A coplanar waveguide slot antenna is herein presented. A rectangular slot is excited by a Y-shaped monopole etched on a single FR4 substrate. This structure exhibits two resonances due to the presence of the slot and the central monopole which can be used to design a dual-band or a wideband antenna. A parametric analysis is presented to describe the impedance matching mechanism for the two impedance bandwidths (BWs), as well as for the wideband antenna. The latter is fabricated and provides a measured impedance BW from 2.28 to 3.6 GHz, and gain larger than 2 dBi, yielding an outstanding BW/size trade-off. Finally, a 60 mm × 60 mm back metallic reflector is used to achieve a directive antenna with 6 dBi of measured gain, and an impedance BW from 2.16 to 3.59 GHz.

The present paper presents a fully differential 60 GHz four stages low-noise amplifier for wireless applications. The amplifier has been optimized for low-noise, high-gain, and low-power consumption, and implemented in a 90 nm low-power CMOS technology. Matching and common-mode rejection networks have been realized using shielded coplanar transmission lines. The amplifier achieves a peak small-signal gain of 21.3 dB and an average noise figure of 5.4 dB along with power consumption of 30 mW and occupying only 0.38 mm2 pads included. The detailed design procedure and the achieved measurement results are presented in this work.

This paper presents a wideband band-stop filter (BSF) structure designed by using planar technology. The proposed filter consists of a modified conventional band-stop structure with open stubs, inner T-inverted shape, and two input/output feed lines. Based on series of optimization and a specific design method, two compact filters with good electrical performance are obtained. In order to characterize the frequency response of the proposed filters, the performance is carried out numerically using two different solvers (Advanced Design System -Momentum and CST-MWS). Furthermore, in order to validate the conception approach, two circuits are designed, fabricated, and tested. Additionally, an equivalent circuit of the wideband BSF is built to estimate the electromagnetic simulation results for practical realization. The features of the design have a reduced size, wideband rejection, and higher insertion losses, which can be performed by adjusting the L-shaped stubs (23.25 × 2.2 mm2) toward the 50 Ω input and output ports. Two filters are designed, fabricated, and tested; one can be operated between an fractional bandwidth (FBW) of about 50% at a center frequency of 1.8 GHz, and the other can be switched from an FBW of 43.38% at a center frequency of 1.82 GHz. In addition, good agreement between the simulation and the measured results is achieved. The overall size of each filter is 43.4 × 34.5 mm2.

A MMIC double-balanced subharmonic diode ring mixer was designed for broadband satellite communications exploiting a GaAs pHEMT process. The circuit implements the frequency conversion from Q (43.5–50 GHz) to Ku-K band (17–21.5 GHz). Besides the RF, LO, and IF baluns, the MMIC integrates a buffer amplifier for the local oscillator signal, which is designed between X and Ku bands (11–16.5 GHz), due to the subharmonic operation. The mixer measured conversion loss is between 8 and 12 dB along the bandwidth, with an LO power of 9 dBm. The input p1 dB and IP3 are 2 and 15 dBm, respectively. The balanced structure ensures an LO and 2 × LO leakages at the IF port lower than −25 and −35 dBm, respectively. Other spurious remain below −67 dBc. The chip dimensions are 2.4 × 2.4 mm2.

A simple and efficient numerical inversion Laplace transform (NILT) algorithm is implemented in MATLAB environment based on the quotient difference method to solve the problem of electromagnetic (EM) field coupling to lossy or lossless multi-conductor transmission lines (MTL) illuminated by an EM incident field. Two major points are treated in this work for the lossy MTL system excited by an incident EM field; the first one is the optimum equivalent circuit taking into consideration the different physical concepts based on the transmission line theory and the second point deals with the choice and implementation of the numerical method for less computing time and for efficient results. In this paper, the effect of the EM coupling is treated and it is based on the superposition effect of each distributed voltage current sources using the NILT numerical method. Results of the near end and far end voltages and currents for an MTL system are presented and displayed for two types of microwave (MW) structures in the time domain for the case of a plane wave excitation. It has been shown that a non-homogeneous MW structure or multilayered system with a specific choice of the dielectric constant has an advantage for less transient EM coupling due to the external EM field.

An integral equation-fast Fourier transform (IE-FFT) algorithm is applied to the electromagnetic solutions of the combined field integral equation (CFIE) for scattering problems by an arbitrary-shaped three-dimensional perfect electric conducting object. The IE-FFT with CFIE uses a Cartesian grid for known Green's function to considerably reduce memory storage and speed up CPU time for both matrix fill-in and matrix vector multiplication when used with a generalized minimal residual method. The uniform interpolation of the Green's function on an equally spaced Cartesian grid allows a global FFT for field interaction terms. However, the near interaction terms do not take care for the singularity of the Green's function and should be adequately corrected. The IE-FFT with CFIE does not always require a suitable preconditioner for electrically large problems. It is shown that the complexity of the IE-FFT with CFIE is found to be approximately O(N1.5) and O(N1.5log N) for memory and CPU time, respectively.

This paper describes a digital signal processing (DSP) method for achieving “ideal” amplification, maximizing both the average output signal power and power-added-efficiency for any signal waveform and any power amplifier (PA) transfer characteristic. Detailed algorithms are described for optimally accomplishing peak reduction (PR), predistortion (PD) linearization, and integration of these DSP techniques with envelope tracking PAs. Hardware characterization results validate the theories of PD and PR operation.

The paper presents the results of studies on the effect of transistor DC operating conditions on GaN power amplifiers’ (PAs) power efficiency and linearity improved by digital predistortion (DPD). The single-ended 10 W (ISM2.45 GHz) and 150 W (3.4/3.6 GHz) GaN HEMT PAs excited by wideband LTE20 E-TM1.1 signal were tested. To check the applicability of the small-signal approach for designing of LTE signals’ PAs, the 150 W PA using transistor model extracted from S-parameters measured at the properly selected operating points was designed. The conventional DPD based on the indirect learning architecture and the memory polynomial model of PA non-linearity was implemented. The results of the research show that in case of class A and B PAs operating up to several dozen watts, an additional improvement in adjacent channel leakage ratio (ACLR) of the order of a few dB only by an increase in the quiescent drain current of PA transistor can be achieved. However, a noticeable ACLR improvement with a coincident increase in power-added efficiency (PAE) can be obtained by choosing the compromise DC operating point and using DPD. In the case of high-PAs, the linearity and efficiency are strongly dependent on the load of a transistor, thus the role of DPD is significantly increased.

Electromagnetic wave of enemy radar propagated by troposcatter is a valuable candidate for beyond line-of-sight detection. There is no analytical study considering the operating range of passive troposcatter detection system. In this paper, we study the way to predict the operating range, which is dominated by propagation loss. The key propagation loss models including statistic model and real-time model are analyzed. During deducing the latter loss model, Hopfield model is introduced to precisely describe the tropospheric refractivity. Meanwhile, rain attenuation is also taken into consideration. Several examples demonstrate the feasibility of predicting operating range through the proposed method.

An effective linearization technique capable of equalizing IM3 products resulting from an arbitrary out-of-band blocking scenario in a wideband direct conversion receiver is presented. IM3 products are regenerated in the RF analog domain of a low-power mixed-signal feedforward path and are used to cancel analogous signal terms in the original receiver at digital baseband via adaptive equalization. The composite SAW-less receiver achieves an improvement in effective IIP3 from −7.1 to +5.3 dBm under worst-case UMTS Region 1 blocking when the feedforward path is active.

A new SiGe heterojunction bipolar phototransistor (HPT) based on a commercially available process was designed, realized, and experimentally characterized. Its internal characteristics, mainly the collector-to-base capacitance, vary significantly with the received light power, making it suitable as an active element of a light-controlled photo-oscillator. It can also be a key component of optical network-on-chip (ONoC). Its responsivity was improved and its transition frequency remains in the range of 30 GHz.

Taking into account sparsity of the reflectivity function of several radar targets of interest, efficient low-complexity automatic target recognition (ATR) systems can be designed. Such ATR systems would be based on two-dimensional (2D) spatial target models of low dimensionality, where critical information on the radar target signature is summarized. Discrete 2D radar target models can be estimated using high range resolution (HRR) data, measured at a sparse system of view angles. This being the main objective, incoherent tomographic processing of HRR data from a distributed surveillance system, made up of several radar nodes, is studied in this paper. A sparse angular sampling scheme is proposed, which exploits diversity due to both the distributed radar system and the target motion. The novelty is in the exploitation of this locally dense, but otherwise sparse set of viewing angles of the targets, obtained using a sparse network of radars. The de-ghosting efficiency of such a sampling scheme is demonstrated geometrically. This results in identification of minimal information resources for unambiguous estimation of a 2D target model, useful for radar target classification.

The design of low-profile Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) antennas for various 5G applications is a topic of huge interest in academia, research, and telecommunication sector. In this aspect, a compact and low-profile 5G MIMO antenna has been designed and analyzed for various 5G applications, specifically for the 24 GHz bands (24.25–24.45 GHz and 25.05–25.25 GHz) and local multipoint distribution system band (27.5–28.35 GHz) of the 5G spectrum. The proposed antenna structure is 20 × 20 × 1 mm3 in dimension. Two spade-shaped radiators composed of Copper (annealed) material are placed orthogonally to improve isolation and maintain signal diversity. Rogers RT 5880 is used as the material for substrate. The antenna exhibits a wide bandwidth of 21.5–28.5 GHz. The mutual isolation |S21| has been maintained ≤29 dB due to the insertion of a T-shaped parasitic strip in between the radiating elements. Novelty in design and superiority in performance has been observed when compared with related antenna categories.

This paper demonstrates a highly efficient 3-stage Doherty power amplifier (PA) employing an envelope tracking (ET) technique. The ‘3-stage’ Doherty PA is the most efficient architecture for a high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) signal among the various Doherty PAs. However, because of the lower peaking biases than those of the ‘N-way’ Doherty PA, the proper load modulation is hard to be achieved. To get proper modulation, the peaking PAs' gate biases have been adaptively controlled using the ET technique, and the peak power and maximum efficiency characteristic along the backed-off output power region is successfully achieved. By ADS and Matlab simulations, the overall behavior of the 3-stage Doherty PA employing the ET technique has been fully analyzed. To maximize the overall efficiency of the proposed 3-stage Doherty PA, the unit PA has been designed using class F−1 PA. For verification, the amplifier is implemented using 5 W and 10 W PEP LDMOSFETs for the 802.16e mobile world interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) at 1 GHz with a 8.5 dB PAPR. The measured drain efficiency of the proposed 3-stage Doherty PA is 55.5% at an average output power of 37 dBm, which is a 7.54 dB backed-off output power. The digital feedback predistortion (DFBPD) algorithm has been used to linearize the proposed PA considering the ET technique. After linearization, the −33.15 dB of relative constellation error (RCE) performance is achieved, satisfying the system specification. These results show that the 3-stage Doherty employing the ET technique and saturated PA is the most suitable PA for the highly efficient and linear transmitter.

We consider the scattering and absorption of the H-polarized plane wave by finite and semi-infinite systems of layers in the THz range. Every layer consists of an infinite graphene strip grating embedded into a dielectric slab. The solution of the problem we obtain in several steps. First, with the use of the method of singular integral equations we obtain scattering matrices of a single layer. Then, we present equations for the finite and semi-infinite systems of layers relatively the Fourier amplitudes of the scattered field. The frequency dependences of the reflection, transmission, and absorption coefficients demonstrate the variety of resonances: plasmon, slab-mode, grating-mode resonances, and resonances of the multilayer structure.

In this paper, we propose a frequency-reconfigurable antenna structure consisting of a dielectric resonator (DR) topped by a superstrate material. Two metasurfaces (MSs) are placed upon the DR and the superstrate, where these two MSs are utilized to synthesize a localized reduction of the dielectric constant of the DR. By placing switches into one of the MSs, the distribution of dielectric constant of the DR can be switched to one of two predefined distributions, which is equivalent to switching the DR length to two different lengths. Consequently, the frequency response of the proposed structure can be tuned to one of two operating bands. The excited modes inside the proposed antenna were obtained analytically and through simulations. Also, the dielectric constant value of substrates topped by MSs was analyzed. The antenna was fabricated and measured, and good agreement between simulation and measurement was attained. The antenna bandwidths are 7–8.1 GHz (14.7%) and 8.5–9.2 GHz (8%) and the gains are 5.1 and 7.8 dB, in the cases of having switches off and on, respectively.

In evaluating the potential of a given integrated-circuit technology, the negative conductance approach is used to estimate a maximum frequency limit for the ability of Heterojunction Bipolar Transistor (HBT) cross-coupled architecture to function as an oscillator at high frequencies. In this paper, the simple low-frequency estimation of the negative conductance, commonly used in the literature, is extended by deriving a new expression that takes into account the HBT parasitics. An expression for the frequency at which the negative conductance of the circuit crosses zero is given, which gives maximum frequency of oscillation for an ideal tank (no tank losses). In addition, the effect of the feedback capacitor, which is commonly added for direct current (DC) decoupling and boosting the negative conductance, is analyzed and new insight on the choice of the value of this capacitance is introduced. The results were proven by simulations using SiGe HBT transistors with an ft of 190 GHz.

A rectangular monopole antenna with an extended ground, excited by Coplanar Waveguide (CPW) and backed by a 6 × 6 array of fractal artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) unit cells, resonating at 5.8 GHz in Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) band, is presented in this manuscript. To attain the objective of proposing a compact and economical antenna solution for employment in wearable biomedical domain, a novel approach of utilizing both surfaces of the same dielectric for engraving antenna element as well as AMC array is adopted. It results in the elimination of layers of expensive substrate (RO3003) and of thick separator (foam) between antenna and AMC array. During measurement in open space, the proposed antenna system exhibited an impedance bandwidth of 570 MHz with a gain of 7.9 dBi. While a total realized gain of 7.5 dBi, amounting to a gain enhancement of about 3 dB as compared to that of monopole alone, is observed when the integrated antenna system is placed just over a three-layer rectangular human body equivalent model. Specific absorption rate values, as calculated at 5.8 GHz and averaged over 1 and 10 g of human tissue, are 0.0117 and 0.00244 W/kg, respectively. Obtained results strongly advocate the use of the proposed antenna system in smart wearable healthcare devices.

The microwave energy-harvesting (MEH) and microwave power transfer (MPT) technologies have become the most emerging areas of research nowadays. The microwave rectifier circuit is the bottleneck of both the MEH and MPT systems. The efficiency of the system depends on the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the rectifier. Due to the recent advancement of the fifth-generation communication system, it is desirable to propose an efficient rectifier operating at sub-6 GHz 5G bands. A dual-band rectifier circuit is designed and demonstrated for MEH/MPT purposes, specifically at sub-6 GHz 5G frequency bands. The dual-band matching is achieved by using a stepped impedance transmission line. The rectifier covers N78 (3.3–3.6 GHz) and N79 (4.8–5.0 GHz) bands. Peak PCE of 67.6% @ 3.5 GHz and 56.8% @ 4.9 GHz are achieved. For validation purpose, the rectifier is fabricated and characterized and measured results show good agreement with simulated results.