Millimeter-wave band-pass filters using spherical dielectric resonators are presented. The dielectric spheres are sandwiched between metal plates and are excited by a simple microstrip line structure on a thin-film circuit board. As such, these filters could also be implemented in the back-end-of-line layers of an integrated circuit. A single resonator, based on a diameter 0.6 mm alumina ceramic sphere, is shown to resonate with high unloaded Q-factor of 750 at 170 GHz. A three-sphere band-pass filter is measured showing <5 dB insertion loss and 0.4% bandwidth at 170 GHz. A concept for mechanically tuning of a two-sphere band-pass filter is demonstrated for a filter operating around 105 GHz. The measured filter shows approximately 5 dB insertion loss and <0.5% bandwidth and its passband can be varied over 3 GHz of frequency, or 3%. Technological challenges are discussed.

Sigma-delta radio over fiber (ΣΔ-RoF) is an expedient technology for next-generation networks including 5G cloud/centralized radio access networks (C-RAN). In this article, we demonstrate a realistic experimental scenario for ΣΔ-RoF link targeting C-RAN fronthaul applications, by using baseband second-order 1-bit sigma-delta modulation (ΣΔ-M). The experimental set-up validates the LTE 20 MHz signals having modulation order of 256-quadrature amplitude modulation for a carrier frequency of 3 GHz, up to 10 km of standard single mode fiber. A detailed analysis of the ΣΔ-RoF system performance is reported by adjacent channel leakage ratio and error vector magnitude. Furthermore, an experimental study is evaluated where ΣΔ-RoF is compared with its counterparts. It is deduced that ΣΔ-RoF corroborates the present range of C-RAN fronthaul networks and can be a promising candidate for future mobile haul applications.

In this paper, a novel SIW microwave sensor is designed to accurately determine the broadband complex permittivity of medium loss and dispersive liquids using a number of higher order modes in 11–20 GHz. To achieve a higher accuracy in characterization, the sensor is equipped with some methods such as Photonic Band Gap method, slow-wave via, and a new feedline, which enhances the quality factor for the higher order TE1,0,n modes. The operating principle of this sensor is based on the cavity perturbation technique, in which the resonant properties of the cavity are utilized to extract the dielectric properties of liquid under test. To provide a method to decrease the LUT consumption, a winding microfluidic channel is designed and embedded in the cavity. The channel increases the interaction between the induced electric field and the LUT. The accuracy of different perturbation technique for determination of permittivity is compared with each other.

Design and development of cheap and eco-friendly microwave absorber are one of the challenging and interesting topics for the scientific community nowadays. This paper proposes the design and fabrication of corn husk-based low cost, light-weight, and flexible microwave absorber treated as a promising eco-friendly microwave absorber. In this work, an extensive study on microwave absorption efficiency of corn husk at different thicknesses is performed in the frequency range of 1–20 GHz. The absorber at 5.21 mm thickness possesses a return loss (RL) of −32.72247 dB at 2.255 GHz. The measured RL values agree well with simulated ones, indicating the utility of proposed absorber for various practical microwave absorption applications.

In this paper, a super-compact ultra-wideband (UWB) metamaterial absorber (MMA) is presented. The absorber design consists of an inverted L-shaped structure and a diagonal rectangular-shaped structure. The capacitive coupling between these two structures not only provides UWB nature but also provides a super-compact absorber design. The dimension of the unit cell arrangement is 5 × 5 mm2 and printed on a low-cost FR-4 substrate of thickness 1.54 mm (0.061λlowest). The design absorber provides more than 97% absorptivity from 12 to 21 GHz for normal incidence electromagnetic (EM) wave. However, the proposed MMA has a full width at half maximum absorption bandwidth of 11.71 GHz from 10.34 to 22.05 GHz. Moreover, the surface current distributions have been analyzed to understand the absorption mechanism of the MMA. The stability of the proposed design is validated with different incident angles (for TE and TM modes) and different polarization angles. Finally, the absorber design is fabricated and verified experimentally. Furthermore, the UWB frequency range, high absorption, ease in design and fabrication, and cost-effective make it suitable for different quality applications in stealth technology, thermal imaging, radar detection, antenna systems, and other EM devices.

In this paper, a novel design of ultra-wide stop-band single-side single-layer frequency selective surface (FSS) is presented. The unit cell of the proposed FSS is designed using the combination of conventional square loop and cross (CSLC). To enhance the bandwidth of this structure, an additional cross is inserted in all the four quadrants of CSLC. The stop-band transmission bandwidth assuming −10 dB threshold is found to be 128.94% (2.16–10 GHz) which is 34.33% more as compared to the bandwidth of CSLC. The unit cell with a dimension of 16 × 16 mm2 is printed on one side of an FR4 substrate. The design is fabricated and the measured results are found to be in good agreement with the simulated results. The design provides excellent stability for both transverse magnetic and transverse electric polarizations. The design is very flexible, where any resonant frequency can be achieved by changing the length of unit cell. The design is useful in many applications such as antenna gain enhancement, electromagnetic wave shielding for Wi-Fi/5G systems, and other Internet of Things-based applications.

In this paper, a novel miniaturized and flexible dual band frequency selective surface (FSS) is presented. This FSS provides effective shielding in X-band and Ku- band, with a frequency response of 9.4 and 16.7 GHz, respectively. The proposed FSS provides 924 MHz bandwidth at X-band and 1.34 GHz bandwidth at Ku-band with an insertion loss of 20 dB. Moreover, the proposed design is polarization-independent and it provides stable frequency response at various angles of incidences for both transverse electric and transverse magnetic modes. More significantly, the proposed FSS analyzed the bandstop response of the selective frequency and also is suitable for conformal applications. A prototype of the proposed FSS is fabricated. The measured results and simulated results are good in agreement.

In this research article, a compact wideband stack patch antenna array integrated with compact stack electromagnetic band gap (EBG) structure for multiple input multiple output (MIMO) application is proposed. The wide resonance bandwidth is achieved at 2.45 GHz band by stack arrangement of compact meander line slot driven and parasitic patch elements. The isolation bandwidth is matched with resonance bandwidth with the design of a compact stack L slot EBG structure. The polarization diversity and three-layer EBG structure ensure an enhancement in isolation level. To validate the performance of the proposed stack antenna array, a prototype was fabricated and tested for different MIMO parameters. The measured result confirms the effectiveness of the proposed antenna array in a diverse MIMO environment.

A compact ultrawideband (UWB) antenna with reconfigurable triple band notch characteristics is proposed in this paper. The antenna consists of a coplanar waveguide-fed top-cut circular-shaped radiator with two etched C-shaped slots, a pair of split-ring resonators (SRRs) on the backside and four p-type intrinsic n-type (PIN) diodes integrated in the slots and SRRs. By controlling the current distribution in the slots and SRRs, the antenna can realize eight band notch states with independent switch ability, which allows UWB to coexist with 5G (3.3–4.4 GHz)/WiMAX (3.3–3.6 GHz), WLAN (5.15–5.825 GHz), and X-band (7.9–8.4 GHz) bands without interference. By utilizing a nested structure of C-shaped slots and SRRs on the backside, a compact size of 18 × 19.5 mm2 is achieved along with multimode triple band notch reconfigurability. The antenna covers a bandwidth of 3.1–10.6 GHz. A prototype is fabricated and tested. The simulated and experimental results are in good agreement.

The progressions in the field of wireless technology can be highly attributed to the development of antennas, which can access high data rates, provide significant gain and uniform radiation characteristics. One such antenna called the Vivaldi antenna has attracted the utmost attention of the researchers owing to its high gain, wide bandwidth, low cross-polarization, and stable radiation characteristics. Over the years, different procedures have been proposed by several researchers to improve the performance of the Vivaldi antennas. Some of these different approaches are feeding mechanisms, integration of slots, dielectric substrate selection, and radiator shape. Correspondingly, the performance of a Vivaldi antenna can be increased by including dielectric lens, parasitic patch in between two radiators, corrugations, as well as metamaterials. This paper gives a systematic identification, location, and analysis of a large number of performance enhancement methods of Vivaldi antenna design depicting their concepts, advantages, drawbacks, and applications. The principal emphasis of this article is to offer an outline of the developments in the design of Vivaldi antennas over the last few years, where the most important offerings, mostly from IEEE publications, have been emphasized. This review work aims to reveal a promising path to antenna researchers for its advancement using Vivaldi antennas.

The paper presents a 1 × 2 B-shaped antenna array for dual-band operation at 4 and 8 GHz. The antenna design consists of a rectangular patch with two annular-strip lines fabricated on the top layer and finite ground plane on the bottom layer. The array is formed by designing an optimum T-shaped microstrip line for impedance matching. The dimensions of the antenna array are 78 × 36 × 1.6 mm3. Full-wave simulations have been conducted and the measured results are in good consent with the simulated results. The measured impedance bandwidth (reference −10 dB) has been observed at 3.84–4.16 and 7.78–8.38 GHz. Measured peak gain and radiation efficiency at 4 and 8 GHz are 8.3, 9.4 dB and 82.5 and 81.2%, respectively.

This study presents a new design of a four-element multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna, which is suitable for X-band applications. The circular polarization (CP) operation in this work is attained by using Tai Chi-shaped patches and L-shaped feeds. The proposed four-element MIMO antenna achieves two resonant frequencies, the first one at around 7.75 GHz and the second one with CP radiation is at approximately 10.15 GHz frequency. The measured isolations between ports with 46.7 × 46.7 mm2 total dimensions are <−20 dB. Due to the experiments, the envelop correlation coefficient for the orthogonal and parallel ports of the proposed MIMO antenna is <0.003 and 0.005, respectively. Additionally, the presented antenna has a circularly polarized performance in the frequency band of 9.75–10.41 GHz and the average realized peak gain almost 2 dBic. The investigated antenna in this work is fabricated and tested in which the results are in a good agreement.

A superstrate loaded cylindrical dielectric resonator antenna is developed and demonstrated for dual-band circular polarization. The proposed antenna employs a microstrip-fed rotated cross-shaped slot coupling technique for exciting the dielectric resonator (DR). The design is developed in a straight forward way. Firstly, the DR is coupled with a conventional plus-shaped slot and operates in linear polarization mode at 7.4 and 11.2 GHz. Secondly, the slot is rotated by 10° to enable out-of-phase excitation and ensure circular polarization at the above-mentioned frequencies. In the third step, a square dielectric superstrate is placed above the DR which creates multiple reflection and enhance the gain up to ~8 dBi in both the frequencies without affecting other performances. The development stages are discussed in detail. The proposed design is demonstrated through prototype fabrication and characterization. This antenna can be used for X-band satellite communications.