In this paper, dual-band and tri-band bandpass filters (BPFs) with fully independent and controllable passbands based on multipath-embedded resonators are presented. The dual-band BPF consists of two double open-ended stub-loaded terminal-shorted resonators (DOESL-TSRs) with a common via-hole connected along the symmetric plane of the filter. Based on DOESL-TSRs, a triple open-ended stub-loaded terminal-shorted resonator (TOESL-TSR) is proposed in the design of tri-band BPFs. The resonant characteristics of DOESL-TSR/TOESL-TSR are analyzed by the numerical calculation method. The measured results of the dual-band BPF show that the center frequencies (CFs) are located at 2.595 and 5.75 GHz, respectively, with 3 dB fraction bandwidth (FBWs) of 15 and 12.8%. The measured CFs of the tri-band BPF are located at 2.545, 3.775, and 5.95 GHz, respectively, with 3 dB FBWs of 9.8, 9.3, and 5.5%. Both of the filters exhibit the merits of fully independent and controllable passbands, high selectivity, and compact size.

A novel dual-polarization, single-layer reflectarray has been designed and manufactured to operate at receive (20 GHz) and transmit (30 GHz) frequencies for Ka-band terminal antennas. The reflectarray unit cell is composed of several types of resonant elements printed on the upper side of a conductor-backed substrate, which are designed to produce a collimated beam at 20 and 30 GHz in dual polarization. Cross-shaped loops are used to provide the required phases at 20 GHz, while crossed dipoles and modified truncated rings are used to control the phasing at 30 GHz. The resonant lengths of the proposed elements have been adjusted cell by cell by means of a two-dimensional interpolation method to achieve the required phase shift at each frequency. Two different feeds have been used to illuminate the reflectarray at 20 and 30 GHz. The measured gain is 28.02 dBi at 20 GHz and 32.14 dBi at 30 GHz. The measurement results show that the radiation patterns of the designed single-layer reflectarray antenna are in good agreement with those achieved from the simulations.

A new design method of an ultra-wideband circularly-polarized planar multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) antenna is presented in this paper. The proposed MIMO antenna consists of four unit cell antennas, being comprised of a microstrip feed line and a square slotted ground plane. In the proposed unit cell design, a circular stub is protruded from the ground plane strip for achieving circular polarization. The unit cell of the MIMO antenna is optimized by adjusting design parameters. The compact four-port MIMO antenna prototype is designed on the FR4 substrate with the overall dimensions of 45 × 45 × 1.6 mm3. The proposed four-port MIMO antenna design provides an impedance bandwidth (S11 < −10 dB) of 112% (3.1–11 GHz) and a 3 dB axial ratio bandwidth of 36% (4.8–6.9 GHz). The performance of the fabricated MIMO antenna shows good agreement between the EM simulation and measurement results.

For the requirements of low mutual-coupling MIMO antennas for WLAN, a new complementary split-ring resonator (CSRR) unit cell is introduced in this paper. A microstrip-fed Vivaldi antenna array is designed for WLAN applications, where compact triple-band gap-complementary split-ring resonator unit cells are loaded between two antennas to examine the effect of unit cells on the rate of mutual-coupling reduction. By inserting the CSRR, the final design offered an improvement in decoupling by 8.5, 10.5, and 18 dB at 3.65, 4.9, and 5.8 GHz, respectively, compared with the reference antenna. By suppressing surface waves, antenna gain and front-to-back ratio are improved.

A novel tri-beam slot antenna array based on substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technology is proposed in this paper. The beam forming network is a 3 × 3 Butler matrix consisted of three couplers and four phase shifters. A 1.76 dB coupler is located between two 3 dB couplers, with this arrangement; the input signal can be divided into three parts with the same amplitude and certain phase differences. Two parallel slots are cut off broadside of SIW transmission line, which constitutes the basic unit of the antenna array. A 3 × 2 slot antenna array is connected with this circuit. Three beams with the directions of −30, 0 and 30° are produced when different ports are excited, respectively. The S parameters, radiation patterns, and gains are simulated and measured, which show that it can be a candidate for multi-beam wireless communication systems.

Multiple antennas and multiple radio frequency (RF) chains in both the transmitter and receiver are required in conventional radio systems employing the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) method. This paper presents an experimental investigation of a beam-steering time-modulated MIMO receiver with a single RF chain. Implementation of the receiver is based on a time-modulated antenna array (TMAA) and a software-defined radio. The sidebands generated inherently by the TMAA are utilized as virtual spatial channels with the beam-steering functionality. Performance of the system is investigated experimentally. The bit error rate and condition number of the channel matrix are examined for different radiation patterns in order to determine favorable configurations in a given multipath environment. Obtained results show a considerable impact of the beam-steering on the performance of MIMO transmission.

This paper reports on quasi-elliptic dual-band bandpass filters (BPFs) that were designed for the Filter Student Design Competition of the 2019 European Microwave Week. The proposed lumped-element (LE) BPF concept is based on two dual-band transversal cells and one multi-resonant cell that allow the realization of symmetric and asymmetric dual-band transfer functions shaped by six poles and five transmission zeros. A compact implementation scheme based on LE series resonators is proposed for size compactness and wide spurious free out-of-band response. For proof-of-concept demonstration purposes, a dual-band LE prototype with two passbands centered 1 and 1.5 GHz was designed, manufactured, and measured. It exhibited the following radio frequency measured performance characteristics. Passbands centered at 1.02 and 1.45 GHz, minimum insertion loss levels of 2.0 and 2.7 dB, and bandwidth of 146 and 105 MHz, respectively, for the first and the second passband, and out-of-band rejection >30 dB between 0 and 894 MHz, 1.17–1.34 GHz, and 1.72–6.9 GHz.

In this work, a new compact, low profile, frequency, and end-fire pattern reconfigurable antenna is presented. The proposed antenna consists of four parasitic elements and an electric-inductive-capacitive (ELC) resonator enclosed with a closed ring resonator (CRR). The reconfigurability in the proposed antenna is achieved with the help of five PIN diodes (D1–D5) embedded on the top surface of the substrate. The diode (D1) is implanted between ELC and CRR resonators for frequency reconfigurability. The other four diodes (D2–D5) are implanted between the ground plane and four parasitic elements to control the electrical length of the ground plane to achieve pattern diversity. The ground plane and parasitic elements steer the primary omni-directional beam to bi-directional and uni-directional end-fire radiation at multiple frequencies. The proposed antenna exhibits multiband operation and end-fire pattern diversity depending upon the different states of PIN diodes. The overall size of the proposed antenna is 0.20λ0× 0.17λ0× 0.009λ0, where λ0 is calculated at the lowest resonance frequency. The impedance bandwidth of the antenna ranges from 1.45 to 26.22%, while peak gain varies from 0.86 to 3.86 dBi depending upon the state of operation. The measured results are in agreement with the simulated results, which confirm the frequency and pattern diversity performance of the antenna. The proposed antenna can be used in back-to-back repeater systems.

This paper considers the ability of polarization measurements for microwave remote sensing of clouds and precipitation. The simulation of reflections from liquid hydrometeors with a multi-polarization radar system is presented. The mathematical expression of energy received by a radar antenna with arbitrary polarization is obtained. The simulation of the energy redistribution of the signal reflected from liquid hydrometeors assembled over the antennas of multi-polarimetric radar for different wind conditions and different drop-size distributions is obtained and analyzed. The simulation results demonstrate the possibility to register wind and wind-related phenomena by polarimetric radar. The results of the paper can also be used to exclude an impact of drop vibration or oscillation into the radar signal to eliminate errors and underestimation during parameter measurements. The approach to segregate the reflected signal magnitude variations due to the wind-related phenomena from other factors is discussed.

A novel multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) fractal antenna excited by a coplanar waveguide was investigated in this study. A novel technique was used to improve the isolation of 20 dB between the dual radiating elements by inserting a strip line into the outer edges of the ground plane. A sunflower structure was used to configure the antenna in three steps. At each step, an additional sunflower structure was added with half the size of that used in the previous step to enhance the impedance bandwidth. The measured values of envelop correlation coefficient and total active reflection coefficient indicated that the proposed MIMO antenna has high-diversity performance between radiating elements. Wide dual operating bands of 2–2.9 and 5–10 GHz were obtained, which can support different wireless communications, such as 3G, LTE (2.6 GHz), WLAN (2.4 GHz/5 GHz), WiMAX (2.4 GHz/5GHz), ISM (2.4 GHz/5 GHz), 5G (5–6 GHz), and satellite communications (6–8 GHz). The MIMO fractal antenna with a small size achieved a maximum efficiency of 85% and a peak value gain of 6 dBi, low-channel capacity loss of 0.15–0.4 b/s/Hz, and high isolation between radiating elements is suitable for portable communication devices.

A compact ultra-wideband (UWB) monopole antenna with reconfigurable band-notch characteristics is demonstrated in this paper. It is comprised of a modified rectangular patch and a defected ground plane. The band-notch property in the WiMAX and WLAN bands is achieved by etching an open-ended slot on the radiating patch and an inverted U-shaped slot on the ground plane, respectively. To obtain the reconfigurable band-notch performance, two PIN diodes are inserted in the slots, and then the notch-band can be switched by changing the states of the PIN diodes. The antenna has a compact size of 0.47 λ1 × 0.27 λ1. The simulated and measured results indicate that the antenna can operate at a UWB mode, two single band-notch modes, and a dual band-notch mode. Moreover, stable radiation patterns are obtained.

A novel 1 × 4 phased array elliptical inverted T-shaped slotted sectored patch antenna with defected ground structure (DGS), resonate at proposed ultra-wide tetra band at 28, 43, 51, and 64 GHz with high gain and beam-steering capabilities is presented. An inverted T-shaped slotted stub is used with the sectored patch to achieve ultra-wideband properties. In order to resonate the antenna at four different bands, DGS of round bracket slot is etched on the ground. The 1 × 4 phased arrays are used at the top edge and bottom edge of mobile PCB with high gain. The simulation results show that the antenna has four ultra-wide bands: 25.8–29.7, 40.6–44.6, 49.2–53.1, and 62.2–74 GHz with a maximum gain of 16.5 dBi at 51 GHz. The phased array antenna is capable to steer its main beam within ±30° at the 26, 28, and 43 GHz, using appropriate phase shifts of each antenna element. The proposed millimeter wave antenna is particularly suitable for cellular infrastructures and can be a candidate for emerging 5G mobile applications. The availability of an additional 11.8 GHz (62.2–74 GHz) of contiguous unlicensed spectrum will allow the launching of new exciting wireless services.

This paper presents a compact octagonal array of microstrip patch antennas for direct broadcast satellite (DBS) (12.2–12.7 GHz) services. The proposed single element of this array is a new fractal antenna, having considerably high gain and can heavily suppress cross polarization along the main beam direction. The single element is derived from a 2D spiral geometry. The corporate feed network of the array is designed in such a manner to make the structure very compact. The fabricated single element resonates at 12.51 GHz and gives a gain and bandwidth of 9.32 dBi and 280 MHz, respectively. The array resonates at 12.46 GHz and gives gain of 17.67 dBi and a bandwidth of 506 MHz, which ensures a 100% coverage of the entire DBS service band. The measured cross polarization of single element and array along the direction of main beam are −45.50 and −43.35 dB, respectively. Both the single element as well as the array maintains a reasonably good radiation efficiency of 86.70 and 82.20%, respectively.

The effective resistivity (ρeff) is a figure of merit commonly used to assess the radio-frequency performance of a substrate from the measurements of coplanar waveguide lines. For highly resistive substrates, such as the trap-rich (TR) substrate, the extracted ρeff decreases by several orders of magnitude at millimeter-wave frequencies. The explanation for this decay is twofold. First, the imaginary part of the characteristic impedance ${\rm \lpar \Im }\lpar Z_c\rpar \rpar$ is not well extracted, which leads to an incorrect separation of the total losses among the metal and substrate losses. Second, the original expression of ρeff does not include dielectric losses, which might become non-negligible at millimeter-wave frequencies. This paper solves both issues by presenting a new procedure to extract ρeff and the dielectric losses simultaneously, and by introducing a novel method to correct ${\rm \Im }\lpar {Z_c} \rpar$. Furthermore, it is shown that this extraction method enables the correct extraction of substrate parameters up to 220 GHz of TR and high-resistivity silicon substrates. Finally, the origin of the large extracted value of dielectric loss is discussed in the potential presence of surface roughness and surface wave radiation. Both phenomena are discounted thanks to measurements of an additional reflective structure and a standard impedance substrate.

This paper presents the capacity of an S band circularly polarized patch antenna using a ferrite material for low-earth orbiting satellites (2025–2100 MHz for TeleCommand) to obtain a semi-isotropic radiation pattern. Indeed, circularly polarized antennas are generally large and bulky which is often incompatible for spatial applications especially for small satellites. A new antenna design is proposed with the following maximum dimensions: a diameter of 80 mm and a height of 12 mm. The structure presents an axial ratio lower than 6 dB (according to requirements) and a realized gain higher than −6 dB over a 4% bandwidth at the limit of coverage i.e. 90° irrespective of the azimuth angle (φ).

In this article, a sleeve antenna with a wide impedance bandwidth that consists of a coplanar waveguide line connected to a metallic cylinder is presented. The effect of design parameters on the impedance bandwidth is considered by some simulations. In addition to the wide impedance bandwidth, the omnidirectional pattern, high efficiency, low cost and easy fabrication process, and compact dimensions cause this antenna to be a good choice for some applications at low VHF/UHF frequency bands. Due to the flexible structure of this antenna, it is possible to cover the various frequency bands by changing the parameters of the antenna. In this work a typical model of the proposed antenna for the frequency range of 127 to 586 MHz is fabricated and compared with other previous works. An equivalent circuit model has been proposed to better understand how the antenna works. The proposed antenna has a bandwidth of about 128.7% for a voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) of less than 3, compact size of 0.274λ × 0.047λ and higher than 90% efficiency.

This paper describes and analyzes a new technique used in Q-slot antenna to generate circular polarization (CP). The CP characteristics were investigated carefully by studying the surface current distribution, the phase difference between the left hand circular polarization (LHCP) and right hand circular polarization (RHCP) at some resonant frequencies, and the measured values of the axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW). Normal arms (E1 and E2) were cut in the upper elliptical feeding strip line to form an open-mouth structure. The arms E1 and E2 were made equal in length and set perpendicular to each other to have normal electric fields, leading to the generation of CP radiation. A formula was modified for the dual resonant frequencies f1, f2 of the modes TM010 and TM001. The measured values of the ARBW indicated that the antenna has a wide ARBW of 4.8–5.93 GHz, which is approximately 52% of the 3rd operating band of 4.7–6.8 GHz. The wide ARBW in a small size indicated that the design of the Q-slot antenna overcame the limits of designing antennas with wide ARBW in small size and low profile. A formula for normalized field was driven according to the complementary of the Q-slot antenna.

In this article, we propose three-dimensional antenna systems for determining the position of electromagnetic radiation source at an unknown location. Received signal power at different antennas and position of radiation source are used as training data for Artificial Neural Network (ANN). It is found that, a well-trained ANN is computationally efficient and capable of predicting the unknown location of the source, from the received power pattern. Two multi-antenna systems with geometry in three dimensions, namely the cube and frustum, are considered in this paper. Further, test results of the proposed method for random positions of electromagnetic source, spanning a hemisphere, are presented for the geometries considered.

In this paper, a compact circularly polarized quadrifilar antenna with planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA) elements is presented. The proposed antenna consists of four PIFA elements and a Wilkinson divider-based feed network fabricated on FR-4 substrate (ɛr = 4.4, loss tangent = 0.02, thickness = 1.6 mm). The total size of the antenna is 120 × 120 × 13.2 mm3. Impedance matching with a reflection coefficient <−15 dB and an axial ratio (AR) <3 dB are achieved over the global ultra-high frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) frequency band and beyond. The realized gain ranges from 2.25 to 3.75 dBic within the frequency band of interest from 860 to 960 MHz with a directional radiation pattern. The proposed antenna is compact, low-cost and extremely wideband in terms of matching and AR compared to state-of-the-art UHF RFID reader antennas.

Accurate near-field measurements for either deterministic or stochastic electromagnetic fields characterization require a relevant process that removes the influence of the probes, transmission lines, and measurement circuits. The main part of the experimental work presented here is related to a calibration procedure of a test setup consisting of a microstrip test structure and a scanning loop probe. The calibration characteristic, obtained by comparing measured and simulated results, is then used to convert the measured voltage into the magnetic field across and along the microstrip line at the specific height above it. By performing the measurements and simulations of the same test structure with the loop probe in the presence of an additional scanning probe, the influence of the additional probe to the measured output is thoroughly investigated and relevant corrections are given. These corrections can be important when two-point correlation measurement is required, especially in scanning points when two probes are mutually close.