A small and compact ultra-wideband (UWB) aperture antenna with extended band-notched design is proposed. The antenna is composed of a rectangular aperture on ground plane of a printed circuit board and a fork-like exciting stub. The presented co-planar wave guide triple-fed antenna is easy to be applied with RF and microwave circuitry for low manufacturing cost. The antenna is successfully designed, implemented, and measured. A compact aperture area of 12.5 × 23 mm2 is acquired with promising performances, including broadband matched impedance and stable radiation patterns. The correlation between the mode-based field distributions and radiation patterns is discussed. Extended from the proposed antenna, one advanced band-notched (5–6 GHz) designs are also presented as a desirable feature for UWB applications.

This paper presents the design fabrication and measurement of a nanogap radio frequency microelectromechanical system (RF MEMS) metal-contact switch. The prosed device generates a relatively high contact force with a low actuation voltage using a dielectric layer between the actuation electrode and the moveable beam. The actuation voltage is decreased with good reliability of the device by scaling down the gap. Beam geometry optimization allowed reaching 126 micronewtons contact force with only 10 V bias voltage. The fabricated miniature switch (80 × 50 × 0.95 µm) has indeed a pull-down voltage of 6 V and a contact resistance <2 Ω with 10 V bias applied. By measuring the S-parameters, the up-state capacitance has been fitted to 22 fF. The remarkable figure-of-merit Ron × Cup = 44 fs reflects the good performance of the device. A cycling test showed the device operated for 90 min without any charging problem noted.

A recently proposed technique for the distributed modeling of extrinsic parasitic effects in electron devices is used for the very first time in conjunction with a lumped equivalent circuit model for the intrinsic device.

Nonlinear modeling of 0.1 μm InP HEMTs for W-band applications is considered here, leading to extremely accurate predictions of harmonic distortion and power added efficiency at the fundamental frequencies of 27 and 94 GHz.

The distributed parasitic network is identified through accurate electromagnetic simulations up to the upper frequency limit of the millimeter-wave band (300 GHz), while standard pulsed I/V and S-parameter measurements up to 67 GHz are used for the identification of the intrinsic device model.

This paper presents the performance study of a 248 GHz voltage-controlled hetero-integrated signal source using indium phosphide (InP)-on-bipolar complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (BiCMOS) technology. The source consists of a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) in 0.25 µm BiCMOS technology and a frequency multiplier in 0.8 µm transferred-substrate InP-heterojunction bipolar transistor technology, which is integrated on top of the BiCMOS monolithic microwave integrated circuit in a wafer-level based benzocyclobutene bonding process. The vertical transitions from BiCMOS to InP in this process exhibit broadband properties with insertion losses below 0.5 dB up to 325 GHz. The VCO operates at 82.7 GHz with an output power of 6 dBm and the combined circuit delivers −9 dBm at 248 GHz with 1.22% tuning range. The phase noise of the combined circuit is −85 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset. The measured output return loss of the hetero-integrated source is >10 dB within a broad frequency range. This result shows the potential of the hetero integrated process for THz frequencies.

An ultra-wideband (UWB) highly compact bandpass filter with extremely high passband bandwidth is presented. The proposed structure is made using three-staged stepped-impedance lines and a composite right/left-handed transmission line (CRLH-TL) synthesized with meander fractal like ring slot in the ground and series capacitive gap in conductor strip. The capacitive gap in conductor strip and meander fractal like ring slot in the ground plane play major role for controlling the lower and higher cut-off frequencies. The equivalent circuit model of proposed filter is demonstrated and lumped parameters are extracted. A prototype is fabricated to experimentally validate the performance of proposed filter. The proposed UWB filter has extremely wide −10 dB return loss passband bandwidth from 3.14 to 18.26 GHz with relative bandwidth of 142% and insertion loss better than 0.5 dB. Also it achieves a wide upper-stopband from 19.7 to 24.4 GHz with insertion loss better than 13.0 dB, return loss <1.5 dB and sharpened rejection skirts outside the passband at both lower and upper frequency ends. Good agreement is found between simulated and measured results with measured group delay variation in the passband <0.65 ns.

A triple-frequency operated concentric annular ring microstrip antenna which is single fed is presented. The proposed antenna with three concentric annular rings and two symmetrical notches on its outer ring and having a cross slot in its ground surface shows triple band at resonance frequency 1.22760, 1.57542, and 2.18 GHz, respectively. At the first two bands (GPS L2 and GPS L1), circular polarization characteristic is observed and the third band observes linear polarization finding its application in Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS). The complete dimension of the antenna designed and fabricated is only 51.6 × 51.6 × 1.6 mm3. Experimental results depict the proposed antenna gain of 3.31, 3.55, and 3.50 dBi in three bands, respectively, and closely matches with the theoretical results.

Since Hodgkin and Huxley described the nerve axon as a cable (H–H model), many efforts have been made to find more approximated transmission line models representing the nerve axon. This paper describes a simple model that represents the nerve axon in two parts: the internodal space as a lossy thin-film microstrip line and the node of Ranvier as an active complex load. The complex load terminating the transmission line is given by the variable impedance of a tunnel diode. First, the internodal space is circuitally analyzed and electromagnetically simulated as a lossy thin-film microstrip line terminated on a complex fixed load. The transmission line circuit theory, the two-port network analysis, and a two-dimensional finite difference time domain method are used for such a task by forcing a strip subatomic metallization. Then, the transfer function of the internodal space, cascaded with the node of Ranvier, is equated to the transfer function of a transmission line section that includes a tunnel diode. This procedure is carried out in order to obtain the diode's variable impedance. The diode was introduced by Nagumo, Arimoto, and Yoshizawa for simulating the nerve axon as an active transmission line. The active transmission line is represented by the FitzHugh simplified H–H model known as the Bonhoeffer–van der Pol model.

In this paper, a new design approach for the six-port (SP) junction is introduced. The proposed design includes a generalized broadband matching and smooth miniaturization scheme and is extendable for any passive multiport structure. A multilayer technology and a microstrip to slot coupling operation are employed for the designed SP, which comprises power divider and three hybrid couplers. The conducted measurements of the constructed SP junctions validates the design approach. Optimal performance of the SP network in terms of miniaturization, bandwidth, and response accuracy were obtained for the 5G low band.

By combining the technique of energy selective surface and frequency selective rasorber, an energy selective rasorber is proposed, which performs selective energy protection in the low communication frequency band (0.8–2 GHz) and wave-absorbing property in the high-frequency band (6–18 GHz). The design consists of two layers, of which the bottom one contains a lumped diode structure for energy selection function in the transmission band, while together with the top layer, they perform a wideband wave absorbing function. The simulated and measured results agree well with each other, and both show good absorption in 6–18 GHz and energy-selective property around 1.86 GHz. That is, when the incident power changes from −30 to 14 dBm, the reflection coefficient changes from below −22 dB to above −2 dB, while the transmission coefficient changes from above −3 dB to below −17 dB.

It is difficult to detect a stationary object in practice, especially in an unknown indoor environment, because (a) there is no distinct speed difference between the targets and the background; (b) responses of the targets are contaminated by dense unknown clutter; (c) a priori knowledge of the background is not always available for some scenarios. In this paper, a set of ultra-wideband sensors are used to detect a stationary target with a planar diffuse surface. It is shown that, the relative spectrum-shifts of the data after data-projection operation, are closely connected to the illumination-angle differences. Based on this, a detector is designed, and the location and the orientation of the target are determined. In order to mitigate the influence of clutters, a “time-shift & accumulation” scheme is designed to enhance the signal. As a consequence, the signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio is increased. In addition, results from measurement in a realistic indoor environment are provided.

In this paper, an antenna-to-antenna method to design high-efficiency polarization converters was proposed. Two in-linked split ring resonators (SRRs) were used as the fundamental unit cell, which can effectively make the original linear polarization angle deflected into a customized one (include but not limited to 90°). The same as the process of energy reception and transmitting of microstrip symmetric dipole antennas, the top SRR plays the role of a receiving antenna and the bottom one acts as a transmitting antenna. Under normal illumination, the strong coupling between electric resonance and magnetic resonance can result in high transmission and broad bandwidth. Since the two SRRs act as two independently polarization selective components, the polarization angle of transmitted waves can be easily controlled by rotating the transmitting SRRs around the center. The proposed concept and the design method are validated using numerical simulations, as well as experimental results of three examples for 45, 60 and 90° polarization angle rotation, the polarization conversion ratio of which is about 92.2, 88.9 and 91.9% from 7.5 to 10 GHz.

In this paper, a rectangular dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) with a parasitic gap-coupled microstrip resonator (MSR) is investigated; analytically, and experimentally. The proposed antenna uses an open-ended half-wavelength MSR patch as a hybrid radiator. Radiating modes are identified for both the radiators. Two separate and fully independent modes are merged together to get an enhanced bandwidth. The antenna can offer three modes of operation, mode 1 (only DRA is active), mode 2 (only MSR is active), and the mode 3 (both DRA and MSR are active). In mode 3, the antenna offers a single wideband operation with ≈11% bandwidth by merging modes 1 and 2 with a broadside radiation pattern. Two switches are proposed to realize the three modes of operation. A p–i–n diode is utilized as switching element in simulations. Multiple antennas have been fabricated using a small metal strip as a switch to validate the proposal. Analytical, simulated, and measured results are found in harmony. A parametric study is done to describe the antenna characteristics. An approximate lumped element model is also extracted and presented.

By introducing a modified F-shaped feeding strip and dual parasitic shorted strips, a small-size wireless wide area network/long-term evolution (WWAN/LTE) printed antenna is proposed and embedded in the 4 G mobile phone with octa-band operation. The operating impedance bandwidths (RL ≥ 6 dB) of 263/1093 MHz can be obtained across the LTE/WWAN bands, respectively. The overall antenna size of the proposed printed monopole antenna (MA) is only 35 × 10 × 0.8 mm3. Meanwhile, this small-size MA provides the measured peak gains and antenna efficiencies of 2.0/3.6 dBi and 80/75% for the LTE/WWAN bands, respectively.

A new class of 3-dB impedance transforming directional couplers has been proposed in which the recently published coupled-line couplers, consisting of coupled-line sections having different electrical lengths, have been utilized. The main advantage of the proposed directional couplers is the possibility of obtaining high impedance transformation ratio, thus the known limiting condition of realizable impedance transformation in 3-dB couplers is overcome. Moreover, the proposed directional couplers feature significantly wider operational bandwidths. The theoretical analysis of the proposed impedance-transforming directional couplers has been shown and is fully supported by the measurements of the manufactured model operating in 0.5–1.5 GHz frequency range.

This paper presents a new artificial neural network (ANN)-based radar data processing approach for the detection of breast cancers located inside fibro-glandular tissues. The aim is not the breast imaging but detecting tumors through ANN processing of data extracted from the radar signals measured around the breast. The proposed approach has been assessed using several realistic two-dimensional breast geometries derived from the models provided by the numerical breast phantom repository of the University of Wisconsin Cross-Disciplinary Electromagnetic Laboratory (UWCEM). The pulsed radar system was assumed to operate in the mono-static configuration. The obtained results showed the abilities of the proposed approach to detect, for any single radar trace, tumors located inside the fibro-glandular tissues with a sensitivity of 93%, a specificity of 90%, and an overall accuracy of 92%.

Two compact resonant near-field sensors are introduced for the characterization of aqueous solutions at 5 GHz. They are based on folded substrate-integrate circular half-mode resonators with a planar sensing tip. Owing to the planar design, the sensor is simple and cheap to manufacture, and a sample can be easily coupled to the resonator from the top. The operating principle of the sensor is explained and verified by both simulation and measurement. The radiation of the sensors is quantified by means of a quality factor analysis. Finally, a previously introduced calibration method based on the perturbation theory is applied to the sensors and its accuracy is improved by choosing more suitable reference materials.

Coupled-mode theory is applied to obtain an analytic form of scattering parameters for a class of transmission line metamaterials with antisymmetric split-rings. The same structure is modeled with equivalent circuit, which includes electric and magnetic coupling with the line and inter-resonator coupling. Modified even/odd analysis is used to obtain scattering parameters from the equivalent circuit. These two methods are shown to be equivalent in a narrow band, and their constants related. The obtained results are compared with full-wave simulations and measurements, and it is shown that both methods give accurate approximation in one octave frequency band. The derived analytic expressions are suitable for study of resonant phenomena, with potential practical applications for filters, phase shifters, delay lines, and sensors.

This paper, following up on the previous work, investigates the effect of the input coupler's load termination of a balanced amplifier in a beam-steering system. The noise generated in this load termination deteriorates the amplifier noise resistance, which increases the noise temperature due to a varying active reflection coefficient at the antenna ports as a function of scan angle. In reducing this effect, the balanced configuration is made more favorable for radio astronomy applications. By lowering the value of the impedance termination on the fourth port of the quadrature coupler an improvement in noise temperature sensitivity is achieved at the cost of reduced power matching.