Search results

The purpose of this study is to develop a method to reduce the computation time necessary for the automated optimal design of dual-band wearable antennas. In particular, the authors investigated if this can be achieved by the use of a hierarchical optimization paradigm combined with a simplified human body model. The geometry of the antenna under consideration is described via eight geometrical parameters which are automatically adjusted with the use of an evolutionary algorithm to improve the impedance matching of an antenna located in the proximity of a human body. Specifically, the antennas were designed to operate in the ISM band which covers two frequency ranges: 2.4-2.5 GHz and 5.7-5.9 GHz.

During the studies on the automated design of wearable antennas using evolutionary computing, the authors observed that not all design parameters exhibit equal influence on the objective function. Therefore, it was hypothesized that to reduce the computation effort, the design parameters can be activated sequentially based on their influence. Accordingly, the authors’ computer code has been modified to include this feature.

The authors’ novel hierarchical multi-parameter optimization method was able to converge to a better solution within a shorter time compared to an equivalent method not exploiting automatic activation of an increasing number of design parameters. Considering a significant computational cost involved in the calculation of the objective function, this exhibits a convincing advantage of their hierarchical approach, at least for the considered class of antennas.

The described method has been developed for the design of single- or dual-band wearable antennas. Its application to other classes of antennas and antenna environments may require some adjustments of the objective functions or parameter values of the evolutionary algorithm. It follows from the well-recognized fact that all optimization methods are to some extent application-specific.

Computation load involved in the automated design and optimization can be significantly reduced compared to the non-hierarchical approach with a heterogeneous human body model.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the described application of hierarchical paradigm to the optimization of wearable antennas is fully original, as well as is its combination with simplified body models.

Millimeter wave spectrum represents new opportunities to add capacity and faster speeds for next-generation services as fifth generation (5G) applications. In its Spectrum Frontiers proceeding, the Federal Communications Commision decided to focus on spectrum bands where the most spectrums are potentially available. A low profile antenna array with new decoupling structure is proposed and expected to resonate at higher frequency bands, i.e. millimeter wave frequencies, which are suitable for 5G applications.

The presented antenna contains artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) surface as decoupling structure. The proposed antenna array with novel AMC surface is operating at 29.1GHz and proven to be decoupling structure and capable of enhancing the isolation by reducing mutual coupling as 8.7dB between the array elements. It is evident that, and overall gain is improved as 10.1% by incorporating 1x2 Array with AMC Method. Mutual coupling between the elements of 1 × 2 antenna array is decreased by 39.12%.

The proposed structure is designed and simulated using HFSS software and the results are obtained in terms of return loss, gain, voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) and mutual coupling. The S-Parameters of each stage of design is tabulated and compared with each other to prove the decoupling capability of AMC surface in antenna arrays.

The proposed structure is designed and simulated using HFSS software, and the results are obtained in terms of return loss, gain, VSWR and mutual coupling. The S-Parameters of each stage of design is tabulated and compared with each other to prove the decoupling capability of AMC surface in antenna arrays.

This paper aims to presents the bandwidth enhancement of a hybrid slot–loop antenna using a modified feed structure.

The conventional monopole feed of the hybrid slot–loop radiator is loaded with a flat microstrip patch to excite higher-order modes. The proposed antenna combines the resonant modes of the slot antenna, the loop antenna and the patch loading.

The antenna exhibits a dual-band response suitable for GSM 1800/1900 and ultrawideband (UWB) standards. The impedance bandwidth extends from 1.65 to 1.95 GHz (11.42 per cent) and 3 to 11.1 GHz (114.9 per cent). The proposed antenna has the smallest footprint with a peak gain of 5.07 dBi at 1.8 GHz and 4.97 dBi at 6 GHz. The prototype antenna is fabricated and the simulation results are validated using experimental measurements. The performance of the bandwidth-enhanced hybrid slot–loop antenna is compared with that of other slot antennas.

Thus, a hybrid slot–loop antenna with an enhanced bandwidth has been reported in this study. The conventional monopole feed of the antenna is replaced with a monopole ending with a microstrip patch load. The antenna covers the operating bands of GSM 1800/1900 and UWB. The proposed antenna has a smaller footprint compared with other wide-slot antennas reported in the literature.

Planar periodic metallic arrays behave as artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) surfaces when placed on a grounded dielectric substrate, and they introduce a zero-degree reflection phase shift to incident waves. The antenna designers have new challenges while designing the AMC structure. The steps followed in designing the structure are as follows: 1) Designing the antenna, aimed to operate at millimetric wave frequencies, (2) Designing the AMC at desired frequencies, (3) Integrating the antenna design and AMC to resonate at millimetric wave frequencies and (4) Validate the output parameters of the antenna to be suitable for Internet of Things (IoT) applications.

The antenna is integrated with artificial material known as high impedance surface (HIS) for performance enhancement. A miniaturized, multiband, enhanced gain, AMC-integrated CPW-fed antenna is proposed and aimed to operate at millimetric wave frequencies, which is most suitable for IoT applications. The developed antenna operates at an extremely high range (30–300 GHz), i.e. from 40 to 60 GHz with the return loss values at lesser than −20 dB, and gain is greater than 10. The antenna is developed and simulated by using HFSS software.

An extensive research study has been carried out to develop a low profile, high gain and optimized antenna. The first two steps are separately designing the antenna and the AMC unit cell at the desired frequencies. The third step is finding the antenna or AMC radiating parts responsible for each resonant frequency by analysing the surface current distribution. CPW fed along with AMC integration has made the antenna feasible to achieve the extremely high frequency (EHF) range, i.e. 40–60 GHz, which is highly adoptable in IoT applications.

The result represented that the developed antenna is resonating at EHF rank with high gain and good imped matching when it is being compared with the previous models and has only CPW fed without having AMC structure integration. It is evident that the antenna which has only CPW fed has resonated at lower frequency than EHF range and justified output characteristics. But when it is embedded with the AMC structure, it resonates at the EHF range, which makes the antenna highly suitable for IoT applications, with more accuracy and high data rate possibility.

The purpose of this paper is to design and develop half-mode substrate-integrated waveguide (HMSIW)- and quarter-mode substrate-integrated waveguide (QMSIW)-based antennas for wireless communication application. The developed antennas offer advantages in terms of compactness, high gain and better isolation between the ports.

Initially, the tri-band substrate-integrated waveguide-based antenna is designed using a slot on the ground plane. Then, the same structure has been bisected into two parts for the development of the HMSIW structure. Again the concept of the slot is used for the realization of a dual-band antenna. QMSIW-based structure is designed with further dividing HMSIW structure into two parts. Simulation has been carried out with the use of a high-frequency structure simulator (HFSS) software, which used a finite element-based solver for the full-wave analysis.

The proposed HMSIW-based dual-band antenna resonates at two different frequencies, namely, 5.81 GHz with 4.5 dBi gain and at 6.19 GHz with 6.8 dBi gain. Isolation between two ports is 20 dB. The overall dimensions of the proposed model are 0.39 λ × 0.39 λ. Similarly, QMSIW-based antenna is resonated at 5.66 GHz of the frequency with the 3 dBi gain. Frequency tuning is also carried out with the change in the slot dimension to use the proposed antenna in various C (4–8 GHz) band applications.

The proposed antennas can use C band wireless frequency application. The proposed structure provides better performance in terms of isolation between the ports, small size, high front-to-back ratio and higher gain. It is fabricated for the proof of concept with the RT Duroid 5880 substrate material having a 2.2 permittivity. Measured results show a similar kind of performance as a simulated one.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate screen-printed high-frequency (HF) antennas for radio frequency identification (RFID) on-metal transponders in which a magnetic sheet was used as a substrate material.

A transponder antenna was designed in the form of square coil using a high-frequency electromagnetic software. Then, the antenna was fabricated with screen printing technique on two different magnetic sheets (RFN4 and RFN7) and on polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) foil for comparison. Its printing was carried out with polymer pastes based on silver flakes (PM-406 and SF). Thickness, track width and spacing were examined for the antennas using digital microscope and contact profilometer. Resistance and inductance were also measured, and resonant frequency, quality factor and target values of capacitance to achieve resonant frequency of the tested antenna at 13.56 MHz were calculated. Finally, RFID chips were mounted to the prepared antennas using an isotropic conductive adhesive, and a maximum read distance was measured with a reader installed in a smartphone.

It was found that an antenna thickness on the magnetic sheets used was higher than on PEN foil. At the same time, surface roughness of the fabricated antennas on these sheets was revealed to be higher as well. Inductance of the measured antennas exhibited good conformity with the antenna design, but higher divergence was noticed in the measured resistance. Its lowest value was achieved when the antenna was printed with the paste PM-406 on PEN foil and the highest one when it was fabricated with the paste SF on the same substrate. This suggests that high attention needs to be paid to a polymer paste selected for antenna printing. The performed tests showed that the magnetic sheet RFN4 seems to be better substrate for on-metal transponders compared to RFN7 due to lower resistance and higher quality factor of the prepared antennas.

Further investigations are required to examine mechanical and thermal durability of the HF antennas printed on the magnetic sheets.

The investigated HF antennas fabricated on magnetic sheets can find application in near field communication (NFC) transponders designed to be placed on metallic surfaces, e.g. on frames of advertising screens.

Influence of used magnetic sheets and polymer pastes on geometry and electrical properties of HF antennas for RFID on-metal transponders was investigated. The presented investigations can be interesting for NFC/RFID designers who are involved in designing systems suitable for metallic surfaces.

The purpose of this paper is to design and measure an H‐plane substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) 72 GHz backfired horn antenna chip. The SIW horn was fabricated on a standard 0.5‐μm GaAs process with substrate thickness of 100 μm.

Planar SIW horn design method with standard GaAs circuit design rule was adopted. The input reflection coefficient and output antenna gain was simulated at the FEM‐based 3D full‐wave EM solver, Ansoft HFSS and measured at the Agilent E8361C Network Analyzer and Cascade 110 GHz probe station.

The measured input −6 dB bandwidth is about 0.9 GHz at a center frequency of 72.39 GHz. The maximum antenna power gain extracted from the path loss at 72.39 GHz is about −3.64 dBi.

Thin substrate exhibits larger capacitance and energy stores rather than radiates. Flat cutting restricts the arc lens design and results in the radiation plane mismatches to the air. Simple taper transition design makes the input bandwidth much narrower. The problems can be further improved by selecting thicker substrate and the multi‐section input CPW GSG pads to microstrip transition.

Unlike the traditional anechoic chamber, the antenna measurement station is exposed to the open space and chip antenna was supported by the FR4 substrate and the metal probing station plate. A fully characterization of the antenna open space environment before the measurement is needed.

An H‐plane SIW 72 GHz horn antenna was designed and studied. The antenna was using the GaAs 0.5‐μm MMICs process design rule includes the SIW designed cylindrical metal bars all being restricted in standard rectangular shape. Compare to traditional bulky waveguide horn antenna, the antenna chip size is only 1.8×1.7 mm². The on‐wafer measurement is conducted to measure the input return loss and the maximum antenna power gain of the on‐chip antenna. The designed on‐chip SIW horn antenna is useful for the integrated design of the E band GaAs MMICs single‐chip RF transceiver.

Modern wireless communication application requires an antenna system to meet the requirements of miniaturization and wideband characteristic. In recent years, several antenna designs, that meet these requirements, have been proposed in the literature. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to design a new microstrip monopole antenna with a bandwidth enhancement and size reduction for ultra wideband application.

The patch, of leaf of a plant shape, the feed line and the ground plane are printed on the inexpensive FR4 substrate material with permittivity 4.4 and loss tangent 0.02. To obtain optimal dimensions, a parametric study is conducted through numerical computations by using electromagnetic simulators HFSS and CST. A prototype of the optimized antenna is fabricated and subjected to a series of simulations and measurements.

The measurement results show a −10 dB impedance bandwidth of 6.7 GHz (3.5 GHz-10.2 GHz) which can cover the whole bandwidth requirements of an ultra wideband application. The designed antenna exhibits nearly symmetric and omnidirectional radiations patterns over the operating band, which is a sought-after behavior in microstrip patch antennas and has overall size of 35 × 31 mm².

The proposed microstrip monopole antenna is very useful for modern wireless communications systems because of its compact size, its capability of covering the whole ultra wideband frequency band and its good radiation characteristics.

The purpose of this study is to design a radio altimeter antenna whose production process is facilitated and can work with multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) properties to provide space gain on the aircraft.

To create an easy-to-produce MIMO, a two-storied structure consisting of a reflector and a top antenna was designed. The dimensions of the reflector were prevented to get smaller to supply easy production. The unit cell nearly with the same dimensions of a lower frequency was protected through the original cell design. The co-planar structure with the use of a via connection was modified and a structure was achieved with no need to via for easy production, too. Finally, the antennas were placed side by side and the distance between them was optimized to achieve a MIMO operation.

As a result, an easy-to-produce, compact and successful radio altimeter antenna was obtained with high antenna parameters such as 10.14 dBi gain and 10.55 dBi directivity, and the conical pattern along with proper MIMO features, through original reflector surface and top antenna system.

Since radio altimeter antennas require high radiation properties, the microstrip antenna structure is generally used in literature. This paper contributes by presenting the radio altimeter application with antenna-reflective structure participation. The technical solutions were developed during the design, focusing on an easy manufacturing process for both the reflective surface and the upper antenna. Also, the combination of International Telecommunication Union’s recommended features that require high antenna properties was achieved, which is challenging to reach. In addition, by operating the antenna as a successful MIMO, two goals of easy production and space gain on aircraft have been attained at the same time.

This paper aims to present a low-cost, edge-fed, windmill-shaped, notch-band eliminator, circular monopole antenna which is practically loaded with a complementary split ring resonator (CSRR) in the middle of the radiating conductor and also uses a partial ground to obtain wide-band performance.

To compensate for the reduced value of gain and reflection coefficient because of the full (complete) ground plane at the bottom of the substrate, the antenna is further loaded with a partial ground and a CSRR. The reduction in the length of ground near the feed line improves the impedance bandwidth, and introduced CSRR results in improved gain with an additional resonance spike. This results in a peak gain 3.895dBi at the designed frequency 2.45 GHz. The extending of three arms in the circular patch not only led to an increase of peak gain by 4.044dBi but also eliminated the notch band and improved the fractional bandwidth 1.65–2.92 GHz.

The work reports a –10dB bandwidth from 1.63 GHz to 2.91 GHz, which covers traditional coverage applications and new specific uses applications such as narrow LTE bands for future internet of things (NB-IoT) machine-to-machine communications 1.8/1.9/2.1/2.3/2.5/2.6 GHz, industry, automation and business-critical cases (2.1/2.3/2.6 GHz), industrial, society and medical applications such as Wi-MAX (3.5 GHz), Wi-Fi3 (2.45 GHz), GSM (1.9 GHz), public safety band, Bluetooth (2.40–2.485 GHz), Zigbee (2.40–2.48Ghz), industrial scientific medical (ISM) band (2.4–2.5 GHz), WCDMA (1.9, 2.1 GHz), 3 G (2.1 GHz), 4 G LTE (2.1–2.5 GHz) and other personal communication services applications. The estimated RLC electrical equivalent circuit is also presented at the end.

Because of full coverage of Bluetooth, Zigbee, WiFi3 and ISM band, the proposed fabricated antenna is suitable for low power, low data rate and wireless/wired short-range IoT-enabled medical applications.

The antenna is fabricated on a piece (66.4 mm × 66.4 mm × 1.6 mm) of low-cost low profile FR-4 epoxy substrate (0.54 λ_g × 0.54 λ_g) with a dielectric constant of 4.4, a loss tangent of 0.02 and a thickness of 1.6 mm. The antenna reflection coefficient, impedance and VSWR are tested on the Keysight technology (N9917A) vector network analyzer, and the radiation pattern is measured in an anechoic chamber.