering, Ibaraki University, Ibaraki, Japan, where he is currently a associate professor. His research interests are in adaptive array antenna and wireless communications systems. Kenichi Kagoshima received the B.E., M.E. and D.E. degrees in electronics engineering from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan, in 1969, 1971, and 1974, respectively. He joined the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) Laboratory in 1974 and researched and developed many kinds of radio communication antennas. Since 1997, he has been a professor at Ibaraki University, Ibaraki, Japan. Dr. Kagoshima was a Secretary and Treasure, Vice Chairman, and Chairman of the IEEE AP-S Tokyo Chapter in 1992, 1993, and 1994, respectively. He was a chair of antennas and propagation professional group of IEICE in 1999 and 2000. In 1973, he received the Yonezawa Prize for Young Engineers and 1998, best paper award from IEICE, respectively.     

High-rate Complex Orthogonal Space-time Block Codes for 5 and 6 Transmit Antennas

Based on orthogonal designs, space-time (ST) block codes that enable full diversity as well as a simple maximum likelihood (ML) decoding algorithm at the decoder can be constructed for more than two transmit antennas. For real constellations (such as PAM), ST block codes with transmission rate 1 can be designed from the real Hurwitz-Radon families for any number of transmit antennas. However, for complex constellations (such as M-PSK or M-QAM), ST block codes for more than two transmit antennas can only be constructed with rates less than 1. Previous attempts have been concentrated on complex orthogonal designs that provide ST block codes with full diversity and high transmission rates. In this paper, we present two rate 2/3 complex ST block codes from orthogonal designs for five and six transmit antennas, respectively. Simulation results are provided to demonstrate the significant performance gains made by the proposed ST block codes.

First Harmonic (2f) Characterisation of Resonant Frequency and Q-Factor of Micromechanical Transducers

In this paper, the response to the first harmonic component (2f) of the electrostatic force in single terminal driven electrostatic comb-drive and parallel-plate drive was used as a signal to extract device parameters, namely, the Q-factor and resonant frequency instead of the fundamental (1f) resonance response. It is shown that the difficulty in motional measurement due to electrical cross-talk (parasitics) using 1f measurement can be overcome with a higher signal-to-noise ratio of the 2f signal. Both atmospheric (low-Q) and reduced pressure environment were investigated using off-chip electronics and lock-in amplifier. The measurements were done on the electrostatic comb-drive and capacitive parallel plate sensing plates that form the two core modules of a yaw rate sensor (dual-axis resonator). The effects of AC and DC bias voltages on the measured response have been investigated. Experimental amplitude and phase response data have been analysed using the Lorentzian curve-fit, Resonance Curve Area (RCA) method, the half-power bandwidth method (3 dB) and the Nyquist plot for data fitting and determination of the Q-factor and resonance frequency.