In this paper, a wideband quadrature hybrid coupler is presented. The proposed structure has a multi-layer microstrip topology. In this topology, there are three substrate layers including prepreg material and four conductive layers. In order to achieve equal power division between through and coupled arms of the directional coupler while maintaining a 90° phase shift, aperture coupling between the resonators located at both top and bottom layers is utilized. So as to avoid any unwanted effects of prepreg material in such multilayer topology, via shielding around resonators are inserted. In this study, coupling from input ports to output ports is accomplished by the shielded butterfly shaped slot etched to the ground layer of top and bottom layers. The proposed design operates within 3–12 GHz. The acquired phase imbalance between the coupled ports is <±2.5°. The results of the manufactured quadrature hybrid coupler agree well with the simulated results.

In this paper, we present a linear to circular polarization converter integrated in a concrete structure to eliminate signal transmission problem originated from the concrete buildings in microwave regime. Two polarization converter samples and a control specimen made by traditional concrete are designed and their signal transmission responses are compared experimentally. Axial ratio values which can be calculated by the ratio between the co-polar transmission and cross-polar transmission results of the proposed samples are below 3 dB and highly sufficient for linear to circular polarization conversion activity. The operating frequency for the proposed sample 1 is between 6 and 6.5 GHz with 500 MHz of bandwidth. The proposed sample 2 exhibits dual-band operation covering frequency bands, 4.58–5.13 and 6.0–6.4 GHz with bandwidths of 550 and 400 MHz, respectively. Operating frequencies of the samples are in the WIMAX frequency bands. In addition, the liner to circular polarization converter design integrated to concrete has a huge potential to improve reflection and directivity parameters of many antennas if it is considered as a radome.

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.

The factorization method (FM) is an attractive qualitative inverse scattering technique for the detection of geometrical features of unknown objects. This method depends on the selection of regularization parameters slightingly and has low calculation necessities. The aim of this work is to present a near-field FM for inverse source problems that have many applications. A modified test equation is obtained by converting the far-field term to Hankel's function. A different method has been proposed by manipulating the asymptotic approximation of Hankel's function in order to obtain near-field equations with incident angle and distance parameters. The novelty of this study is an integral equation based on the FM, which consists of multifrequency sparse near-field electric field measurements. We proved that the solution of the proposed integral equation gives information about the location of scatterers. The proposed algorithm is validated with simulation results and the capabilities of the presented method are assessed with several frequency regions and sources. Additionally, the presented method is compared with the direct sampling method in order to understand the performance of the proposed approach over a given scenario. The developed FM provides accurate results for electromagnetic source problems.

This paper presents the parameter estimation of the fractal antenna array with the virtual instrument model designed in laboratory virtual instrument engineering workbench software. In this work resonant frequency, gain and voltage standing wave ratio have been used as an output parameter with the change in three input parameters such as radius of a circular patch, height of substrate, and dielectric constant of the material. Measured output parameters have been compared with neural network outputs and error has been represented in a graphical way for each output parameter of the antenna array. Along with output parameter estimation, a designing parameter such as radius of the circular patch has also been estimated with virtual instrument model and absolute error for radius has been shown in the display window of the designed model. The proposed antenna array has been fabricated and simulated results have been validated with measured results.

In the proposed research paper, a novel compact, ultra-wideband electronically switchable dual-band omnidirectional to directional radiation pattern microstrip planar printed rectangular monopole antenna (PRMA) has been presented. The proposed antenna system has an optimum size of 0.26 λ0 × 0.28 λ0. A combination of radiators, reflectors, and two symmetrical grounds does place on the same layer of the rectangular microstrip PRMA. The frequency agility and the radiation pattern from omnidirectional to directional are achieved using two SMD PIN diodes (SMP1340-04LF). The directional radiation patterns with 180° phase shifts are achieved at the C-band frequency spectrum. The parametric study of the proposed antenna system was performed for different design parameters, and the antenna characteristics were analyzed. An antenna prototype is fabricated using the printed circuit board etching method by using RMI UV laser etching and cutting tools. The measurements of the proposed antenna are conducted in an anechoic chamber to validate the simulations. There are three states of operations due to two SMD PIN diodes being used in switching circuits. In state-I, the proposed antenna radiates at 6.185 GHz (5.275–6.6 75 GHz) in the Ф = 270° direction with a gain of 2.1 dBi, whereas in state-II, it radiates at 5.715 GHz (5.05–6.8 GHz) in the Ф = 90° direction with a gain of 2.1 dBi. In state-III, the antenna exhibits the X-band frequency with center frequency at 9.93 GHz (8.845–10.49 GHz), and the omnidirectional pattern offers a gain of 4.1 dBi. The features of the proposed antenna are suitable for high-speed wireless sensor network communication in industries such as chemical reactors in oil and gas and pharmaceuticals. It is also well suited for IoT and 5G-sub-6-GHz applications.

We propose a novel Fabry–Pérot (FP) antenna consisting of a checkered polarization-conversion metasurface (PCM), corner-cut square patch antennas, and sandwiched compounds. The proposed antenna achieves low radar-cross-section (RCS), high gain, and wideband circular polarization (CP). The corner-cut square patch antennas facilitate high reflectivity, satisfactory transmission magnitude, and the desired phase difference. An embedded metal between two rings of substrate contributes to reducing cross-polarization, improving transmission efficiency, enhancing bandwidth, and reducing RCS. Following simulations, we fabricated a prototype of the proposed antenna and tested its performance. Measurements from the simulation and prototype tests were similar within a reasonable margin of error. Compared with alternative antennas, our proposed FP antenna offers high gain, wideband CP, low cost, a low RCS, and a lower profile.

The paper proposes a system consisting of novel programmable system on chip (PSoC)-controlled phase shifters which in turn guides the beam of an antenna array attached to it. Four antennae forming an array receive individual inputs from the programmable phase shifters (IC 2484). The input to the PSoC-based phase shifter is provided from an optimized 1:4 Wilkinson power divider. The antenna consists of an inverted L-shaped dipole on the front and two mirrored inverted L-shaped dipoles mounted on a rectangular conductive structure on the back which resonates in the ISM/Wi-Fi band (2.40–2.48 GHz). The power divider is designed to provide the feed to the phase shifter using a beamforming network while ensuring good isolation among the ports. The power divider has measured S11, S21, S31, S41, and S51 to be −14, −6.25, −6.31, −6.28, and −6.31 dB, respectively at a frequency of 2.45 GHz. The ingenious controller is designed in-house using a PSoC microcontroller to regulate the control voltage of individual phase shifter IC and generate progressive phase shifts. To validate the calibration of the in-house designed control circuit, the phased array is simulated using $s_p^2$ touchstone file of IC 2484. This designed control circuit exhibits low insertion loss close to −8.5 dB, voltage standing wave ratio of 1.58:1, and reflection coefficient (S11) is −14.36 dB at 2.45 GHz. Low insertion loss variations confirm that the phased-array antenna gives equal amplitude and phase. The beamforming radiation patterns for different scan angles (30, 60, and 90°) for experimental and simulated phased-array antenna are matched accurately showing the accuracy of the control circuit designed. The average experimental and simulated gain is 13.03 and 13.48 dBi respectively. The in-house designed controller overcomes the primary limitations associated with the present electromechanical phased array such as cost weight, size, power consumption, and complexity in design which limits the use of a phased array to military applications only. The current study with novel design and enhanced performance makes the system worthy of the practical use of phased-array antennas for common society at large.

A dual-band 10-port multiple input multiple output (MIMO) antenna array for 5G smartphone is proposed. Each antenna in the MIMO system can work from 3.4 to 3.6 GHz and 5 to 6 GHz with 10 dB (2:1 VSWR) impedance bandwidth. Nevertheless, for a 3:1 VSWR, the antenna operates from 3.3 to 3.8 GHz and 4.67 to 6.24 GHz. The MIMO system is formed by making 10 seven-shaped coupled fed slot antenna elements excited at two different resonant modes and integrated into the system circuit board. By implementing the spatial and polarization diversity techniques, high isolation better than 28 dB between any pair of antenna elements is achieved. The proposed 10-port MIMO antenna array is fabricated and measured. Significant radiation efficiency is obtained, ranging from 65 to 82% for both bands. The antenna gain in the required operating band is substantial, around 3–3.8 dBi. Further, the MIMO parameters such as envelope correlation co-efficient, channel capacity, and total active reflection co-efficient are calculated. The antenna's robustness is estimated by analyzing the user hand effects and specific absorption rate (SAR). The measured results are well agreed with the simulated results.

In this work, a printed coplanar waveguide (CPW) fed single band antenna based on expanded graphite material is introduced. The proposed antenna is based on a CPW-monopole antenna with a U-shape conductor strip connected with the ground. Expanded graphite, a grade of graphene, is used as a conductor to design the uniplanar antenna over a flexible paper substrate. The antenna is designed for 2.4 GHz applications. The antenna design procedures are discussed. The material preparation and analysis are illustrated. Finally, the antenna fabrication and measurements of the reflection coefficient are discussed. The measured antenna reflection coefficient agrees with the simulated one, ensuring the antenna validity for serving the required applications. The radiation antenna parameters are discussed and simulated results from two-simulation software are included for comparison. The antenna has a simulated gain of 4 dBi and simulated efficiency of around 90% at 2.4 GHz.

The dumbbell-shaped longitudinal slot antennas are employed as a replacement for the round-ended longitudinal slot antennas. Each dumbbell-shaped slot is excited by an iris and a septum that have offsets from the waveguide centerlines. All the slots are also cut along the waveguide centerlines. It is demonstrated that the resonant length of the proposed dumbbell-shaped slot antennas is much smaller than the round-ended longitudinal slot antennas. Hence, the end-to-end spacings between the adjacent radiating slots as well as the end-to-end spacings between the coupling and the radiating slots increased noticeably in comparison with the arrays consist of the round-ended longitudinal slot antennas. This fact indicates that one can neglect the mutual coupling between the neighboring slots that are associated with the exciting higher-order modes at the slot positions. To better demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed dumbbell-shaped slot antennas, a planar array antenna consists of the proposed dumbbell-shaped slot antennas have been designed, implemented, and tested. The measurement and the simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed slot antennas.

This article presents the design of an ultra-compact cavity-backed self-diplexing antenna with high isolation employing quarter-mode substrate integrated waveguide (QMSIW). The proposed antenna is constructed by using QMSIW, slot, and two 50Ω feed lines. Two eighth-mode cavity resonators are designed by inserting a slot on the top side of the rectangular substrate integrated waveguide to operate at 2.6 and 4.9 GHz for long-term evolution and public safety band applications, respectively. The proposed design allows to tune any frequency band independently by keeping other bands unaltered. The size of antenna is ultra-compact, due to the use of QMSIW cavity. The isolation between two ports is >35 dB. The antenna achieves 5.34 and 5.68 dBi peak gains at 2.6 and 4.9 GHz, respectively. The efficiency of the antenna is >85% at both frequency bands. The antenna provides more than 20.9 dB front-to-back-ratio and better than 21 dB separation between co-to-cross polarization levels. The designed antenna is validated through fabrication and measurement.

The in-depth exploration in the future 5G technology symbolizes a revolution in technology for antenna designers to encounter the all time increasing need as well as demand for higher data rate wireless communications. The paper gives out an exhaustive review of the evolution and characteristics of the 5G spectrum allocations, the MIMO antenna design with regard to mutual coupling reduction techniques and safer user applications. It precisely covers almost all the aspects of 5G which mainly include the types of antenna designs and their performance parameters related to MIMO design. The paper also presents a brief description of massive MIMO technology for base station applications. The main aim of the paper is: (1) to emphasize the frequencies allocated for the 5G including sub-6 Ghz and mm-wave bands; (2) to underline the suitable antenna designs for MIMO applications for mobile devices and base stations; (3) to highlight the mutual coupling effects in MIMO designs and its reduction techniques; (4) to consider the gaps in the literature and the challenges for reducing SAR effects for the safety of the users. This review paper has been an attempt to explore the evolution of 5G bands and antenna designs for 5G applications, comparison based on the literature, and the techniques implemented for enhancing the MIMO antenna performances.