This paper describes the design and implementation of a 39 GHz 256-element hybrid active phased array antenna system with 16 individual digital transceivers, and its wireless multi-user, multi-input, multi-output verification. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2021 51st European Microwave Conference and was published in its Proceedings [1]. Using the prototype device, a single carrier transmission test assuming a mobile backhaul link and a MU-MIMO transmission test using a zero-forced orthogonal multi-beam based on channel reciprocity assuming an access link was performed. As a result, an EIRP of 43 dBm and a data rate of 5.5 Gbps in 1 GHz bandwidth single carrier 128QAM operation and an estimated total throughput of 2.4 Gbps by 3GPP TS38.214 [2] in 100 MHz bandwidth OFDM 8 MU-MIMO operation were achieved, respectively. As far as the author knows, this is the first demonstration for integrated access and backhaul (IAB) application that uses the 39 GHz band.

To achieve better accuracy in their investigations, biologists have recently been using three-dimensional models as intermediates between two-dimensional cell culture and the in vivo study of tissues. Some of these models are based on spheroids, which are cellular aggregates retaining many characteristics of in vivo behaviors while being still easy to use and implement in labs. To study such objects, multiple observation techniques can be used according to the objective of the study, including those using electromagnetic waves as nondestructive, noninvasive, and label-free analysis. Low-frequency (<1 MHz) ones are currently under investigation as electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. However, unlike microwaves (from 300 MHz to 60 GHz), they cannot penetrate the cell. Furthermore, most of the devices dedicated to microwave dielectric characterization are only focusing on cellular scales lower than spheroids (single cell, cell mats, or suspensions) or on tissues and organs. In this article, a microwave spectroscopy device using a coplanar waveguide adapted to the study of spheroids is presented with the dielectric characterization of fixed spheroids, with capacitance and conductance measurements from 0.5 to 20 GHz, aiming at filling the scale gap in the state of the art.

This paper presents the design, manufacturing, and measurement of a novel substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) pedestal filtering antenna solution for use in 5G New Radio sub-6 GHz communications. Miniaturization is achieved through the use of SIW pedestal resonators and integration of the radiating element into the filter design, resulting in higher order suppression. The design generates a third order filtering response utilizing SIW pedestal resonators and a patch antenna element. The manufactured SIW pedestal filtenna achieves a 10 dB return loss bandwidth of 4.29% about a center frequency of 3.63 GHz, and a boresight gain of 3.66 dBi. Using the SIW pedestal filtenna elements, two array configurations are measured, a 1 × 1 linear array and 2 × 2 planar array. Beam-steering capability for the linear array is demonstrated in simulation, while the 2 × 2 array is shown to be suited to both dual- and single-mode operation.

A low-profile multi-polarized MIMO ultra-wideband antenna suitable for body-centric communications is reported. MIMO configuration is achieved using the symmetric heptagonal monopole (SHM) antenna, a mirrored SHM antenna, an asymmetric ruby-shaped monopole (ARSM) antenna, and a mirrored ARSM antenna placed over the modified C-shaped ground plane (MCGP). The proposed antenna elements are designed to achieve resonance for the entire ultra-wideband frequency range. The SHM antenna is coupled with a co-planar waveguide to produce linear polarization. An ARSM antenna generates circular polarization utilizing an asymmetric geometry both in the radiator and a truncated ground plane. Both the SHM antenna and an ARSM antenna are aligned face-to-face over an MCGP plane and good isolation >15 dB is realized between the antenna elements. The gain and total efficiency for linear polarized and the circularly polarized antennas are 3.05–4.8 dBi/48–66% and from 2.8 to 5 dBic/52 to 70.5%, respectively. The specific absorption rate values are evaluated to understand their suitability for WBAN communications.

The design of a low-cost, flexible, miniaturized, and a high code density chipless radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag is presented as a solution for tracking the transportation of biomass fuel pellets. The performance of the tag is presented and demonstrates the applicability of the design for different material systems, while maintaining a compact size of 5.06 cm2. The tag consists of nested concentric hexagonal elements and a central spiral resonator suitable for ID encoding. The tag presented demonstrates code density of 3.6-bits/cm2, possesses angular stability up to 60°, and high radar cross section (RCS). The tag performance was also observed for tracking 5 kg of fly-ash biomass. Additionally, as the tag mass mostly consists of FR4, PET, or Taconic TLX-0 with a minute mass of either copper, gold, or silver, the tag can be easily combusted and disposed of during biomass combustion. The novel features of this tag are the combination of hexagonal and spiral shape slots for maximum space utilization thereby achieving high RCS signatures along with high code density. All these properties of the proposed chipless RFID tag provide a pioneering pathway for a real-time biomass tracking application.

A distributed basic matching network (MN) designed method that can achieve multioctave bandwidth and highly efficient power amplifier (PA) for multiband applications is presented in this letter. The distributed network unit with a left-rotating T-type structure is employed to construct the wideband MN, whose topology and circuit parameters are acquired through optimization. Finally, the impedance realized by the designed MN falls into the target impedance region obtained by using multi-harmonic bilateral pull technique in the desired frequency band. For the proof of the method, a broadband highly efficient PA has been designed, fabricated, and measured using commercialized GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMT). The measured results show that the implemented PA achieves a bandwidth of 137.8% from 0.7 to 3.8 GHz. The drain efficiency is between 59% and 70% with an output power of greater than 39 dBm and a gain ranging from 9 to 12.1 dB.

In this work, three successive filter models based on defected ground structure (DGS) techniques are designed, fabricated, and tested to be utilized for different wireless applications. The filters are printed on a RO5880 substrate of an overall size of 22 × 11 × 0.8 mm3. Three DGSs are etched from the ground plane to achieve the suggested band stop features for all frequencies above 10 GHz. The first model is a low-pass filter that succeeded to pass all frequencies below 10 GHz, the second model is a bandpass filter that operated at 4.5 and 9 GHz after using a pair of interdigital capacitors, and the third model covered all ultra-wideband frequency range when a pair of lumped capacitors is utilized instead of the interdigital capacitors. Good consistency between simulated and measured outcomes is achieved for each of the three filters confirming their suitability to be embedded in small-sized wireless devices.

Channel interference is a significant issue for many applications such as satellite communication, mobile communication, and RADAR communication. This paper presents co-channel interference analysis at faulty K band waveguide joints using the multi-cavity modeling technique. Numerical data obtained from multi-cavity modeling technique analysis has been compared with CST microwave studio simulated data and verified with measured data.

This contribution describes the design and simulations of a multibeam 1.8 m parabolic reflectarray antenna for geostationary high throughput satellites (HTS) in Ka-band. The parabolic reflectarray generates two orthogonal circularly polarized beams per feed simultaneously at 19.7 and 29.5 GHz, by the variable rotation technique. The antenna is made of 62 654 reflectarray cells, which include two types of printed elements independently rotated and adjusted. The elements have been optimized one by one to ensure the required phase-shift at each frequency. A novel design approach has made it possible to promptly obtain an initial layout of every element with a very low computational cost. The simulated radiation patterns show that the parabolic reflectarray, illuminated by 27 dual-circularly polarized feeds, can generate 54 spot-beams in two orthogonal polarizations, with a beam spacing of 0.56° between adjacent beams. The design and simulation tools have been validated by a parabolic reflectarray scaled in a factor of 0.5, which has been manufactured and tested. The proposed reflectarray would allow to generate a complete multi-spot coverage from a geostationary HTS with only two parabolic reflectarrays, instead of four reflector antennas, also reducing the number of feeds by half, since every feed generates two beams.

In this paper, two high efficiency monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) are demonstrated using NANOTAM's in-house Ka-band fabrication technology. AlGaN/GaN HEMTs with 0.2 ${\rm \mu}$m gate lengths are characterized, and an output power density of 2.9 W/mm is achieved at 35 GHz. A three-stage driver amplifier MMIC is designed, which has a measured gain higher than 19.3 dB across the frequency band of 33–36 GHz. The driver amplifier exhibits 31.9 dB output power and 26.5% power-added efficiency (PAE) at 35 GHz using 20 V supply voltage with 30% duty cycle. Another two-stage MMIC is realized as a power amplifier with a total output gate periphery of 1.8 mm. The output power and PAE of the power amplifier are measured as 3.91 W and 26.3%, respectively, at 35 GHz using 20 V supply voltage with 30% duty cycle. The high efficiency MMICs presented in this paper exhibit the capabilities of NANOTAM's 0.2 $\rm\mu$m AlGaN/GaN on SiC technology.

A method is presented to optimize the combining network and the post-matching network of a Doherty power amplifier (DPA) for maximizing the bandwidth. For widely applicable results, RF power transistors are approximated in the large-signal regime using a simple analytical model with a few parameters. A definition of bandwidth of DPA is given, which involves gain and efficiency at full-power and 6 dB backoff. Different combining network topologies are compared in terms of this bandwidth definition. The element values are optimized using two factors, one to scale the combining node impedance and the other to scale the impedance seen by the transistors. For each optimized topology, explicit formulas are given resulting in the element values in terms of the optimized values and a few transistor parameters. The method presented also leads to a proper selection of the post-matching network.

In this paper, flexible substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) resonators have been designed and fabricated on polyimide substrates for humidity sensing applications. The proposed SIW resonant cavity allows the resonator to obtain the maximum humidity sensitivity and meet the demand for flexible microwave sensing detection. Meanwhile, the humidity response performance can be further significantly enhanced by introducing nanodiamond (ND) sensing material. Three prototypes of ND-coated SIW sensors with different bending radii are measured to analyze their humidity sensing performance. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed ND-coated SIW sensor with the minimum bending radius can achieve a maximum humidity sensitivity of 1.09 MHz/% relative humidity (RH) in the high RH region (>75.3% RH) and a low humidity hysteresis of 1.8% in the range of 11.3–97.3% RH. This study provides a promising candidate to realize flexible microwave sensors with excellent sensing performance.

In this study, a novel microstrip antenna sensor with defected ground structure is investigated to detect the presence of other substances in liquid food samples. The proposed antenna sensor is rake-shaped which has been designed using time domain solver in three-dimensional simulation software Computer Simulation Technology Microwave Studio. The proposed antenna sensor has been fabricated using an FR4 material, having overall dimensions of 30 × 27 mm2 with dielectric constant 4.4, substrate thickness 1.57 mm, and loss tangent 0.0025. Furthermore, the Q-factor of the proposed antenna sensor is 485 showing a maximum sensitivity of 700 MHz and having accuracy 98%. In the present work, water and juice are considered as liquid samples in which the presence of foreign substances is detected in terms of reflection coefficient and shift in resonant frequency with the help of the suggested microstrip antenna sensor. Through experimentation, it has been observed that with the increase in the percentage of adulterant in the considered samples, the dielectric property of solution changes which results in shift of reflection coefficient and resonant frequency, thus making an allowance for the proposed antenna sensor a valid tool to detect adulteration in liquid samples.

The ability of food products to store and dissipate electromagnetic energy is determined by the material's dielectric properties. In relation to this phenomenon, a non-destructive technique is presented for food evaluation based on the shift in resonant frequency and reflection coefficient magnitude value of the proposed slot-loaded microstrip line-fed antenna-based sensor caused by the change in dielectric properties of the food material. In this work, a miniaturized antenna sensor of 10 × 10 mm2 size comprised of a dielectric substrate FR-4 with permittivity (εr) = 4.4 having ground plane at the bottom and a radiating element at the top is designed to operate at 13.3 GHz. Three samples of spices, i.e. red chilli powder, black pepper powder, and turmeric powder, are considered for quality monitoring whose relationship in terms of reflection coefficient, resonant frequency, and dielectric permittivity at 13.17, 12.61, and 13.09 GHz respectively is analyzed. Further, second-order polynomial model is derived to predict dielectric permittivity of the material under test with high accuracy. The experimental procedure of this proposed sensor is based upon the interaction of the sample food materials with the electromagnetic field owing to shift in resonant frequency as a function of dielectric permittivity of the samples. The proposed antenna sensor has a Q-factor of 409, showing significantly high sensitivity of 280 MHz with 98% accuracy and standard deviation less than the difference between unadulterated and adulterated values, giving resolution high enough to distinguish adulteration with an acceptable statistical accuracy.

The delay estimation for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing automotive radars can be achieved through the use of different filters. This paper compares two of these filters, namely the matched filter and the zero forcing filter through two metrics, which are the peak to side lobe ratio and the integrated side lobe ratio estimated on their range profiles. The analysis is then extended to the minimum mean squared error filter.

Attaching a wireless transmission system comprising a radio frequency (RF)-chip and a dipole antenna to dielectric material of largely different permittivity leads to strong variation of the antenna feed impedance. Due to the severe impedance mismatch between the RF-chip and the antenna, the performance of the system may deteriorate drastically. The proposed antenna provides three feed points, which show respective feed-point match to 100 Ohm balanced feeds for three different dielectric environments (free-space and half-spaces of permittivity 4 and 42, respectively). Thereby, the RF-chip incorporates three 100 Ohm balanced output ports that are connected to the antenna from whom only one can be selected to provide the output signal. The respective other two output ports are shorted by an internal switching circuit that is controlled by external DC voltages. The measurement of the reflection coefficient of the stand-alone antenna and the chip agree well with the simulations, allowing to interconnect these two components. Further, the radiation pattern of the whole system is measured for two different scenarios showing good functionalities.

This paper describes the experimental investigation of orthogonal time-frequency space (OTFS) modulation using a 28 GHz multi-user distributed multiple-input multiple-output (D-MIMO) testbed in over-the-air (OTA) and mobility environments to enhance cell throughput in a millimeter-wave band. We build the D-MIMO testbed having newly developed OTFS modulator and demodulator, and measured OTFS signals and orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) signals with up to four user simultaneous connections on an actual office floor. Additionally, the Doppler effect on OTFS signals is mathematically analyzed and is confirmed in the measurements. OTFS indicates higher robustness in time-variant channels than OFDM. The error vector magnitude (EVM) and system throughput of OTFS are −22 dB and 1.9 Gbps with 100 MHz signal bandwidth, respectively. To our knowledge, this is a first paper describing the OTA measurements of EVM, throughput, and spectral efficiency using OTFS modulation on the 28 GHz coherent beamforming system.

This paper presents a compact ultrawideband slotted patch antenna for early stage tumor detection applications using microwave breast imaging systems. In order to reduce any reflections between the antenna and breast, the antenna is designed and optimized inside a coupling medium with electrical properties similar to that of normal breast tissue as a coupling medium. The wideband performance of the antenna is obtained by adding a rectangular slit and L-shaped sleeves on the ground plane. While the added rectangular slit mainly improves the matching, the L-shaped sleeves improve both the matching and the bandwidth. The antenna operates from 0.9 to 9.6 GHz with a fractional bandwidth of ~165$\%$, providing a good penetration and resolution. In addition, the proposed antenna has a very compact size of 16 × 16 mm2. Furthermore, an antenna array consisting of 31 antennas is formed around a realistic breast phantom in the simulation environment to demonstrate the imaging of a spherical tumor with a diameter of 5 mm inside the breast. The results confirm that the proposed antenna can be used for early stage breast tumor detection purposes.

A five-slot hexagonal shape chipless RFID tag is designed, simulated, and manufactured on FR4 substrate. The designed tag's copper geometry was replicated on a wide range of dielectric substrate to quantify the impact on resonance quality factor (RQF) and resonating frequencies. The tag's performance was assessed in three configurations. First, a hexagonal shape tag's radar cross section (RCS) was studied over different dielectric substrates. The various dielectric substrate effects were investigated over the maximum read range, resonant frequencies and RQF. In the second evaluation, the physical geometry of the tag was adjusted to achieve the spectral signatures in 2–7 GHz frequency band with high RQF. In step three, the optimized tag geometry was manufactured on FR4, Roger Duroid 5880, and polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) substrates. Denford milling machine for PCB engraving and inkjet printing for silver nanoparticles deposition were used for tags manufacturing. During tag manufacturing, copper and silver were used as conducting materials for RCS backscattering. The tag RCS response was measured by vector network analyzer with bi-static antenna setup. The analysis of different dielectric substrate provides a pathway of designing a novel substrate by using various nanomaterials.

This paper presents results for active and passive measurements using a novel method based on multiple compact antenna test range (CATR) reflectors to perform simultaneous multiple angle measurements in order to characterize the beam-forming characteristics in a real environment of the 5G devices operating in the millimeter wave frequency band: 24–44 GHz. The over-the-air (OTA) system generates four planar wavefronts with different incidence angles, realizing up to five pairs of angular spreads or four switched/simultaneous angles of arrival. The initial target application is radio resource management (RRM) testing, where the execution of mobility procedures and radio link monitoring of a 5G millimeter wave device are evaluated. The applicability of the multi-reflector approach to RRM testing is measured with commercial 5G handsets, through three test scenarios. The paper demonstrates that baseband (non OTA) testing is not sufficient for RRM FR2, as the results are influenced by the direction of arrival of the signal. It is further shown that OTA testing in a multi-reflector CATR system and a careful selection of a representative set of test directions is critical for full characterization of the performance of a wireless device operating in the millimeter wave bands.