Antenna design strategy and demonstration for software-defined radio (SDR)

Antennas are a key enabling technology for software-defined radio (SDR). Although software is extremely flexible, SDR??s potential is limited by antenna size and performance. In this paper, we review typical antenna miniaturization techniques and fundamental theories that limit antenna size and performance including operational bandwidth, gain (or range), and radiation pattern. Possible antenna design strategies are discussed to meet the desired specifications in SDR based on observations from the limit theories. The application of strategies to enable multiband (resonant), continuous multiband (frequency independent), and instantaneous, ultra-wideband antennas are discussed qualitatively. Advantages, disadvantages, and design trade-off strategies for different types of antennas are compared from a system-level perspective. A design example for a compact ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna is presented for a software-defined platform. The example involves a direct-conversion radio developed in Wireless@VT that uses a Motorola RFIC having a 100 MHz?C6 GHz operational frequency range with a 9 kHz?C20 MHz channel bandwidth. The example antenna covers frequencies from 450 MHz to 6 GHz instantaneously with approximately 5-dBi realized gain over a finite-size ground plane, including return loss and omni-directional coverage.     

全球通用三频段GSM单芯片收发信机

本文所述是一个全球通用GSM单芯片收发信机的实现方式 ,介绍了基于GSM标准的多频段无线结构方框 ,讨论了此类结构方框实现全球通用GSM收发信机的可能性。该单芯片集成电路使用了0 5 μmBiCMOS工艺 ,并封装在一块“9× 9”的CABGA中。本文还介绍了该收发信机工作参数的测量结果。     

Investigation of reliability issues in high power laser diode bar packages

As applications continue to demand increasingly higher optical output power and longer lifetime, thermo-mechanical stresses on dissimilar materials interfaced for packaging pose an ever-growing challenge for the realization of a durable system. Particularly important for an epitaxy-down configuration is the die-attachment interface, which is desired to be defect free and stress managed for reliable optical alignment. A knowledge of the changes in the physical defect density and magnitude of the thermo-mechanical stress present in the active region as a function of the fabrication process and aging is crucial to an understanding of the influence of the process parameters and operating conditions on device performance and reliability. In this study, we investigated high power laser diode array packages aged under various conditions. Microscopic defect analyses of the die attachment interface and device stress were carried out using primarily metallography, scanning electron microscopy, scanning acoustic microscopy, microhardness, and micro-Raman spectroscopy. It was noted that the intermetallic compounds and microscopic physical defects at the die attach interface are detrimental to transient heat transfer, and thus, overall package reliability. Using micro-Raman spectroscopy, we found that tensile stress near the bar-package interface increases with aging for the first few hundred hours and then decreases with further aging.     

依靠Visual Basic运行的信号发生器

用两片IC和几个元件产生1kHz至68MHz的信号。测试应用经常需要时钟信号。你可以不使用函数发生器,可以仅用两片IC来构建可编程时钟发生器。然后可以用Visual Basic应用软件来控制时钟发生器,该软件可处理频率设置,提供互动显示,并通过PC的串口     

Direct Writing of Gallium‐Indium Alloy for Stretchable Electronics

In this paper, a direct writing method for gallium‐indium alloys is presented. The relationships between nozzle inner diameter, standoff distance, flow rate, and the resulting trace geometry are demonstrated. The interaction between the gallium oxide layer and the substrate is critically important in understanding the printing behavior of the liquid metal. The difference between receding and advancing contact angles demonstrates that the adhesion of the oxide layer to the substrate surface is stronger than the wetting of the surface by the gallium‐indium alloy. This further demonstrates why free‐standing structures such as the traces described herein can be realized. In addition to the basic characterization of the direct writing process, a design algorithm that is generalizable to a range of trace geometries is developed. This method is applied to the fabrication of an elastomer‐encapsulated strain gauge that displays an approximately linear behavior through 50% strain with a gauge factor of 1.5.     

Observability of nonlinear differential algebraic systems

We define the smooth observability of nonlinear DAE systems and give sufficient conditions for this property to hold locally in a neighborhood of a solution. The matrix rank conditions for observability are verifiable by a combination of symbolic and numerical linear algebra computations. These conditions generalize conditions that have appeared in the literature for observability of linear time-varying DAE systems. We indicate how the main result is potentially useful in studying a system's zero dynamics. Some relevant rank properties of Hessenberg DAE systems are established.This work was supported in part by the Grant-In-Aid Program for Faculty of Virginia Commonwealth University.     

Multichannel AR parameter estimation from noisy observations as an errors-in-variables issue

In various applications from radar processing to mobile communication systems based on CDMA or OFDM, M-AR multichannel processes are often considered and may be combined with Kalman filtering. However, the estimations of the M-AR parameter matrices and the autocorrelation matrices of the additive noise and the driving process from noisy observations are key problems to be addressed. In this paper, we suggest solving them as an errors-in-variables issue. In that case, the noisy-observation autocorrelation matrix compensated by a specific diagonal block matrix and whose kernel is defined by the M-AR parameter matrices must be positive semi-definite. Hence, the parameter estimation consists in searching every diagonal block matrix that satisfies this property, in reiterating this search for a higher model order and then in extracting the solution that belongs to both sets. A comparative study is then carried out with existing methods including those based on the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) and the Sigma-Point Kalman Filters (SPKF). It illustrates the relevance and advantages of the proposed approaches.     

Interface dipole engineering at buried organic–organic semiconductor heterojunctions

A general technique for modifying energy level alignment at organic–organic heterojunctions is introduced, and is demonstrated here for phenyl-C₆₁-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) and N,N′-Di-[(1-naphthyl)-N,N′-diphenyl]-1,1′-biphenyl)-4,4′-diamine (α-NPD). An ultra-thin layer (∼1 nm) of TiO₂ is used as an adhesion template to attach a self-assembled monolayer of dipolar phosphonate (PA) molecules to the lower interface of a two-stack ensemble. This modification induces shifts in the vacuum level and work function over ∼1.0 eV depending on the molecular dipole moment of the PA, which in turn modifies the electronic level alignment across the organic heterojunction interface by up to 0.5 eV.     

群延迟可调节的巴特沃兹滤波器

Sallen-Key实现的5.25MHz三极点巴特沃兹滤波器具有2V/V的增益,并能以总增益为1驱动75Ω反接同轴电缆(图1)。这种用来重建视频分量(Y,P_b,P_r)和RGB信号的滤波器,其插入损耗在13.5MHz时大于20dB,在27MHz时大于40dB(图2)。与