This special issue of International Journal of Microwave and Wireless Technologies is dedicated to topics discussed during the 17th Bi-annual French National Microwave Days (17th JNM), held in Brest, France, on May 18–20, 2011. The 17th JNM conference was held at the Quartz, the Conference Centre of Brest, and organized by the Lab-STICC (Laboratoire en Sciences et Techniques de l'Information, de la Communication et de la Connaissance).
This very successful event welcomed more than 580 conference attendees, both from France and abroad, who also enjoyed the social events at Oceanopolis (aquariums and ocean discovery) as well as sport activities by the sea under the Breton sun. The technical program, through oral and poster sessions, focused on the following topics: “Antennas and Propagation”, “Passive Components, Circuits and Devices”, “Active Components and Integrated Circuits”, and “Complex Systems, Instrumentation and Applications”. The 17th JNM congress was preceded by a one-day special topic conference on “Microwaves and the Sea” organized at the French Research Institute for Exploration of the Sea (IFREMER) in Brest.
The scientific committee of the 17th JNM was chaired by Professor Philippe Ferrari (IMEP-LAHC, Grenoble) with the vice president, Professor Christian Person (Lab-STICC, Brest). Three hundred and thirty papers of a high technical level were presented: 132 papers were presented during 32 oral sessions, and 198 posters were presented in 10 poster sessions. An exhibition space was also dedicated to exhibitors during the 3 days. The local organizing committee, with a team of many enthusiastic volunteers, was chaired by Professor Michel Ney and co-chaired by Professor Eric Rius and Professor Patrick Quéffélec. The scientific organization was conducted by Professor Christian Person and Professor Cédric Quendo.
The 17th JNM event was also supported by the European Microwave Association (EuMA), and a special prize was awarded for best paper. The recipients of the EuMA award are Minh-Nhut Do, Dominique Langrez, Jean-Luc Muraro, and Jean-Louis Cazaux, for their paper entitled “Mélangeurs MMIC GaN et récepteurs robustes pour applications spatiales”. In addition, two IEEE prizes were awarded for the best student papers to Mr Jérémy Dufraisse, “Caractéristiques électriques des transistors en technologie InAlN/AlN/GaN pour les applications en bande S”, for his oral presentation, and to Mr Karim Mazouni, “Offset reflectarray pour la détection de FOD sur pistes d'aéroport”, for his poster presentation.
This special issue of the International Journal of Microwave and Wireless Technologies, published by Cambridge University Press in collaboration with EuMA, covers the four topics with papers selected from the 40 best papers presented at the 17th JNM Conference. The authors were requested to submit their papers, and 52 international reviewers agreed to review the English versions. Finally, 13 of those papers were found suitable for publication in this special issue. We wish to acknowledge all the authors for submitting their papers and all the reviewers for the in-depth evaluation of them and revised versions from June to November 2011. We hope that this special issue will be enjoyable and of interest to the readers through the various topics in the microwave field, and also that they will find extensive and useful information for their own research activities.
Alain Peden is an Associate Professor at Telecom Bretagne, a graduate engineering school in Brest, France. He received his Ph.D. degree in Microwave Electronics from the University of Bretagne Occidentale, Brest, in 1991. From 1986 to 1988, he worked on the design of low noise and power MMIC amplifiers at Thomson Hybrides et Microondes, Orsay, France. In 1991, he joined Telecom Bretagne and the LEST laboratory in Brest, where his research activities focused mainly on load-pull characterization of transistors in the Ka band and on the design of quasi-optical amplifiers. Since 2003, his research activities, within the Lab-STICC (Laboratoire en Sciences et Techniques de l'Information, de la Communication et de la Connaissance) in Brest, have been dealing with millimeter wave applications, such as power combining techniques for solid state power amplifiers (K and Ka band satellite applications) and automotive radar in the W band (design of simulation platforms for short- and long- range radars).
Jean-François Favennec received his Ph.D. degree in Electronics from the University of Brest, France in 1990. In 1991, he became an Assistant Professor within the Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Brest. He essentially teaches electromagnetic and microwave theory.
He currently conducts research within the Lab-STICC (Laboratoire en Sciences et Techniques de l'Information, de la Communication et de la Connaissance) (formerly LEST). His research activities principally concern the modeling and design of passive devices for microwave applications and are mainly focused on filters.
