AntennaLab Activities

AntennaLab Activities

Numerical Methods

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Nowadays, antenna design and analysis are based on simulation tools. Numerical Methods for electromagnetics is the branch of mathematics associated with developing methods to help solve

electromagnetic mathematical problems that would otherwise be insolvable.

The AntennaLab Group has developed their own numerical simulation tools: FIESTA-3D and GRECO.

• Surface current distribution for a patch antennacomputed with a new implementation of the VSIE(Volume Surface Integral Equations) from FIESTA-3D Software.

• Multiple back-scattered reflections computedfor an electromagnetic model of a F117 aircraftwith GRECO software.

AntennaLab Activities

Antenna Design

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The AntennaLab research group has extensive experience in the design, testing and integration of antennas for communication and remote sensing systems.

Fractal Antennas Metamaterials for MIMO systems

Small and Compact Antennas

AntennaLab Activities

Antenna Measurements

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Research facilities include full instrumentation to perform circuital and radiation measurement into the whole microwave band. The availability of its own measurement resources has supported an

intensive research activity in the domain of near to far field transformation and antenna diagnostics.

Anechoic Chamber

THz TD Spectroscopy System

V-band Probe Station Millimeter-Wave NF to FF System

AntennaLab Activities

Integration of Radio Systems

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The specific objective of the integration is the development of embedded crosslayer- wireless techniques for sensor and communications network architectures with emphasis on radio frequency aspects for low-

power implementations. A main specific goal of the project is to focus the previous different research efforts towards new breakthrough miniature radio systems and innovative applications.

• As the demand grows for mobile costumers for broad-band multimedia services, satellites need to become more efficient in their delivery, exploiting new technologies such as multi-beam antennas an on board processing.

• The AntennaLab group has experience in design, construction, calibration and characterization of electronically controlled beam steering arrays.

AntennaLab Activities 5

• Microwave imaging for biomedical applications

• Microwave nondestructive evaluation of civil engineeringstructures

• RFID sensors and new material characterization

• Reconfigurable Antennas

• Isofrequency reconfigurable RF repeater

• MST Retina System for THz Imaging

• W-Band passive Imaging and THz Spectroscopy

• Dielectric Flat Lens Antennas for mmW Applications

AntennaLab Recent Projects

AntennaLab Activities 6

Microwave Imaging for Medical Applications

Breast and hemorrhagic brain stroke cancer

detection

•Reconstruction

•Original Geometry

Experimental Setup

AntennaLab Activities 7

Microwave Nondestructive Evaluation of Civil Structures

Noninvasive and Nondestructive Evaluation with microwaves of thecorrosion in reinforced rebars.

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Inductive Heating

Time gradient of |S21 | (dBm)

0% rust

10% rust

30% rust

AntennaLab Activities

• Characterization of theconductivity of graphene. To study its applicabilityfor antenna design.

• Several samplesmeasured at two differentfrequency rangescentered at 10GHz and 100GHz.

• Currently measuringgraphene samples at Terahertz frequencies

Graphene Characterization

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AntennaLab Activities

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Inter-element coupling

• Use of multiple RFID tags for EM sensing:• Near Field measurement• Tomographic imaging sensors

Field Distribution

Measurement Expected Magnitude Phase

Radiation Pattern

RFID Multiprobe Sensing

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AntennaLab Activities 10

The antenna is reconfigured activating the switches (PIN diodes) interconnecting antenna pixels.

Reconfiguration capabilities are enhanced by using multi-size pixel geometries. Only 12 switches are required.

The antenna can adjust configurations to cover from 1.2 GHz till 6.0 GHz.

Reconfigurable Antennas: Pixel Antenna

AntennaLab Activities

Parasitic Reconfigurable

Strip Panel

Rx Port

Tx Port

Switching device ( MEM or PIN diode)

I(dB) > GA(dB) + SM(dB)

Isolation I(dB)

Sourcematchingnetwork

Load matchingnetwork

TxAntenna

Rx Antenna

G A (dB)

Repeater requirements• Good matching between ports• Isolation between ports: 60-80 dB• Control the direction of the maximum

radiation pattern in the Tx and Rx ports.

•Genetic algorithms are required to find the best repeaterconfiguration in a changing scatter environment

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Isofrequency Reconfigurable RF Repeater

AntennaLab Activities

• MEMs Retina at 25 - 75 GHz

• Schottky Diode Retina at 300 GHz (One element characterization)

• PIN Diode Retina at 100 GHz

MST Retina System for THz Imaging

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AntennaLab Activities

Spatial resolution: 35mm

Radiometric resolution: 0.3 K (70ms integration time)

Integration time per pixel: Adjustable (1ms-500ms)

Scanning time: 7 minutes (100x50 pixels image)

mmW-Outdoor94 GHz TPR 2-channel SA radiometer with optical correlator

W-band Passive Imaging and THz Spectroscopy

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AntennaLab Activities

Dielectric Flat Lens Antennas for mmW Applications

Permittivity profile

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x

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ne W

ave F

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Flat Lens er

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ε6ε5ε4ε3ε2ε1ε2ε3ε4ε5ε6

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fSW

Switched-Beam Antenna Array

CAPABILITIES

• HIGH GAIN RADIATION BEAMS (20 dB)• FULL 2-D BEAM-STEERING CAPABILITIES

APPLICATIONS

• WPAN communication systems at 60 GHz band.• Automotive radar systems at 77 GHz• Passive Imaging Systems at 94 GHz

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AntennaLab Activities

AntennaLab Research GroupSTAFF

• 5 Full Professors

• 2 Associate Professors

• 8 PhD Students

• 7 Master Students

• 3 Lab technicians

• 45 PhD dissertations

• More than 150 journal

and 200 conference pa-

pers published

http://www.tsc.upc.edu/antennalab Contact: Jordi Romeu – romeu@tsc.upc.edu

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