ALBERT

Description: Fast factorized backprojection (FFBP) takes advantage of high accuracy of time-domain algorithms while also possessing high efficiency comparable with conventional frequency domain algorithms. When phase errors need to be compensated for high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging, however, neither polar formatted subimages within FFBP flow nor the final Cartesian image formed by FFBP is suitable for phase gradient autofocus (PGA). This is because these kinds of images are not capable of providing PGA with a clear Fourier transform relationship (FTR) between image domain and range-compressed phase history domain. In this paper, we make some essential modifications to the original FFBP and present a scheme to incorporate overlapped-subaperture frame for an accurate PGA processing. The raw data collected by an airborne high-resolution spotlight SAR are used to demonstrate the performance of this algorithm.

Description: For the traditional target localization algorithms of frequency diverse array (FDA), there are some problems such as angle and distance coupling in single-frequency receiving FDA mode, large amount of calculation, and weak adaptability. This paper introduces a good learning and predictive method of target localization by using BP neural network on FDA, and FDA-IPSO-BP neural network algorithm is formed. The improved particle swarm optimization (IPSO) algorithm with nonlinear weights is developed to optimize the neural network weights and biases to prevent BP neural network from easily falling into local minimum points. In addition, the decoupling of angle and distance with single frequency increment is well solved. The simulation experiments show that the proposed algorithm has better target localization effect and convergence speed, compared with FDA-BP and FDA-MUSIC algorithms.

Description: Two hypotheses for the blocking effect mechanisms under the electromagnetic radiation are presented, and the corresponding dual-frequency interference prediction models are proposed, which can be used to predict the working state of equipment under the condition that the single-frequency susceptibility is known. By taking a radar and a communication radio as the EUT, the experiments of dual-frequency continuous wave electromagnetic radiation are designed and carried out to verify the prediction models. The test results show that the sensitive bandwidth of blocking interference effect for the tested radar and the communication station is consistent with their working bandwidth, respectively. By substituting the test data into the proposed prediction models, the prediction errors of the models are less than 13%. Moreover, it can be found that the tested radar is more sensitive to the peak value of electric field, and the tested communication station is more sensitive to the effective value of electric field.

Description: A radio frequency identification reader antenna having multitag identification for medical systems is presented, which consists of four PIFAs, two hybrid couplers, and four power dividers. The high isolation is achieved by the symmetric design of the antenna geometry and four power dividers, which are fed by two hybrid couplers. The experimental results show an isolation of more than 40 dB in the North American (902–928 MHz), Korean (917–923.5 MHz), and Japanese (916.7–923.5 MHz) RFID frequency bands.

Description: The performance of direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation for sparse arrays applied to the distributed source is worse than that applied to the point source model. In this paper, we introduce the coprime array with a large array aperture into the DOA estimation algorithm of the exponential-type coherent distributed source. In particular, we focus on the fourth-order cumulant (FOC) of the received signal which can provide more useful information when the signal is non-Gaussian than when it is Gaussian. The proposed algorithm extends the array aperture by combining the sparsity of array space domain with the fourth-order cumulant characteristics of signals, which improves the estimation accuracy and degree of freedom (DOF). Firstly, the signal-received model of the sparse array is established, and the fourth-order cumulant matrix of the received signal of the sparse array is calculated based on the characteristics of distributed sources, which extend the array aperture. Then, the virtual array is constructed by the sum aggregate of physical array elements, and the position set of its maximum continuous part array element is obtained. Finally, the center DOA estimation of the distributed source is realized by the subspace method. The accuracy and DOF of the proposed algorithm are higher than those of the distributed signal parameter estimator (DSPE) algorithm and least-squares estimation signal parameters via rotational invariance techniques (LS-ESPRIT) algorithm when the array elements are the same. Complexity analysis and numerical simulations are provided to demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method.

Description: This paper presents two novel UHF RFID near-field reader antennas with uniform vertical electric field distribution. The two antennas have the following common characteristics. First, the radiating parts of the two antennas are simulated and fabricated by the microstrip lines and work using the leakage wave principle of microstrip lines. Second, the end of microstrip lines match the load to form a traveling wave mode of operation, so the two antennas have broadband characteristics. Third, both antennas are fed in a coaxial manner at the center of the antenna. The simulation and measurement results can show that the proposed three-branch antenna and four-branch antenna achieve good impedance matching in the range of 883–960 MHz and 870–960 MHz, respectively, and achieve uniform distribution of the vertical electric field component in a certain area. The reading areas of the three-branch antenna and the four-branch antenna are 70 mm × 70 mm × 90 mm and 100 mm × 100 mm × 120 mm (length × width × height), respectively. Due to the introduction of the ground plate, the antenna gain is low, which meets the design requirements of near-field antennas.

Description: A simplified notched design method for the Vivaldi antenna is exhibiting high frequency-band-selectivity characteristics. By suitably introducing half-wavelength resonator (HWR) and complementary capacitively loaded loop (CCLL), the notched-band selectivity is promoted while maintaining the wide impedance bandwidth of the antenna applicable for wireless communications. HWR is bent in the middle to focus the first notch pole, and the second notch pole is obtained by CCLL on the radiating patch. Additionally, the resonant frequency of the notched pole can be determined by the position and size of two loaded resonators in theoretical analysis, thereby realizing a wideband antenna with the desired notched band. Finally, the Vivaldi antenna of loading resonator was fabricated to verify the feasibility of this new method. Measured and simulated experimental results reveal that the antenna exhibits directional pattern in the passband, low gain at the band-rejection, and excellent selectivity within a frequency range. The simulation and measurement results are in good agreement. The proposed antenna achieves S11

Description: The material parameters of a metamaterial (MTM) are determined by the transformation function used in the optical transformation. Some previously reported MTMs, such as the invisibility cloak, the field rotator, and the field concentrator, were designed by a linear transformation. Their impedance was matched to the background so that no reflection was found; however, the material parameters were mismatched to the background due to the linear transformation function. In the present work, the parameters were matched by using high-order polynomial functions as the transformation function. Since similar materials are filled in boundary cells of the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) algorithm, the stair-casing error was reduced and the tolerance against boundary abrasion was increased. The frequency response of the proposed method was analyzed. The proposed method is applicable to MTM structures that have complex boundary shapes. In this work, circular and elliptic boundary shapes were considered as examples.

Description: A novel low-profile dual-polarization frequency-selective rasorber (FSR) with a transmissive window in the absorption band is proposed in this paper. Based on the equivalent circuit model (ECM), the principles of the impedance design are theoretically derived. Then, a two-layer structure model is constructed. The top layer is composed of a lossy three-legged loaded element (TLLE), and the bottom layer is composed of a square ring bandpass frequency-selective surface (FSS). Furthermore, the strips are folded to reduce the unit cell size to stabilize the angular response. The maximum stable response angle increases from 20 to 40° due to the miniaturized design under both TE and TM polarization. The experimental results of the prototype are in good agreement with the simulation results, which validates the rationality of our design.

Description: A novel two-iteration binary tree fractal bionic structure antenna is proposed for the third generation (3G), fourth generation (4G), WLAN, and Bluetooth wireless applications in the paper, which is based on the principles of conventional microstrip monopole antenna and resonant coupling technique, combined with the advantages of fractal geometry. A new fractal structure was presented for antenna radiator, similar to the tree in nature. The proposed antenna adapted two iterations on a fractal structure radiator, which covers mobile applications in two broad frequency bands with a bandwidth of 44.2% (1.85–2.9 GHz) for TD-SCDMA, WCDMA, CDMA2000, LTE33-41, and Bluetooth frequency bands, and 11.5% (4.9–5.5 GHz) for WLAN frequency band. The proposed antenna was fabricated on a G10/FR4 substrate with a dielectric constant of 4.4 and a size of 50 × 40 mm2. The good agreement between the measurement results and the simulation results validate that the proposed design approach meet the requirements for various wireless applications.

Description: The Direction-of-Arrival (DoA) and bandwidth (BW) estimation strategy impinging on a linear array using multiple snapshots data is addressed within the multitask Bayesian Compressive Sensing (MT-BCS). The DoA estimation is used as the reconstruction of sparse signal constrained by the Laplace prior through multitask Bayesian Compressive Sensing. Receiving wideband signal data through linear array, the space is divided into I parts according to the equal interval. The data of interest are assumed to be represented as I-dimensional vector, and the wideband signal can be reconstructed accurately using only a small number M. The receiving antenna operates in the frequency range . Starting from the voltages measured at the output of the array elements at a multiple time instants at , the retrieval of the DoAs is addressed by means of a customized strategy based on MT-BCS in order to correlate the solutions obtained over different frequency samples. The bandwidth of the signals is obtained as a byproduct by identifying at which frequencies the MT-BCS estimations include a signal along the ith (i = 1,…, I) sampling direction. From the outputs of different frequencies, we can know the DoA and BW of signals. A preliminary numerical result is reported to show the behavior of the proposed approach in multiple snapshots data.

Description: A single-layer waveguide slotted array antenna is proposed for W-band applications. To eliminate the alignment errors, all structures including the radiation slots, radiation waveguides, and power divider network are realized in one layer based on the milling process, and a planar metal plate is employed to cover the bottom. For example, an 8 × 9 array is designed with 1-to-8 power divider network to validate the proposed technology. The effective radiation aperture size of the array is 24 mm × 21 mm, and the height is only 8 mm. The measured reflection coefficient of the antenna is larger than 3 GHz for  

Description: This work presents a series representation for the mutual inductance of two coaxial pancake coils which remains accurate in non-quasi-static regime under the hypothesis that the current in the source coil is uniformly distributed. Making use of Gegenbauer’s addition theorem and a term-by-term analytical integration, the mutual inductance between two generic turns belonging to distinct coils is expressed as a sum of spherical Hankel functions with algebraic coefficients. The accuracy and efficiency of the resulting expression is proved through pertinent numerical examples.

Description: In this paper, on the basis of multifunctional reconfigurable pixel antenna (RPA) elements, a novel linear sparse array with an attractive compound reconfigurability is presented. It has the potential advantages of its beam scanning with low gain fluctuation, low sidelobe in two orthogonal planes, and polarization reconfigurable performance. Specifically, an RPA with simultaneous polarization and pattern reconstruction capabilities, consisting of the driven patch and the parasitic pixels on the same layer of dielectric substrate, is firstly designed, which can work in several operation modes corresponding to steerable beam directions θ=0°;θxoz=25°, 45°;θyoz=15° with two circular polarizations in X-band. Cross-slot coupling feed is used to improve polarization reconstruction capability and reduce the complexity of hybrid reconstruction topology optimization. Then, those RPAs are integrated into the 1×8 linear sparse array to realize the reconfiguration of two circular polarizations and beam steering in xoz- and yoz-plane. Simulation results show that the gain fluctuation and sidelobe level of the array during beam scanning have significant advantages over the previous phased array, and the generation of antenna grating lobes is avoided. Moreover, both RPA element and RPA array prototypes have been fabricated and measured to testify the efficiency. The measured results agree well with the simulated ones, which indicates the application potential in the field of modern wireless communication system of the proposed linear sparse array.

Description: The aim of the research is to propose a new optimization method for the multiconstrained optimization of sparse linear arrays (including the constraints of the number of elements, the aperture of arrays, and the minimum distance between adjacent elements). The new method is a modified wolf pack optimization algorithm based on the quantum theory. In the new method, wolves are coded by Bloch spherical coordinates of quantum bits, updated by quantum revolving gates, and selectively adaptively mutated when performing poorly. Because of the three-coordinate characteristics of the sphere, the number of global optimum solutions is greatly expanded and ultimately can be searched with a higher probability. Selective mutation enhances the robustness of the algorithm and improves the search speed. Furthermore, because the size of each dimension of Bloch spherical coordinates is always [−1, 1], the variables transformed by solution space must satisfy the constraints of the aperture of arrays and the minimum distance between adjacent elements, which effectively avoids infallible solutions in the process of updating and mutating the position of the wolf group, reduces the judgment steps, and improves the efficiency of optimization. The validity and robustness of the proposed method are verified by the simulation of two typical examples, and the optimization efficiency of the proposed method is higher than the existing methods.

Description: This study explores the use of a hybrid Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) and Neural Network modelling for estimates of the electric field along vertical paths (buildings) close to Digital Television (DTV) transmitters. The work was carried out in Belém city, one of the most urbanized cities in the Brazilian Amazon and includes a case study of the application of this modelling within the subscenarios found in Belém. Its results were compared with the ITU recommendations P. 1546-5 and proved to be better in every subscenario analysed. In the worst case, the estimate of the model was approximately 65% better than that of the ITU. We also compared this modelling with a classic modelling technique: the Least Squares (LS) method. In most situations, the hybrid model achieved better results than the LS.

Description: This research proposes a compact elliptical ring antenna excited by a circular disc monopole (CDM) for ultra-wideband (UWB) communications. In the study, time- and frequency-domain pulse distortions of the antenna in the transmission mode were characterized by magnitude and phase of the antenna transfer function (Hrad). The results showed that the gain and magnitude of Hrad in the boresight direction are sufficiently flat with linear phase response. The average antenna gain is 3.9 dBi over the UWB spectrum. The antenna also exhibits low pulse distortion with the correlation factors (ρ) of 0.98 and 0.93 for the fifth-order derivative Gaussian pulse and modulated Gaussian pulse with 6 GHz band rejection. The CDM-excited elliptical ring antenna possesses several attractive features, including wide bandwidth, flat gain, compactness, low cost, and low distortion.

Description: The increasing cohabitation between telecommunication antennas generating electromagnetic waves and solar panels poses the problem of interaction between these radio waves and solar cells. In order to study the effect of radio waves on the performance of a polycrystalline silicon solar cell in a three-dimensional approach, it is necessary to assess the attenuation of the radio wave in the illuminated polysilicon grain and also to find the expressions of its components. This work investigated the attenuation of radio waves into a polycrystalline silicon grain by analyzing, firstly, the behaviour of the penetration length of the radio waves into the polysilicon grain and secondly, the behaviour of the attenuation factor. The propagation of the radio waves into the polycrystalline silicon grain can be considered without attenuation that can be neglected.

Description: Antenna arrays with high directivity, low side-lobe level, and null control in desired direction and whip antenna with wider bandwidth both need to be optimized to meet different needs of communication systems. A new natural heuristic algorithm simulating social behavior of grasshoppers, grasshopper optimization algorithm (GOA), is applied to electromagnetic field as a new effective technology to solve the antenna optimization problem for the first time. Its algorithm is simple and has no gradient mechanism, can effectively avoid falling into local optimum, and is suitable for single-objective and multiobjective optimization problems. GOA is used to optimize the side lobe suppression, null depth, and notch control of arbitrary linear array and then used to optimize the loading and matching network of 10-meter HF broadband whip antenna compared with other algorithms. The results show that GOA has more advantages in side-lobe suppression, null depth, and notch control of linear array than other algorithms and has better broadband optimization performance for HF whip antenna. The pattern synthesis and antenna broadband optimization based on GOA provide a new and effective method for antenna performance optimization.

Description: The aim of the research is to propose a new optimization method for the multiconstrained optimization of sparse linear arrays (including the constraints of the number of elements, the aperture of arrays, and the minimum distance between adjacent elements). The new method is a modified wolf pack optimization algorithm based on the quantum theory. In the new method, wolves are coded by Bloch spherical coordinates of quantum bits, updated by quantum revolving gates, and selectively adaptively mutated when performing poorly. Because of the three-coordinate characteristics of the sphere, the number of global optimum solutions is greatly expanded and ultimately can be searched with a higher probability. Selective mutation enhances the robustness of the algorithm and improves the search speed. Furthermore, because the size of each dimension of Bloch spherical coordinates is always [−1, 1], the variables transformed by solution space must satisfy the constraints of the aperture of arrays and the minimum distance between adjacent elements, which effectively avoids infallible solutions in the process of updating and mutating the position of the wolf group, reduces the judgment steps, and improves the efficiency of optimization. The validity and robustness of the proposed method are verified by the simulation of two typical examples, and the optimization efficiency of the proposed method is higher than the existing methods.

Description: The material parameters of a metamaterial (MTM) are determined by the transformation function used in the optical transformation. Some previously reported MTMs, such as the invisibility cloak, the field rotator, and the field concentrator, were designed by a linear transformation. Their impedance was matched to the background so that no reflection was found; however, the material parameters were mismatched to the background due to the linear transformation function. In the present work, the parameters were matched by using high-order polynomial functions as the transformation function. Since similar materials are filled in boundary cells of the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) algorithm, the stair-casing error was reduced and the tolerance against boundary abrasion was increased. The frequency response of the proposed method was analyzed. The proposed method is applicable to MTM structures that have complex boundary shapes. In this work, circular and elliptic boundary shapes were considered as examples.

Description: Electric fields radiated by cloud flashes that occurred over the rugged terrain of mountainous country Nepal were recorded, analysed, and compared with those from different geographical regions. The total duration of the flash varies from 80 to 469.5 ms. The majority of the cloud flashes were of two stages: the first stage of the majority of the flashes was found to consist of large microsecond scale bipolar pulses having negative initial polarity and the late stage consists of submicrosecond scale pulses having both positive and negative initial polarities. The average durations of the first and second stages are 11.23 and 66.79 ms, respectively, and the time gap between them is 53.57 ms. The cloud pulses led by the negative initial polarity pulses are more compactly distributed and are higher in mountainous countries as compared to those of flashes lead by positive initial polarity pulses, with the average values of interpulse interval being 211.42 and 309.79 μs, respectively.

Description: A novel two-iteration binary tree fractal bionic structure antenna is proposed for the third generation (3G), fourth generation (4G), WLAN, and Bluetooth wireless applications in the paper, which is based on the principles of conventional microstrip monopole antenna and resonant coupling technique, combined with the advantages of fractal geometry. A new fractal structure was presented for antenna radiator, similar to the tree in nature. The proposed antenna adapted two iterations on a fractal structure radiator, which covers mobile applications in two broad frequency bands with a bandwidth of 44.2% (1.85–2.9 GHz) for TD-SCDMA, WCDMA, CDMA2000, LTE33-41, and Bluetooth frequency bands, and 11.5% (4.9–5.5 GHz) for WLAN frequency band. The proposed antenna was fabricated on a G10/FR4 substrate with a dielectric constant of 4.4 and a size of 50 × 40 mm2. The good agreement between the measurement results and the simulation results validate that the proposed design approach meet the requirements for various wireless applications.

Description: A novel low-profile dual-polarization frequency-selective rasorber (FSR) with a transmissive window in the absorption band is proposed in this paper. Based on the equivalent circuit model (ECM), the principles of the impedance design are theoretically derived. Then, a two-layer structure model is constructed. The top layer is composed of a lossy three-legged loaded element (TLLE), and the bottom layer is composed of a square ring bandpass frequency-selective surface (FSS). Furthermore, the strips are folded to reduce the unit cell size to stabilize the angular response. The maximum stable response angle increases from 20 to 40° due to the miniaturized design under both TE and TM polarization. The experimental results of the prototype are in good agreement with the simulation results, which validates the rationality of our design.

Description: Directional modulation (DM) has become a new research hotspot of physical layer security (PLS) communication at the transmitter side. In this paper, we propose a robust synthesis algorithm for DM signal under the condition of the array manifold vectors perturbation. This algorithm optimizes the constraints of sidelobe level and Euclidean distance of constellation points by considering the worst case performance of array manifold vectors. Furthermore, we also design an active constellation extension (ACE) method to relax the equality constraint of desired modulation symbols into a robust inequality constraint at the desired direction. These constraints can be reformulated in a convex form with and regularization, which are computationally tractable. Simulation results show better performance of the proposed robust algorithm compared with the benchmark synthesis algorithms in the presence of array manifold vectors uncertainty.

Description: In this paper, global position system high-resolution sounding data from 1998 to 2008 were used to statistically analyze the spatiotemporal distribution and determine the probability, thickness, and intensity of atmospheric ducts at 12 stations in Alaska. In addition, the singular value decomposition (SVD) was used to examine the relationship between the Arctic vortex and atmospheric ducts. The annual average probability of atmospheric ducts, primarily surface and elevation ducts, was approximately 30% in Alaska. The probability of elevation ducts was greater than that of surface ducts. The Arctic vortex area and intensity index of each subarea were significantly negatively correlated with the occurrence of atmospheric ducts. Thus, when the area of the Arctic vortex increased and the intensity index of each subarea strengthened, the probability of atmospheric ducts decreased and their characteristics weakened.

Description: The Direction-of-Arrival (DoA) and bandwidth (BW) estimation strategy impinging on a linear array using multiple snapshots data is addressed within the multitask Bayesian Compressive Sensing (MT-BCS). The DoA estimation is used as the reconstruction of sparse signal constrained by the Laplace prior through multitask Bayesian Compressive Sensing. Receiving wideband signal data through linear array, the space is divided into I parts according to the equal interval. The data of interest are assumed to be represented as I-dimensional vector, and the wideband signal can be reconstructed accurately using only a small number M. The receiving antenna operates in the frequency range . Starting from the voltages measured at the output of the array elements at a multiple time instants at , the retrieval of the DoAs is addressed by means of a customized strategy based on MT-BCS in order to correlate the solutions obtained over different frequency samples. The bandwidth of the signals is obtained as a byproduct by identifying at which frequencies the MT-BCS estimations include a signal along the ith (i = 1,…, I) sampling direction. From the outputs of different frequencies, we can know the DoA and BW of signals. A preliminary numerical result is reported to show the behavior of the proposed approach in multiple snapshots data.

Description: The paper proposes a simple four-element microstrip patch array antenna fed with corporate-series technique. The paper compares the proposed design with four-element antennas fed with only series-fed and corporate-fed microstrip antennas. All three antenna designs use rectangular microstrip patch elements with two insets and slots on both sides of the patch. The patch elements are accompanied by Yagi elements: three director elements and two reflector elements. Through comparison of simulation results, the paper shows that four-element array antenna with combined corporate-series feeding technique performs better compared to antennas with only either series or corporate feeding network. The proposed corporate-series fed antenna achieves better performance with wide frequency bandwidth of 25.04–30.87 GHz and gain of 9.5 dB. The antenna has an end-fire radiation pattern. Overall performance shows that the proposed corporate-series-fed microstrip patch antenna with Yagi elements is suitable for next generation 5G communication.

Description: This study aimed to explore a metallic striped grid array planar antenna, analyze it numerically in terms of its parameters, and optimize it for best performance. It may be an appropriate candidate for long-range point-to-point connectivity in wireless sensor networks. Antenna gain and frequency impedance bandwidth are two important performance parameters. For an efficient antenna, its gain should be high while maintaining operating bandwidth wide enough to accommodate the entire frequency range for which it has been designed. Concurrently, antenna size should also be small. In this study, antenna dimensions were kept as small as possible without compromising its performance. Its dimensions were 300 mm × 210 mm × 9.9 mm, which made it compact and miniature. It had a maximum gain of 16.72 dB at 2.45 GHz and maximum frequency impedance bandwidth of 7.68% relative to 50 Ω. It operated across a frequency band ranging from 2.38 GHz to 2.57 GHz, encapsulating the entire ISM 2.4 GHz band. Its radiation efficiency remained above 93% in this band with a maximum of 98.5% at 2.45 GHz. Moreover, it also had narrow HPBWs in horizontal and vertical planes having values of 18.52° and 31.25°, respectively.

Description: This research proposes an integrated high-frequency (HF) and ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) passive radio frequency identification (RFID) tag antenna for near-field (13.56 MHz) and far-field (920–925 MHz) communication. This tag antenna is advantageous for the applications with lossy material in the near-field communication and mitigates polarization loss in the far-field communications. The HF-RFID tag antenna is of square spiral structure, and the circularly polarized UHF-RFID structure consists of a square loop radiator with cascading loop feeding and shorted stub. The structure of HF-RFID tag antenna situated inside the circularly polarized UHF-RFID tag can avoid the significant effect of the near-field magnetic coupling from the square loop. The UHF-RFID tag antenna is realized by using characteristic mode analysis for wideband circular polarization. The HF-RFID structure is conjugate-matched with NXP NT3H2111 chip, and the UHF-RFID structure is conjugate-matched with NXP G2X chip. Simulations were carried out, and an antenna prototype was fabricated. The experimental results reveal that the radiation pattern of UHF-RFID tag antenna is bidirectional with a gain of 0.31 dBic. The impedance bandwidth covers the frequency range of 903–944 MHz, and the axial ratio in boresight direction at 922.5 MHz is 1.67 dB, with the axial ratio bandwidth over 863–938 MHz. The maximum near-field and far-field reading ranges are 4.9 cm and 8.7 m. The proposed integrated dual-band passive tag antenna is operationally ideal for HF-RFID and UHF-RFID applications.

Description: Electric fields radiated by cloud flashes that occurred over the rugged terrain of mountainous country Nepal were recorded, analysed, and compared with those from different geographical regions. The total duration of the flash varies from 80 to 469.5 ms. The majority of the cloud flashes were of two stages: the first stage of the majority of the flashes was found to consist of large microsecond scale bipolar pulses having negative initial polarity and the late stage consists of submicrosecond scale pulses having both positive and negative initial polarities. The average durations of the first and second stages are 11.23 and 66.79 ms, respectively, and the time gap between them is 53.57 ms. The cloud pulses led by the negative initial polarity pulses are more compactly distributed and are higher in mountainous countries as compared to those of flashes lead by positive initial polarity pulses, with the average values of interpulse interval being 211.42 and 309.79 μs, respectively.

Description: Directional modulation (DM) has become a new research hotspot of physical layer security (PLS) communication at the transmitter side. In this paper, we propose a robust synthesis algorithm for DM signal under the condition of the array manifold vectors perturbation. This algorithm optimizes the constraints of sidelobe level and Euclidean distance of constellation points by considering the worst case performance of array manifold vectors. Furthermore, we also design an active constellation extension (ACE) method to relax the equality constraint of desired modulation symbols into a robust inequality constraint at the desired direction. These constraints can be reformulated in a convex form with and regularization, which are computationally tractable. Simulation results show better performance of the proposed robust algorithm compared with the benchmark synthesis algorithms in the presence of array manifold vectors uncertainty.

Description: In this paper, global position system high-resolution sounding data from 1998 to 2008 were used to statistically analyze the spatiotemporal distribution and determine the probability, thickness, and intensity of atmospheric ducts at 12 stations in Alaska. In addition, the singular value decomposition (SVD) was used to examine the relationship between the Arctic vortex and atmospheric ducts. The annual average probability of atmospheric ducts, primarily surface and elevation ducts, was approximately 30% in Alaska. The probability of elevation ducts was greater than that of surface ducts. The Arctic vortex area and intensity index of each subarea were significantly negatively correlated with the occurrence of atmospheric ducts. Thus, when the area of the Arctic vortex increased and the intensity index of each subarea strengthened, the probability of atmospheric ducts decreased and their characteristics weakened.

Description: A sparse recovery method for robust transmit-receive angle imaging in a bistatic MIMO radar is proposed to deal with the effect of array gain-phase errors. The impact of multiplicative array gain-phase errors is changed to be additive through model reformulation, and transmit-receive angle imaging is formulated to a sparse total least square signal problem. Then, an iterative algorithm is proposed to solve the optimization problem. Compared with existing methods, the proposed method can achieve a significant performance gain in the case that the number of snapshots is small. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Description: We investigate a circularly polarized (CP) transmission-line antenna composed of loop radiation elements, called a loop-line antenna. To enhance the CP wave bandwidth, an isolated loop radiation element is first analyzed using the method of moments. It is found that a CP wave bandwidth for a 3 dB axial-ratio criterion has a maximum value of 8%. On the basis of the analysis results, we design the loop-line antenna. It is found that the antenna shows a CP wave bandwidth of 6%, which is twice as wide as that of a conventional loop-line antenna. The analysis results are verified with experimental ones. In addition, a condition for wideband CP radiation is discussed and found to be a composite radiation element consisting of two CP loops.

Description: Two types of modified crossed-wire antennas are investigated to enhance a circularly polarized (CP) wave bandwidth. The wire length of each antenna is increased twice as long as that of the original antenna. First, a bent-type antenna is analyzed using the method of moments. It is found that the CP wave bandwidth for a 3 dB axial ratio criterion is twice as wide as that of the original antenna. Next, a spiral-type antenna is analyzed. It is revealed that the antenna shows a CP wave bandwidth of 28%, which is wider than that of the original antenna by a factor of 3.5. The analysis results are validated by experimental work.

Description: In the present work, a phaseless approach for microwave imaging applications is presented. The proposed solution strategy is based on the formulation of the scattering phenomena in terms of contrast source, while no phase-recovery stage is involved into the numerical procedure, thus providing a phaseless single-step resolution method. The image recovering potentialities of the discussed method are numerically validated by successfully distinguishing different tissues of a slice breast model, with a tumor located wherein. The above preliminary assessment encourages the adoption of the proposed solution in the framework of biomedical imaging.

Description: This paper presents a novel ultracompact narrow bandpass filter with high selectivity. The proposed filter is composed of cascading two basic cells. Each cell is basically a microstrip line loaded with a quasiplanar resonator and series gaps which can be fabricated using a standard multilayer printed circuit board technology. The structure is analyzed through an equivalent circuit and full-wave simulations. The simulation results are compared with experimental measurements demonstrating a good agreement between them. The measurement indicates that the realized bandpass filter at the center frequency of 1 GHz has a fractional bandwidth of 2.2%. Most importantly, in comparison with other similar recent works, it is shown that the proposed filter has the smallest size.

Description: In some frequency-sharing studies between fixed service and space radiocommunication services, including fixed-satellite, broadcasting-satellite, and space science services, it is necessary to estimate the apparent elevation angle of a space station, taking into account the atmospheric refraction. Recommendations ITU-R (International Telecommunication Union—Radiocommunication) P.834-9 and F.1333-1 detail similar methods regarding calculating the refraction correction for the elevation angle of the mean annual global reference atmosphere. Herein, both methods are approximated using the bending angle from the ground to the infinity height; this approach is most suitable for geosynchronous orbit satellites. In this paper, new methods for calculating the refraction correction for the elevation angle are proposed regarding the mean annual global reference atmosphere given in Recommendation ITU-R P.835-6. Specifically, the results of the ray-tracing method are fitted. The height of the new formulae is 100 km above sea level. For higher altitudes, correction methods are given based on free-space propagation. The proposed methods can be applied to the calculation of the refraction correction for the elevation of the mean annual global reference atmosphere for satellites at different orbital heights. Furthermore, these new methods compare favourably to the two ITU-R Recommendations.

Description: The existing sparse imaging observation error estimation methods are to usually estimate the error of each observation position by substituting the error parameters into the iterative reconstruction process, which has a huge calculation cost. In this paper, by analysing the relationship between imaging results of single-observation sampling data and error parameters, a SAR observation error estimation method based on maximum relative projection matching is proposed. First, the method estimates the precise position parameters of the reference position by the sparse reconstruction method of joint error parameters. Second, a relative error estimation model is constructed based on the maximum correlation of base-space projection. Finally, the accurate error parameters are estimated by the Broyden–Fletcher–Goldfarb–Shanno method. Simulation and measured data of microwave anechoic chambers show that, compared to the existing methods, the proposed method has higher estimation accuracy, lower noise sensitivity, and higher computational efficiency.

Description: This paper presents a quad-band, 3D mountable rectenna module for ambient energy harvesting. With the aim of powering up Internet of Things (IoT) nodes in practical ambient environments, a hybrid approach of combining power, both at RF and DC, is adopted using 98 MHz FM band, GSM900 (Global System for Mobile Communications), GSM1800, and Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz band. A dual polarized cross-dipole antenna featuring asymmetric slots as well as central ring structure enables multiband response and improved matching at the higher three frequency bands, whereas a loaded monopole wire antenna is used at the lower FM band. Four identical multiband antennas are placed in a 3D cubic arrangement that houses a 4-to-1 power combiner and matching circuits on the inside and the FM antenna on the top. In order to maintain stable rectenna output at varying input power levels and load resistances, a novel transmission line based matching network using closed form equations is proposed. Integrated in form of a 10 × 10 × 10 cm3 cube using standard FR4 substrate, the rectenna generates a peak output voltage of 2.38 V at −10 dBm input power. The RF to DC conversion efficiency is 70.28%, 41.7%, 33.37%, and 27.69% at 98 MHz, 0.9 GHz, 1.8 GHz, and 2.4 GHz, respectively, at −6 dBm. The rectenna also exhibits a measured conversion efficiency of 31.3% at −15 dBm for multitone inputs in ambient environment. The promising results in both indoor and outdoor settings are suitable to power low power IoT devices.

Description: In order to counter active jamming, an adaptive polarization filtering method based on dual polarization radar is put forward. First, the signal flow principle of the dual polarization radar and its signal model are introduced. Then, the weighted coefficient matrices of the polarization filter are calculated adaptively according to the actual work situation of the current radar. Finally, the specific polarization filtering algorithm and the output criterion of the optimal filtering results are given. Experimental results show that this method does not need to know the type, quantity, combination mode, polarization characteristics, and other prior knowledge of active jamming but has well effect on both active deception jamming and active blanket jamming, so it has strong engineering application value.

Description: During the reentry process, the plasma sheath covering the surface of the hypersonic aircraft will cause the amplitude attenuation and phase jitter of the communication electromagnetic waves. Channel parameters such as the electron density and collision frequency of the plasma sheath reflect the changing trend of the plasma sheath, and these parameters can be measured by physical means. However, these parameters cannot directly reflect the change of the channel communication ability and cannot directly serve the design of communication methods in the plasma sheath. Due to the particularity of the plasma sheath, the traditional channel estimation method for Additive White Gaussian Noise channels will no longer be applicable. This paper presents a channel capacity estimation method for dynamic plasma sheath. First, the plasma sheath is equivalent to a discrete input continuous output memoryless channel, and then the channel capacity expression is derived according to Shannon formula. Finally, the channel capacity of the dynamic plasma sheath is estimated by calculating the transition probability density function. The simulation results show that the channel capacity of the dynamic plasma sheath is affected by both the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the dynamic parameters of the plasma sheath. When the electron density is small, the channel capacity is mainly affected by the SNR. As the electron density increases, the dynamic parameters of the plasma sheath gradually become the main factor affecting the channel capacity. This method is a theoretical analysis of the channel capacity when the channel parameters of the plasma channel are known, and it is meaningful for conducting the work of communication methods design.

Description: In order to realize the miniaturization of quasi-Yagi antenna array, an antenna array with split-ring resonators (SRRs) based on two 7 units quasi-Yagi elements is designed in this paper. The radiation performance of the quasi-Yagi antenna array degrades significantly when array element spacing is reduced. After embedding SRRs on both sides of the miniaturized dielectric substrate surface, the S parameters and gain of array are significantly better than the array without SRRs, and the adjustable wave beam energy is also enhanced effectively. It indicates that the proposed antenna array with SRRs has good directional radiation performance under the miniaturize process at the operation frequency of 2.45 GHz, which could be widely applied in the fields of smart rail transportation and wireless power transfer.

Description: In this paper, an improved propagator method (PM) is proposed by using a two-parallel array consisting of two uniform large-spacing linear arrays. Because of the increase of element spacing, the mutual coupling between two sensors can be reduced. Firstly, two matrices containing elevation angle information are obtained by PM. Then, by performing EVD of the product of the two matrices, the elevation angles of incident signals can be estimated without direction ambiguity. At last, the matrix product is used again to obtain the estimations of azimuth angles. Compared with the existed PM algorithms based on conventional uniform two-parallel linear array, the proposed PM algorithm based on the large-spacing linear arrays has higher estimation precision. Many simulation experiments are presented to verify the effect of proposed scheme in reducing the mutual coupling and improving estimation precision.

Description: In this paper, a flexible microstrip patch antenna sensor is proposed for monitoring of the moisture content of lubricating oil. The sensor identifies liquids having different effective dielectric constants by detecting changes in the resonance frequency. The proposed antenna comprises a radiation patch, a metal ground plane, and a PDMS substrate with microchannels. The microchannels are etched on the PDMS substrate. When the relative permittivity of the microfluidic channel is 1.8∼12.5, the operating frequency of the proposed antenna changes from 2.230 to 2.116 GHz, and the amplitude of the reflection coefficient is greater than −26.3 dB. The simulation and measurement results show that the proposed sensor can monitor the lubricating oil with different moisture contents, which can cause frequency separation of at least 20 MHz and achieve a good linear response. Therefore, the proposed sensor has the feasibility of monitoring the quality of lubricating oil.

Description: A method for designing a dual-polarized wideband absorber with low profile by using dual-resistor-loaded metallic strips is proposed in this paper. Each unit cell consists of a resistive sheet with dual-resistor-loaded metallic strips and an underlying conducting plate. Two-dimensional arrays of two unequal metallic strips are printed on the dielectric substrate, and two resistors are embedded in the metallic strips. By properly designing the resonant frequencies of these metallic strips, a wide absorption band with three resonances is obtained. An equivalent circuit model is introduced, and the current distributions are examined to understand the physical mechanism of the proposed absorber. An example of the absorber is fabricated and measured to verify our designed concept. The measured results show that the wideband absorption performance with a fractional bandwidth of 129% under the normal incidence and the stable angular response are achieved. In addition, the proposed absorber has a low profile with 0.08λL, where λL is the wavelength at the lowest operating frequency.

Description: This paper proposes a trifrequency reconfigurable antenna (FRA), which can work in the X-band, Ku-band, and Ka-band, by controlling only two RF MEMS switches. The antenna element has a frequency ratio beyond 3 : 1 and provides a good candidate for the frequency reconfigurable antenna array, since the size of the antenna is reduced by loading multiple metal shorting holes between the antenna radiating surface and the ground plate, and the overall size is only 0.14λX × 0.35λX (λX is the free-space wavelength at 8.6 GHz). Based on the proposed FRA element, a 1 × 16 linear irregular frequency reconfigurable antenna array (FRAA) with beam deflection ability is designed, which effectively addresses the element spacing problem in the optimization of the array. In addition, the close-coupling in X-band and the grating lobe caused by the long distance of array element spacing in Ka-band are comprehensively considered. With uniform amplitude feeding network, the sidelobe level is below −15 dB under beam deflection. Moreover, both FRA elements and FRAA prototypes have been fabricated and measured to verify their superiority. Good agreements are obtained between simulated and measured results, which indicates that the antenna has potential application in the future multifrequency wireless communication and intelligent radar anti-interference fields.

Description: Polarized smart antenna array has attracted considerable interest due to its capacity of matched reception or interference suppression for active sensing systems. Existing literature does not take full advantage of the combination of polarization isolation and smart antennas and only focuses on uniform linear array (ULA). In this paper, an innovative synthesis two-dimensional beampattern method with a null that has cross-polarization for polarized planar arrays is proposed in the first stage. This method aims to further enhance the capability of interference suppression whose optimization problem can be solved by second-order conic programming. In the second stage, a new sparse array-optimized method for the polarized antenna array is proposed to reduce the high cost caused by the planar array that is composed of polarized dipole antennas. Numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the advantages of the proposed approach over state-of-the-art methods.

Description: This paper studies optimal resource allocation in the wireless powered communication networks (WPCN) combined with time reversal (TR) in which one hybrid access point (H-AP) broadcasts constant wireless energy to a set of distributed users in the downlink (DL) and receives information from the users via space division multiple access (SDMA) in the uplink (UL). Inevitable interferences will occur when users transmit information in the UL simultaneously and the special space-time focusing of TR is used to suppress the interferences. An efficient protocol is proposed to support wireless energy transfer (WET) and TR in the DL and wireless information transmission in the UL for the proposed TR-WPCN. We optimize the time allocations to the H-AP for DL WET, DL TR, and UL WIT to maximize the sum throughput. Due to the nonconvexity of the studied optimization problem, we optimize variables successively, where the nonconvex optimization problem is transformed into the convex optimization problem. The approximate convex optimization problem can then be solved iteratively combined with the dichotomy method. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can effectively suppress interferences and improve system performance.

Description: A wideband circularly polarized (CP) antenna is presented to achieve enhanced impedance, axial ratio (AR), and gain bandwidths. The antenna consists of two circular patches, a split-ring microstrip line with six probes, and a circular ground plane. By using these six probes which are placed in sequence on the split-ring microstrip line, the operating bandwidth of the proposed antenna is increased. The characteristic mode method is used to analyze different modes of the antenna and reveal the mechanism of extending the 3-dB AR bandwidth. Measured results show that the proposed antenna obtains an impedance bandwidth of 1.486–2.236 GHz (40.3%) for S11 ≤ −18 dB, a 3-dB AR bandwidth of 1.6–2.2 GHz (31.6%), and a boresight gain of 8.89 ± 0.87 dBic.

Description: A triband patch antenna with monopole-like and patch-like radiation patterns for multifunctional wireless systems is proposed. The antenna consists of a single square radiation patch with an annular slot, a ground plane, and a top-loaded metal sheet. The top-loaded metal sheet is shorted to the ground plane for producing a zeroth-order resonant (ZOR) mode, which has an omnidirectional radiation pattern at the lowest operation band, and its performance is robust to the location of the probe feed. With the annular slot and the off-center probe feed, a dual-resonant TM01 mode is excited, yielding unidirectional radiation patterns for the two upper operation bands. The ZOR and the dual-resonant TM01 modes can be independently controlled, and a triband antenna prototype with a square patch of 24 mm is fabricated and tested. The first bandwidth is 2.5–2.7 GHz with omnidirectional radiation pattern, the second and the third bandwidths with unidirectional radiation are 3.3–3.9 GHz and 4.8–6.1 GHz, and the realized gains over the three bands are about 2.6, 6.5, and 7.5 dBi, respectively.

Description: This paper introduces a wideband rectenna that can scavenge ambient wireless power to a range of frequency band from 0.91 GHz to 2.55 GHz efficiently. The proposed rectenna is based on a wideband 2 × 2 fractal monopole antenna array with omnidirectional radiation patterns and high gains of 5 to 8.3 dBi at the desired bands. An improved two-branch impedance matching technique is presented which is designed to enhance the rectifier circuit performance with a relatively low input power ranging from −25 dBm to 10 dBm. Also, a full-wave wideband rectifier that can suitably improve the RF-to-DC power conversion efficiency is designed for the rectenna. A peak efficiency of 76%, 71%, 61%, and 62% is obtained at 950, 1850, 2100, and 2450 MHz, respectively. Measurement results show that a conversion efficiency of 68% has been achieved over an optimal 4.7 kΩ resistor when the simultaneous four-band input power level is −10 dBm. Moreover, an output DC voltage of around 243 mV with voltage varying within 160–250 mV can be achieved by gathering the low ambient wireless power inside laboratory. This study proves that the proposed rectenna can be applied to a range of many low-power electronic applications.

Description: The rheology and evolution of the polar ice sheet are deeply influenced by the anisotropy of ice crystals. Studying the anisotropy of ice crystals can help to well understand and predict the behavior of the polar ice sheet and then the sea level rising and global climate change. In this paper, firstly, we deduce the expression of eigenvalues and eigenvectors of anisotropic media, which are determined by permittivity tensor and geometry of media. Then, the analytic formulas of reflection and transmission coefficients are derived directly by matrix transformation. Some models with real ice parameters are tested, and they present some special features at the anisotropic interface. We also discuss the physical meanings of eigenvalues and eigenvectors and the geometry analyzing to polarimetric radar. This analytic solution reveals the functional relationship between the macroradar reflection and the microphysical properties of ice crystals, which provides a feasibility of ice fabric identification by polarimetric radar detection.

Description: This study proposes a method for designing and calibrating a millimeter-wave (mm-wave) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna module. Herein, we adopt a design example involving a 64-element MIMO antenna array arranged in a triangular lattice (instead of the commonly used rectangular lattice) to achieve a 3°dB enhancement in effective isotropic radiated power. Analyzing a grating lobe diagram indicates a scan volume of ±60°/±45° in the azimuth/elevation direction. To calibrate the massive mm-wave MIMO antenna module, we propose a modified genetic algorithm to align the amplitude/phase of the transmitting/receiving signal of the module to reduce the time required for the calibration process. Finally, we conducted a simple experiment to validate the proposed method.

Description: In this study, a phased array radar was used to accurately image stationary and moving ship targets on the vast sea surface. To solve the challenge in real-time processing of the massive amount of data generated by phased array synthetic-aperture radar imaging, this study leveraged the block sparse characteristics of ships on the sea surface and adopted the joint block orthogonal matching pursuit algorithm to obtain high-resolution one-dimensional range images. By only estimating the azimuth Doppler parameters of the targets within the range gates, the amount of process data was significantly reduced, and the data processing speed was enhanced. The synchrosqueezing transform-STFT algorithm was introduced to perform transient imaging as a solution to the blurred imaging of ships due to the three-dimensional swing under the action of waves. The images of the targets were obtained from different squint angles of the antenna array, which improved the imaging accuracy of ships on a vast sea surface. Compared with traditional imaging algorithms, this algorithm can effectively overcome the interference of sea clutter on ship imaging and the influence of sea waves on ship wobble; it can also obtain high-resolution imaging for both stationary and moving targets in a limited amount of time.

Description: This paper presents the low profile, planar, and small-size antenna design for WWAN, LTE, and 5G (5th generation wireless systems) for use in portable communication equipment. The antenna occupies only 65 × 13 × 0.4 mm3, and the antenna is combined with a 200 × 260 mm2 copper plate to simulated system ground plane. In the low band, a direct-fed right-side arm and a coupled-fed arm implemented can excite a 1/4 λ fundamental resonant mode at 0.85 and 0.76 GHz to cover 0.698–0.96 GHz and upper 3/4 λ and 5/4 λ resonant modes are controlled by L-shaped element at 2.34, 2.69, 3.4, and 4.0 GHz to cover 1.71–2.69 GHz and 3.2–4.2 GHz. The direct-fed left-side arm produced 1/4 λ to cover 5.15–5.85 GHz. In far-field measured, peak gain and efficiency in low, middle, and high bands are 0.43–5.67 dBi and 55–86%. Finally, experiments demonstrate that the present antenna exhibits a good performance for portable devices.

Description: Electromagnetic metasurface lenses with the characteristic of being conformal to a cylindrical geometry are presented in this study. Based on the formulated principle of the cylindrical metasurface lens operating with transmission or reflection mode, the transmission or reflection phase gradient varying along the circumferential direction of a cylinder is implemented. A focused beam is observed at the objective focal point for each lens illuminated by a plane electromagnetic wave with transverse magnetic or transverse electric polarization. A coaxial-fed microstrip patch antenna element is used as a feeding of cylindrical metasurface lenses and positioned at their focal points, so as to evaluate their application in the enhancement of antenna gain along the boresight direction. By virtue of the focusing ability of presented lenses, effectively enhanced boresight gain from the cylindrical metasurface lens antennas are obtained, in comparison with the freestanding feeding antenna. The agreement between simulation and measurement validates the designs. Conformal integration or embedment of the electromagnetic lens into a certain platform skin with cylindrical characteristics is therefore potentially demonstrated, which implies an enhancement of boresight gain without obviously disturbing the local shape of the skin by apparent weight or drag.

Description: A compact hybrid-mode antenna is proposed for sub-6 GHz communication. The proposed antenna is composed of a slotted rectangular patch, a feeding dipole, and a balun. Three modes are sequentially excited in a shared patch to achieve a compact size. A prototype antenna with a major size of 0.48 λ0 × 0.31 λ0 × 0.16 λ0 (λ0 is the wavelength in the free space at the center of the operating frequency band) is fabricated and measured. The measured results demonstrate an impedance bandwidth of 56.87% from 2.97 GHz to 5.33 GHz and an average gain of approximately 8.00 dBi with 1 dB variation in the operating frequency band of 3.0–5.0 GHz. The proposed antenna can be an element for microbase stations in sub-6 GHz communication.

Description: Antenna array synthesis is one of the most popular topics in the electromagnetic field. Since achieving a desired antenna radiation pattern is a mathematical problem, in the literature, there are various optimization algorithms applied to the synthesis process of different kinds of antenna arrays. In this study, Multiverse Optimizer (MVO) and modified MVO (MMVO) are used to perform circular antenna array (CAA) synthesis. During the exploration, exploitation, and local search phases of calculation, MVO uses three concepts in cosmology; white hole, black hole, and wormhole. Convergence capability of this nature-inspired algorithm is employed for finding optimum amplitude and position values of CAA elements in order to achieve an array pattern with low maximum sidelobe level (MSL) and minimum circumference. The performance of MVO and MMVO was tested on five design examples of pattern synthesis, and the obtained results were compared with ten different algorithms. The simulation results show that MVO and MMVO provide low MSLs with small circumferences.

Description: The performance of wireless optical MIMO system with multiple pulse position modulation (MPPM) over correlated fading channel is investigated. The combined effects of atmospheric attenuation, atmospheric turbulence, and pointing error are taken into consideration. The bit error rate (BER) and the ergodic channel capacity are analyzed by utilizing the Poisson counting model and the exponential correlation model. Moreover, their approximate expressions are derived. The simulation results demonstrate that the pointing error is the most prominent influence factor over weak correlated channel. The performance degradation caused by a high channel correlation coefficient is more than that of pointing error in strong correlated channel. Therefore, the use of pointing, acquisition, and tracking (PAT) system and reasonable arrangement of the number and spacing of antennas at the transceiver are the keys to improve system performance.

Description: In high-frequency (HF) hybrid sky-surface wave radar, the first-order sea clutter broadening is severe under the action of ionospheric phase disturbance and bistatic angles. In this paper, a cascaded method is described to suppress the spread sea clutter. Firstly, the radar configuration and sea clutter broadening model are introduced based on the newly developed integrated HF sky-surface wave experimental system. In the cascaded processing method, a new ionospheric decontamination method based on general parameterized time-frequency (GPTF) analysis is proposed to estimate or correct the ionospheric phase distortion with large amplitude. Then, the forward-backward linear prediction (FBLP) algorithm is used to suppress the spread sea clutter caused by bistatic angle. Simulation results show that such ionospheric decontamination method based on GPTF is helpful for the large-amplitude ionospheric contamination when the target masking effect happens even after ionospheric phase decontamination. Finally, the proposed method is examined by the measured data. Experimental results indicate that the proposed method can well suppress the broadening sea clutter for HF hybrid sky-surface wave radars.

Description: In this work, the numerical steepest descent path (NSDP) method is proposed to compute the highly oscillatory physical optics (PO) scattered fields from the concave surfaces, including both the monostatic and the bistatic cases. Quadratic variations are adopted to approximate the integrands of the PO type integral into the canonical form. Then, on involving the NSDP method, we deform the integration paths of the integrals into several NSDPs on the complex plain, through which the highly oscillatory integrands are converted to exponentially decay integrands. The RCS results of the PO scattered field are calculated and are compared with the high frequency asymptotic (HFA) method and the brute force (BF) method. The results demonstrate that the proposed NSDP method for calculating PO scattered fields from concave surfaces is frequency-independent and error-controllable. Numerical examples are provided to verify the efficiencies of the NSDP method.

Description: This paper presents a compact Multiple Input Multiple Output antenna with high isolation and low envelope correlation (ECC) for fifth-generation applications using spatial diversity technique. The proposed MIMO antenna consists of two single antennas, each having size of 13 × 12.8 mm2, symmetrically arranged next to each other. The single and MIMO antennas are simulated and analyzed. To verify the simulated results, the prototype antennas were fabricated and measured. A good agreement between measurements and simulations is obtained. The proposed antenna covers the 28 GHz band (27.5–28.35 GHz) allocated by the FCC for 5G applications. Moreover, the isolation is more than 35 dB and the ECC is less than 0.0004 at the operating band, which means that the mutual coupling between the two elements is negligible. The MIMO parameters, such as diversity gain (DG), total active reflection coefficient (TARC), realized gain, and efficiency, are also studied. Thus, the results demonstrate that our antenna is suitable for 5G MIMO applications.

Description: This paper presents a broadband band-pass filter with cross-coupled line structure. The cross-coupled line structure is composed of the parallel coupled lines and an open stub. It can be analyzed by the odd- and even-mode method due to its symmetric structure. There are three transmission poles in the passband and two transmission zeros out of passband. Then, the influence of the impedance parameters on the transmission zeros and transmission poles are analyzed. Then, the physical parameters of the proposed band-pass filter are given. And using HFSS for simulation and optimization, the final insertion loss and return loss of filter are obtained. The simulation and measurement results are in good agreement, which validates the design idea.

Description: This paper presents a dual-band step impedance resonator (SIR) antenna based on metamaterial-inspired periodic structure of coupled complementary split-ring resonators substrate-integrated waveguide (CSRR-SIW). The antenna supports wireless local area networks (WLAN) bands at 2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz. The CSRRs and two branches of the SIR element are etched on the top and bottom metal surfaces of the substrate. The SIR element produces a fundamental frequency f1 at 2.4 GHz and a second harmonic frequency fs2 at 5.7 GHz. Meanwhile, the CSRRs produces a resonant frequency at high-frequency band around 5.2 GHz, which can be combined with the second harmonic frequency fs2 at 5.7 GHz. The high-frequency bandwidth can then be broadened. The simulated and measured results show that the dual operation bands with bandwidths of 16% from 2.25 GHz to 2.64 GHz and 18.2% from 5 GHz to 6 GHz for |S11| 

Description: Apart from interfering in the communication system of an aircraft, electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) radiated from spark discharge plasma, which is generated during high-speed flight, can also be utilized in passive detection. In order to validate this idea, an experiment on direction of arrival (DOA) estimation of a spark discharge plasma target using its radiated EMPs is carried out in this paper. A combined time-domain antenna is designed based on the model of spark discharge process and is used to receive the radiated EMPs during the experiment. According to the experimental results, the DOA estimation system with combined antenna is able to obtain the direction information of a spark discharge plasma. Results also show that the estimation performance of elevation angle is better when the actual elevation angle of the discharge plasma target is higher, while the estimation performance of azimuth is opposite. The azimuth angle of a target has very little influence on the DOA estimation. Moreover, the estimation error can be reduced effectively by increasing the aperture size of receiving array. The previously mentioned results provide an approach to locate the discharge plasma source using radiated EMPs with passive detection techniques.

Description: This paper introduces a 2D angle-of-arrival (AoA) estimator, which has a 6–18 GHz 7-element nonuniformly spaced array (NSA) and a Direct Data Domain- (D3-) based AoA algorithm for a 2D isotropic-element planar array (IEPA). A 2D calibration and data-transformation method is developed to convert the NSA data to the output of the IEPA, so that the NSA-measured data can be used in the D3 algorithm. Using the steering vector (SV) of the IEPA and the results derived from the D3 method, a new 2D AoA searching method is also developed, which offers frequency-independent performance defined by the probability of AoA estimation, when the required estimation accuracy and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) are given. For the applications of electronic support measures, this paper also presents the use of precalculated SV and data-transformation matrix databases built on preselected frequency points and a 2D-angle grid that is close to uniformly distributed directions. The simulation results show that with good SNR (≥15 dB), the estimator can have 50% probability of AoA estimation with root mean square error (RMSE) less than or equal to 1° using just a few samples from the NSA. Moreover, the study focuses on the applications with low SNR by using more samples from the NSA. Results show that the estimator has 52% and 80% probabilities of AoA estimation with RMSE ≤1° and 5°, respectively, for phase- or frequency-modulated radar pulses, when the SNR is within [−10, 0] dB. The study also shows that the estimator prefers a circular-shaped planar array with a triangular interelement pattern, since it presents more symmetrical characteristics from different azimuth angles.

Description: In this paper, we consider the joint angle-range estimation in monostatic FDA-MIMO radar. The transmit subarrays are first utilized to expand the range ambiguity, and the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) algorithm is first proposed to improve the estimation performance. The range ambiguity is a serious problem in monostatic FDA-MIMO radar, which can reduce the detection range of targets. To extend the unambiguous range, we propose to divide the transmitting array into subarrays. Then, within the unambiguous range, the maximum likelihood (ML) algorithm is proposed to estimate the angle and range with high accuracy and high resolution. In the ML algorithm, the joint angle-range estimation problem becomes a high-dimensional search problem; thus, it is computationally expensive. To reduce the computation load, the alternating projection ML (AP-ML) algorithm is proposed by transforming the high-dimensional search into a series of one-dimensional search iteratively. With the proposed AP-ML algorithm, the angle and range are automatically paired. Simulation results show that transmitting subarray can extend the range ambiguity of monostatic FDA-MIMO radar and obtain a lower cramer-rao low bound (CRLB) for range estimation. Moreover, the proposed AP-ML algorithm is superior over the traditional estimation algorithms in terms of the estimation accuracy and resolution.

Description: The rapid development of high-speed train and Metro communications has provided new challenges for the application of MIMO technologies. Therefore, we propose a three-dimensional (3D) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel model using leaky coaxial cable (LCX) in a rectangular tunnel. The channel model is based on geometry-based single-bounce (GBSB) channel model and the electric field distribution of LCX in the tunnel environment. The theoretical expressions of channel impulse response (CIR) and space-time correlation function (CF) are also derived and analyzed. The CFs for different model parameters (moving velocity and moving time) and different regions of the tunnel are simulated by Monte Carlo method to verify the theoretical derivation at 1.8 GHz. In the same parametric configuration of nonstationary tunnel scenarios, the time delay of the first minimum value of CFs for LCX-MIMO is 1/5 of the time delay of the minimum value of CFs for dipole antennas MIMO when the train moving velocity is 360 km/h. It is shown that, for MIMO system, the performance of using LCXs is better than using dipole antennas.

Description: This paper presents a new design of a compact, high-gain coplanar waveguide-fed antenna and proposes a multielement approach to attain enhanced characteristics. The proposed method overcomes the simulation and geometrical complexity and achieves optimal performance features. The antenna prototype is carefully designed, and simulation results have been analyzed. The proposed antenna was fabricated on a new WangLing TP-2 laminate with dimensions (0.195λ × 0.163λ × 0.0052λ) at the lowest resonance of 9.78 GHz. The results have been tested and experimentally verified. The antenna model achieved excellent performance including a peak realized gain better than 9.0 dBi, optimal radiation efficiency better than 87.6% over the operating band, and a good relative bandwidth of 11.48% at 10 dB return loss. Symmetrical stable far-field radiation pattern in orthogonal planes and strong distribution of current are observed. Moreover, a comparative analysis with state-of-the-artwork is presented. The measured and simulation result shows a good agreement. The high-performance antenna results reveal that the proposed model is a good contender of military airborne, land, and naval radar applications.

Description: System analysis is a powerful tool for researching modern wireless systems. This includes breaking such systems into parts that make them up and studying how these parts work together. All these parts can be represented as “black boxes” in the form of two-port or multiport networks with the common system of parameters. Antenna is an integral part of any wireless system, so it should be also represented as a two-port network. In this paper, an analytical model of an arbitrary single antenna in the form of a two-port network, whose electrical and noise parameters are described in terms of scattering matrices, is obtained. The initial data for creating the model are the antenna fundamental parameters, viz., the input reflection coefficient and the radiation efficiency. Applications of this model for antenna analysis operating in the transmitting, receiving, and scattering modes are demonstrated. A numerical example using the antenna scattering matrix for computer simulation of a wireless connection is given.

Description: A multiwideband bandpass filter (MW-BPF) using a quad cross-stub stepped impedance resonator (QC-SSIR) was simulated, fabricated, and measured. The proposed QC-SSIR is designed on a four-series arrangement of crossed open stub (COS) structures where each open stub is developed with a step impedance resonator (SIR) structure to generate a wide bandwidth. Compared to the COS resonator, the QC-SSIR has a wider fractional bandwidth and good transmission coefficients and is compact. ABCD matrix analysis is used to investigate the filter structure. Furthermore, the MW-BPF is designed on an FR4 microstrip substrate with εr = 4.4, thickness h = 1.6 mm, and tan δ = 0.0265. The results show that the proposed MW-BPF using a QC-SSIR achieves transmission coefficients/fractional bandwidths of −0.60 dB/49.3%, −1.49 dB/18.7%, and −1.93 dB/13.9% at 0.81 GHz, 1.71 GHz, and 2.58 GHz, respectively. Furthermore, to reduce the filter size, a folded QC-SSIR (FQC-SSIR) structure was also proposed. The results show that the proposed MW-BPF using an FQC-SSIR achieves transmission coefficients/fractional bandwidths of −0.57 dB/49.6%, −1.21 dB/17.7%, and −1.76 dB/12.5% at 0.82 GHz, 1.80 GHz, and 2.62 GHz, respectively. The size of the proposed MW-BPF using an FQC-SSIR is reduced by up to 46% compared with the MW-BPF using a QC-SSIR. Finally, the performance of the simulated MW-BPF based on the QC-SSIR and FQC-SSIR was in good agreement with the measurement results.

Description: This article presents the design, fabrication, and measurement of a square Koch fractal slot antenna for UHF band using both the FR4-G10 and Cuclad 250 substrates. Conveniently, this 56.56 cm full-length antenna possesses a geometry that allows it to be incorporated into the standardized 10 cm × 10 cm faces of the CubeSats. Furthermore, it is shown that both selected substrates exhibit an acceptable performance at the frequency of interest despite the economic cost difference and relative permittivity. Hence, the commercial FR4-G10 antenna substrate can be preferred because of its low-cost and admissible performance at 458 MHz, which is a frequency in the UHF band that is commonly used for telemetry, tracking, and command downlinks of CubeSats. Measurements show that the proposed antenna exhibits a reflection coefficient of −16.53 dB, a bandwidth of 22.62 MHz at −10 dB, a VSWR of 1.3508, a normalized impedance of 0.794 − j0.173 at 50 Ω, and a directivity of 2.24 dBi. The contribution of this work consists in the use of a fractal geometry to construct a low-cost slot antenna working at UHF frequencies over the limited area of the CubeSat faces and in order to optimize the area for an eventual coexistence with solar cells.

Description: This research proposes a single-fed broadband circularly polarized (CP) bidirectional antenna operable in 840–960 MHz frequency band for readers of universal UHF-RFID applications. The proposed antenna is comprised of upper-layer conductor, lower-layer conductor, and wall patches. The upper-layer conductor consists of two diagonally aligned rectangular copper plates with a feeding gap at the center, and the lower-layer conductor is of two diagonally adjoined rectangular plates. The upper- and lower-layer conductors are adjoined with the wall patches. The diagonal alignment technique of the upper- and lower-layer plates was used to realize circular polarization and improve 3-dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth. The double layers were deployed to improve impedance bandwidth (|S11| 

Description: A new strategy of density tapering called the partial density tapering (PDT) accompanied with the algorithm of differential evolution (DE) is proposed to suppress the peak sidelobe level (PSL) of uniform excited concentric ring arrays (UECRA) with isotropic elements. Through performing the PDT, a sound starting solution for DE can be generated. Then, the ring filling factor (RFF) is introduced so that the optimization of the number of elements can be transformed into the optimization of RFFs within the tapered thresholds, and thereby the real coding can be directly used with respect to the consideration of parallel encoding strategy. Finally, the UECRA featuring improved PSL performance can be obtained by limited runs of conventional DE. Several numerical instances for UECRA, with aperture sizes ranging from small to large scale, confirmed the outperformance of the proposed method.

Description: This study sets out an empirical hybrid autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) and artificial neural network (ANN) model designed to estimate electromagnetic wave propagation in densely forested urban areas. Received signal power intensity data was acquired through measurement campaigns carried out in the Metropolitan Area of Belém (MAB), in the Brazilian Amazon. Comparisons were made between estimates from classical least squares (LS) fitting and ITU (International Telecommunication Union) recommendation P. 1546-5. The results indicate the model is, at least, 44% more precise than every ITU estimate and, in some situations, is at least 11% better than an LS estimate, depending on the respective values of the relative error (RE).

Description: An increasing number of vehicles make spectrum resources face serious challenges in vehicular cognitive small-cell networks. The means of spectrum sharing can greatly alleviate this pressure. In this paper, we introduce a supermodular game theoretic approach to analyze the problem of spectrum sharing. The small-cell BS (primary service provider, PSP) and the vehicle (secondary service provider, SSP) can share the spectrum, where the PSP can sell idle spectrum resources to the SSP. This is taken as a spectrum trading market, and a Bertrand competition model is considered to depict this phenomenon. Different PSPs compete with each other to maximize their individual profits. The Bertrand competition model can be proved as a supermodular game, and the corresponding Nash equilibrium (NE) solution is provided as the optimal price solution. Hence, an improved genetic simulated annealing algorithm is designed to achieve NE. Simulation results demonstrate that the NE point for the price of the primary service provider exists. The change of the exogenous variable is also analyzed on the equilibrium point.

Description: This paper covers the variation of electrical performance of air microstrip antennas due to its ground plane deformation. A typical sinusoidal function is utilized to characterize the shape of deformation, based on which different shapes of ground plane can be obtained by changing control parameters. From the simulation results by HFSS, there is a strong linear relationship between the offset of resonant frequency and the amplitude of deformation. The equivalent thickness of the air medium is introduced into the calculation model, and then the mathematical model is established to describe the resonant frequency offset and deformation amplitude. It can also be seen from the radiation pattern that the directivity decreases with the increase of deformation. The proposed method can be used to predict the effect of ground plane deformation on electrical performance of air microstrip antennas.

Description: In this paper, the whale optimization algorithm (WOA) is applied to the inverse scattering of an imperfect conductor with corners. The WOA is a new metaheuristic optimization algorithm. It mimics the hunting behavior of humpback whales. The inspiration results from the fact that a whale recognizes the location of a prey (i.e., optimal solution) by swimming around the prey within a shrinking circle and along a spiral-shaped path simultaneously. Initially, the inverse scattering is first transformed into a nonlinear optimization problem. The transformation is based on the moment method solution for scattering integral equations. To treat a target with corners and implement the WOA inverse scattering, the cubic spline interpolation is utilized for modelling the target shape function. Numerical simulation shows that the inverse scattering by WOA not only is accurate but also converges fast.

Description: High-resolution microscopy technique is of significant importance for studying nanomaterials. It is necessary to understand the near-field interaction between the probe and substrate materials in order to get the fine structure of the nanomaterial in the subwavelength scale. The numerical methods such as FDTD, FEM, and MoM are inefficient for the SNOM problems because of the illness of the impedance matrix. The analytic method can only be used for some simple objects such as sphere. Here, a quasianalytical method is developed, in which the analytic formula is refined to adapt to various shapes of the probe approaching the curve of SNOM. By this way, it is helpful in comparing the performance of different probes and giving us a direction to design a new type probe in SNOM. As an application, the developed method is used to study the contrast in the SNOM for the interface between the two different surfaces that have different materials and topography.

Description: It is known that the periodic use of silver nanoantennas in organic solar cells increases the efficiency of light absorption. In this study, we performed a geometric parametric analysis of nanoantennas using the finite element method. Based on the study of the convex truncated cone nanoantenna, we have found that a nanoantenna arrangement formed by the convex truncated cone nanoantenna along with a pyramidal nanoantenna provides a better solution for different angles of light incidence compared to a single nanoantenna. We obtained a mean increase in the absorption efficiency of this organic solar cell, both for the TM and TE polarizations, compared to the use of the conventional nanoantenna in the wavelength range of 300–800 nm.

Description: In this paper, a robust angle estimator for uncorrelated targets that employs a compressed sense (CS) scheme following a fast greedy (FG) computation is proposed to achieve improved computational efficiency and performance for the bistatic MIMO radar with unknown gain-phase errors. The algorithm initially avoids the wholly computation of the received signal by compiling a lower approximation through a greedy Nyström approach. Then, the approximated signal is transformed into a sparse signal representation where the sparsity of the target is exploited in the spatial domain. Finally, a CS method, Simultaneous Orthogonal Matching Pursuit with an inherent gradient descent method, is utilized to reconstruct the signal and estimate the angles and the unknown gain-phase errors. The proposed algorithm, aside achieving closed-form resolution for automatically paired angle estimation, offers attractive computational competitiveness, specifically in large array scenarios. Additionally, the analyses of the computational complexity and the Cramér–Rao bounds for angle estimation are derived theoretically. Numerical experiments demonstrate the improvement and effectiveness of the proposed method against existing methods.

Description: The increasing cohabitation between telecommunication antennas generating electromagnetic waves and solar panels poses the problem of interaction between these radio waves and solar cells. In order to study the effect of radio waves on the performance of a polycrystalline silicon solar cell in a three-dimensional approach, it is necessary to assess the attenuation of the radio wave in the illuminated polysilicon grain and also to find the expressions of its components. This work investigated the attenuation of radio waves into a polycrystalline silicon grain by analyzing, firstly, the behaviour of the penetration length of the radio waves into the polysilicon grain and secondly, the behaviour of the attenuation factor. The propagation of the radio waves into the polycrystalline silicon grain can be considered without attenuation that can be neglected.

Description: Joint time delay and direction of arrival estimation based on uniform linear arrays in Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) systems has to face the problems posed by coherent multipath environments and high computational complexity. In this paper, a novel fast method is proposed to achieve a joint direction-of-arrival (DOA) and time-dealy (TD) estimation of multipath OFDM signals by fully using space-frequency characteristics. Firstly, we construct an extended virtual array by combining the array structure and frequency-domain information. Then, we calculate the extended channel frequency response matrix and adopt smoothing processing to eliminate the multipath effect. Next, we get the result of DOA estimation by using a closed-form solution, which costs little complexity and can achieve fast estimation. Finally, we conduct a one-dimensional spectral search using the obtained DOA values to estimate time delays. Simulation results show that our proposed methods have excellent performance even under low SNR conditions in different multipath environments. Furthermore, methods proposed in this paper have much less computational complexity and better estimation performance compared with the multidimensional spectral peak search methods.

Description: The material parameters of a metamaterial (MTM) are determined by the transformation function used in the optical transformation. Some previously reported MTMs, such as the invisibility cloak, the field rotator, and the field concentrator, were designed by a linear transformation. Their impedance was matched to the background so that no reflection was found; however, the material parameters were mismatched to the background due to the linear transformation function. In the present work, the parameters were matched by using high-order polynomial functions as the transformation function. Since similar materials are filled in boundary cells of the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) algorithm, the stair-casing error was reduced and the tolerance against boundary abrasion was increased. The frequency response of the proposed method was analyzed. The proposed method is applicable to MTM structures that have complex boundary shapes. In this work, circular and elliptic boundary shapes were considered as examples.

Description: The aim of the research is to propose a new optimization method for the multiconstrained optimization of sparse linear arrays (including the constraints of the number of elements, the aperture of arrays, and the minimum distance between adjacent elements). The new method is a modified wolf pack optimization algorithm based on the quantum theory. In the new method, wolves are coded by Bloch spherical coordinates of quantum bits, updated by quantum revolving gates, and selectively adaptively mutated when performing poorly. Because of the three-coordinate characteristics of the sphere, the number of global optimum solutions is greatly expanded and ultimately can be searched with a higher probability. Selective mutation enhances the robustness of the algorithm and improves the search speed. Furthermore, because the size of each dimension of Bloch spherical coordinates is always [−1, 1], the variables transformed by solution space must satisfy the constraints of the aperture of arrays and the minimum distance between adjacent elements, which effectively avoids infallible solutions in the process of updating and mutating the position of the wolf group, reduces the judgment steps, and improves the efficiency of optimization. The validity and robustness of the proposed method are verified by the simulation of two typical examples, and the optimization efficiency of the proposed method is higher than the existing methods.

Description: Electric fields radiated by cloud flashes that occurred over the rugged terrain of mountainous country Nepal were recorded, analysed, and compared with those from different geographical regions. The total duration of the flash varies from 80 to 469.5 ms. The majority of the cloud flashes were of two stages: the first stage of the majority of the flashes was found to consist of large microsecond scale bipolar pulses having negative initial polarity and the late stage consists of submicrosecond scale pulses having both positive and negative initial polarities. The average durations of the first and second stages are 11.23 and 66.79 ms, respectively, and the time gap between them is 53.57 ms. The cloud pulses led by the negative initial polarity pulses are more compactly distributed and are higher in mountainous countries as compared to those of flashes lead by positive initial polarity pulses, with the average values of interpulse interval being 211.42 and 309.79 μs, respectively.

Description: A novel two-iteration binary tree fractal bionic structure antenna is proposed for the third generation (3G), fourth generation (4G), WLAN, and Bluetooth wireless applications in the paper, which is based on the principles of conventional microstrip monopole antenna and resonant coupling technique, combined with the advantages of fractal geometry. A new fractal structure was presented for antenna radiator, similar to the tree in nature. The proposed antenna adapted two iterations on a fractal structure radiator, which covers mobile applications in two broad frequency bands with a bandwidth of 44.2% (1.85–2.9 GHz) for TD-SCDMA, WCDMA, CDMA2000, LTE33-41, and Bluetooth frequency bands, and 11.5% (4.9–5.5 GHz) for WLAN frequency band. The proposed antenna was fabricated on a G10/FR4 substrate with a dielectric constant of 4.4 and a size of 50 × 40 mm2. The good agreement between the measurement results and the simulation results validate that the proposed design approach meet the requirements for various wireless applications.

Description: Directional modulation (DM) has become a new research hotspot of physical layer security (PLS) communication at the transmitter side. In this paper, we propose a robust synthesis algorithm for DM signal under the condition of the array manifold vectors perturbation. This algorithm optimizes the constraints of sidelobe level and Euclidean distance of constellation points by considering the worst case performance of array manifold vectors. Furthermore, we also design an active constellation extension (ACE) method to relax the equality constraint of desired modulation symbols into a robust inequality constraint at the desired direction. These constraints can be reformulated in a convex form with l2 and l∞ regularization, which are computationally tractable. Simulation results show better performance of the proposed robust algorithm compared with the benchmark synthesis algorithms in the presence of array manifold vectors uncertainty.

Description: The Direction-of-Arrival (DoA) and bandwidth (BW) estimation strategy impinging on a linear array using multiple snapshots data is addressed within the multitask Bayesian Compressive Sensing (MT-BCS). The DoA estimation is used as the reconstruction of sparse signal constrained by the Laplace prior through multitask Bayesian Compressive Sensing. Receiving wideband signal data through linear array, the space is divided into I parts according to the equal interval. The data of interest are assumed to be represented as I-dimensional vector, and the wideband signal can be reconstructed accurately using only a small number M. The receiving antenna operates in the frequency range fmin,fmax. Starting from the voltages measured at the output of the array elements at a multiple time instants at fp=fmin+Δf,p=1,…,P, the retrieval of the DoAs is addressed by means of a customized strategy based on MT-BCS in order to correlate the solutions obtained over different frequency samples. The bandwidth of the signals is obtained as a byproduct by identifying at which frequencies the MT-BCS estimations include a signal along the ith (i = 1,…, I) sampling direction. From the outputs of different frequencies, we can know the DoA and BW of signals. A preliminary numerical result is reported to show the behavior of the proposed approach in multiple snapshots data.

Description: In the present work, a phaseless approach for microwave imaging applications is presented. The proposed solution strategy is based on the formulation of the scattering phenomena in terms of contrast source, while no phase-recovery stage is involved into the numerical procedure, thus providing a phaseless single-step resolution method. The image recovering potentialities of the discussed method are numerically validated by successfully distinguishing different tissues of a slice breast model, with a tumor located wherein. The above preliminary assessment encourages the adoption of the proposed solution in the framework of biomedical imaging.

Description: Two types of modified crossed-wire antennas are investigated to enhance a circularly polarized (CP) wave bandwidth. The wire length of each antenna is increased twice as long as that of the original antenna. First, a bent-type antenna is analyzed using the method of moments. It is found that the CP wave bandwidth for a 3 dB axial ratio criterion is twice as wide as that of the original antenna. Next, a spiral-type antenna is analyzed. It is revealed that the antenna shows a CP wave bandwidth of 28%, which is wider than that of the original antenna by a factor of 3.5. The analysis results are validated by experimental work.

Description: We investigate a circularly polarized (CP) transmission-line antenna composed of loop radiation elements, called a loop-line antenna. To enhance the CP wave bandwidth, an isolated loop radiation element is first analyzed using the method of moments. It is found that a CP wave bandwidth for a 3 dB axial-ratio criterion has a maximum value of 8%. On the basis of the analysis results, we design the loop-line antenna. It is found that the antenna shows a CP wave bandwidth of 6%, which is twice as wide as that of a conventional loop-line antenna. The analysis results are verified with experimental ones. In addition, a condition for wideband CP radiation is discussed and found to be a composite radiation element consisting of two CP loops.