The growing need of the compact and portable antennas with high speed and low latency wireless communication is the present and future demand of the voice over Internet protocol, on-demand bandwidth, and multimedia applications. Fifth-generation (5G) covers certain low-frequency bands under 6 GHz spectrum, and most of the high-frequency bands under 60 GHz. 5G is the part of the millimeter wave spectrum (30–300 GHz) and is introduced to overcome the problem of spectrum shortage due to exponential enhancement of wireless applications in industry, medical, airborne, radar, satellite, and research fields. The International Telecommunication Union's objective of wireless communications promises to provide higher data rates up to 10 Gbps for 5G mobile users and connectivity to the artificial intelligence devices, along with high spectral efficiencies and enhanced coverage. The users for the 5G require around 5 and 50 Gbps of data rates for low and high mobility, respectively. Beamforming in 5G is the modern powerful technique for the coverage of the intended user/direction using the narrow beam width radiation patterns. A brief survey on 5G beamforming techniques, i.e. analog, digital, hybrid, switched, and adaptive etc. and its types, working algorithms, design of compact antennas, gain, and size/type of the substrates is carried out in this paper. The study of the hybrid coupler, branchline coupler, Wilkinson power divider, and Butler matrix in beamforming is required for 5G smart antennas. Different beam widths like ±15, ±35, ±45, and ±55° etc. are produced for the intended directions using a variety of beamforming techniques. From lower to higher frequency band beamforming applications with Roger's Duroid 4003/4350/5880, tectonic, and aluminum oxide dielectric substrates are discussed here. Various beamforming techniques with their merits, demerits, and applications are included in the paper for the knowledge extension of the beamforming antenna designers and research community.

In this paper, the antenna reconfigurable technology is used to redesign a whip antenna in different sub-bands of high frequency (HF). According to the electrical characteristics of the antenna, on the one hand, two different radiation whip heights are designed to solve the problem of pattern up-warping in the high-frequency band; on the other hand, a common upper loading network and several different adjusting inductors and matching networks are designed for each sub-band to achieve high gain and efficiency when keeping good voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) characteristics. Five sub-bands of the 10-m HF whip antenna are reconfigured through the actual selection of radiation height, adjusting inductance, and matching network by radio frequency (RF) switch. The antenna load and matching network are optimized by grasshopper optimization algorithm (GOA), and integrated into the antenna body by using the printed circuit technology. The scaled prototype of 1 m frequency reconfigurable antenna is manufactured and tested, which shows that the VSWR is all <3 with an average value of 2.14; the gain is all >−2.5 dB with an average value of 3.90 dB; the efficiency is all >18.2% with an average value of 71.59%, and the patterns all keep horizontal omnidirectional without the phenomenon of up-warping.

New protocols related to Internet-of-things applications may introduce previously unnoticed measurement effects in reverberation chambers (RCs) due to the narrowband nature of these protocols. Such technologies also require less loading to meet the coherence-bandwidth conditions, which may lead to higher variations, hence uncertainties, across the channel. In this work, we extend a previous study of uncertainty in NB-IoT and CAT-M1 device measurements in RCs by providing, for the first time, a comprehensive uncertainty analysis of the components related to the reference and DUT measurements. By use of a significance test, we show that certain components of uncertainty become more dominant for such narrowband protocols, and cannot be considered as negligible, as in current standardized test methods. We show that the uncertainty, if not accounted for by using the extended formulation, will be greatly overestimated and could lead to non-compliance to standards.

In this work, we propose a broadband, polarization-insensitive and wide incident angle stable metamaterial absorber (MA) based on the resistive film. The absorber consists of a three-layer structure with each layer of dielectric substrate printed with different shapes of resistive film. The multilayer structure not only extends the absorption bandwidth but also maintains high absorption under large wave incident angles. Numerical simulation shows that the absorptivity of a normal incident wave is above 90% in the frequency range 2.34–18.95 GHz, corresponding to a relative absorption bandwidth of 156%. Moreover, the whole MA structure has a total thickness of 11.3 mm, corresponding to 0.09 λ0 at its lowest absorption frequency. Due to the high symmetry of the structure, the absorber has good polarization insensitivity. In addition, for both transverse electric and transverse magnetic incidence, the proposed absorber achieves an absorptivity of more than 80% at incident angles of up to 45° and thus has good stability for wide incident angles. The absorption principle of the absorber is analyzed by the surface current and power loss density distribution. Parameter analysis is also performed for bandwidth optimization. Due to its advantages of wideband absorption with high efficiency, the proposed absorber has the potential to be applied to the energy-harvesting and electromagnetic stealth fields.

The ever-increasing use of electronic devices leads to a dangerous upsurge in the emission of microwave radiation; this has drawn appreciable concern in the fabrication of eco-friendly microwave absorber (MA) and it can be a prospective alternative. Present work, in the quest for possible alternatives, explores carbon-rich agricultural residues such as dry banana leaves as a microwave-absorbing material. The variation of microwave absorption efficiency with an increase in the percentage of resin has been already reported. An extensive study on the microwave absorption efficiency of dried banana leaves with sample preparation and reflectivity analysis by hardware measurement, and simulative analysis using CST microwave studio suite for different thicknesses in the frequency range of 1–20 GHz has been also explored in the present work. Single-layer MA thickness variation establishes different microwave absorption performance.

In this paper, a simple and efficient method to increase the gain and bandwidth of the wearable antennas used in several medical/communications systems is presented. To increase the gain and bandwidth simultaneously, the triple transmission lines (TTLs) method has been used. With this method, the frequency ranges of 1.7–2.5 and 5.4–5.95 GHz are covered with dual-band responses. Also, the simulated maximum gain at 2 and 5.8 GHz is equal to 8.26 and 9.86 dB, respectively. Using the TTLs method, the second frequency band (5.4–5.95 GHz) is achieved. Also, the gain improvement in operating frequencies is more than 4 dB compared to the conventional antenna. The dimensions of the proposed wearable high-gain antenna are 80 × 92 × 2 mm3 or 0.57 × 0.67 × 0.01 λg3 at 2 GHz. Finally, a dual-band sample antenna for use in medical systems was fabricated with a flexible felt substrate and its characteristics were measured. There is a good fit between the measurement and simulation results.

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.

This paper studies the corona discharge power thresholds in microstrip bandpass filters (BPFs) and, in particular, is focused on a solution based on λ/2 cover-ended resonators to enhance their peak power handling capability (PPHC). First, a parametric analysis is carried out to evaluate the variation of the maximum electric field and the unloaded quality factor (Qu) as a function of the cover's geometrical dimensions (i.e. height, length, and width). Next, several microstrip BPFs centered at 1.6 GHz are designed, and their behaviors under moderate-to-high applied RF power signals are simulated to corroborate the previous study. A suitable number and size of covers are selected to enhance PPHC without barely degrading the filters’ electrical performance and, consequently, without hardly increasing the insertion losses. Finally, two third-order filters with covers and without covers (benchmark prototype) are manufactured, by way of illustration, and they are tested in the European High-Power RF Space Laboratory to validate the good performance of the proposed solution, where a PPHC enhancement of 3.1 dB at high pressures is achieved as compared to the benchmark prototype.

A compact dual-polarized monostatic antenna (single radiator for transmit and receive modes) is presented with differential receive mode operation to achieve excellent interport isolation for 2.4 GHz single frequency full-duplex or in-band full-duplex applications. The presented antenna comprises three ports radiating element (patch) and a simple 3 dB/180o ring hybrid coupler has been utilized for differentially excited receive mode operation. The 3 dB/180o ring hybrid coupler acts as a self-interference cancellation (SIC) circuit for effective suppression of RF leakage from the transmit port to provide very high interport decoupling between transmit and receive ports. A compact antenna structure has been realized by using two-layered printed circuit board through vias interconnections of both receive ports of the antenna with inputs of SIC circuit. The validation model of proposed antenna offers more than 95 dB peak interport isolation. Moreover, the experimentally measured interport isolation is better than 70 dB throughout the antenna's 10 dB return-loss impedance bandwidth (BW) of 50 MHz (2.38–2.43 GHz). Furthermore, the recorded isolation is more than 80 dB in 20 MHz BW. The implemented antenna has good radiation characteristics including nice gain and low cross-polarization levels as endorsed by measurements. Same antenna structure with microstrip-T feeds can provide DC isolated ports with same interport RF isolation performance for active antenna applications. Such antenna with DC interport isolation will avoid the requirements of additional series capacitors on transmit and receive ports of antenna.

This paper introduces the CPW fed monopole antenna operating at multiple frequencies covering Ultra High Frequency (UHF) bands, suitable for biomedical applications. The planar antenna structure comprises an open loop and a dual folded monopole of optimized length. The antenna exhibits ultra-wideband frequency of operation ranges from 740 MHz to 4.02 GHz covering the frequency bands suitable for head imaging and heart failure detection. The proposed antenna has a compact size of 0.098λ × 0.079λ × 0.019λ where λ indicates wavelength corresponding to the lowest operating frequency. The antenna is further simulated on the human head model to corroborate applications for brain stroke detection. The specific absorption rate (SAR) value of the proposed antenna is compliant with SAR requirements set by IEEE standards. To experimentally verify the parameters of the proposed antenna design, the antenna is tested on the brain tissue model prepared by materials having dielectric properties like human brain tissue. The peak gain of the antenna, when tested on the human phantom, is 6.8 dBi.

This work focuses on the impact of the build orientation on additively manufactured waveguide-based hybrid couplers for D-band frequency range and relates it to other sources of uncertainty within the overall manufacturing process and measurement instrumentation for the D-band frequency range. The designed specimens are first printed from UV curable photopolymer resin and subsequently metal coated by an electroless silver plating process, which in turn is improved by making use of the slotted waveguide approach. Although the requirements toward geometrical precision to achieve phase errors below 10° are in an order of 0.1 mm, a desktop grade DLP printer is utilized in this work in order to point out the prospects and limitations of additive manufacturing. Furthermore, waveguide paths with bends are part of the model and their impact on the measured attenuation is estimated explicitly.

Despite this narrow field of tolerances, one specimen could have been realized, which achieves a measured output magnitude imbalance of 0.7 dB over the frequency range from 120 to 155 GHz while at the same time exhibiting a phase deviation of only <10° from the desired 90°. With these demonstrated results, the proposed approach provides suitability for future applications in the D-band frequency range.

A compact antipodal Vivaldi antenna with superwideband characteristics is presented in this paper. For improved matching of input impedance at lower frequency region, techniques like binomial tapering of outer edges, binomial slit loaded outer edge, and protruded binomial tapered stub loading have been adopted. The antenna operates in a wide frequency range from 2 to 20 GHz. Experimental results show, stable radiation pattern with peak realized gain of more than 8 dBi, group delay within 1 ns, 164% fractional bandwidth, radiation efficiency of more than 90%, which are in good agreement with the simulated results. The compact size of the proposed antenna (1.14λ0 × 1.21λ0) with wide frequency bandwidth and directional radiation characteristics make it suitable for through-wall radar and medical imaging applications.

In this paper, a new printed triple-band planar antenna combing two different modified monopoles and an arc-shaped defected ground plane is proposed and studied. The used two simple monopoles consist of a rectangular ring and a rectangular patch attached a straight metal strip. And a compact arc-shaped defected ground structure is proposed and used to excite higher resonance frequency and improve the impedance matching of the antenna at lower and middle resonance frequencies. The main radiation element of the proposed antenna composed of only two simple monopoles can support three omnidirectional radiation modes at three desired bands. To indicate the working mechanism of the antenna, the design process is illustrated and the parametric studies are carried out. The experimental results of the fabricated prototype confirm that the triple-band antenna has better radiation efficiencies, appropriate gains, and stable omnidirectional radiation patterns. And the tested results also show that the antenna can provide enough bandwidths of 2.35–2.52, 3.2–4.16, and 5.13–5.87 GHz to cover all the desired 2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz WLAN and 3.5/5.5 GHz WiMAX operations. Moreover, the presented antenna has a very simple structure. Thus, the designed antenna has high practicality and broad prospects for WLAN and WiMAX applications.

This paper discusses the design and fabrication of a low-profile Hilbert-shaped metamaterial (MTM) array-based antenna, forming a rectangular patch with partial ground plane backing; the rest is slotted with traces for RF energy harvesting. The antenna is mounted on a 28 mm × 32 mm indium nickel oxide polymerized palm fiber (INP) substrate and compared to the identical one based on FR4 substrate. The two prototypes are printed with silver nanoparticles. Numerical and experimental tests are applied to the antenna performance in terms of S11 and radiation patterns. The obtained antenna gain bandwidth product of the INP prototype is found to be significantly better than the FR4 prototype. The proposed INP antenna gain at 5.8 and 8 GHz frequencies is found to be about 4.56 and 7.38 dBi, respectively, while the FR4 antenna gain is found to be 4.56 and 6.85 dBi at 5.8 and 8 GHz, respectively. Finally, the resultant DC voltage and the efficiency of conversion from harvested RF energy are measured experimentally at 5.8 and 8 GHz for both proposed prototypes.

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.

The generation and transmission of millimeter-wave signals for 5G applications require the use of broadband and high output power photodetectors to bridge from the optical and electronic domains. Therefore, the deep knowledge on the equivalent circuit characteristics of these devices is vital. This study reviews and analyzes de-embedding techniques contributing to the characterization of the physical aspects within the active region of uni-traveling carrier photodiodes. De-embedding methods analytically remove the parasitic effects of the electrical transmission lines connected to their active area allowing the extraction of their series resistance and junction capacitance toward the synthesis of an equivalent circuit with lumped elements. The open-short technique is examined and a systematic error introduced by this process underlines the vulnerability of the method on removing parasitics with higher complexity. This error is quantified leading to the implementation of a corrected equation converging with the characteristic features of an $S$-parameter-based de-embedding. These characteristics are also analyzed through simulation approaches showing minimal equivalent inaccuracies on eliminating more complex symmetrical parasitics. A thorough comparison between these three methods is conducted through the calculation of lumped components corresponding to the active region of diodes with different sizes.

In this paper, three compact, high-efficiency, gain enhanced antennas, and corresponding rectifiers have been proposed for GSM1800, 3G, and 4G-LTE energy harvesting applications. The inverted L-stub is placed on the ground plane of the monopole antenna to get the desired frequency band of GSM1800 MHz. The feed length variation method has been adopted for the slot antennas to obtain the required frequency of 3G and 4G-LTE cellular bands. The performance of antennas is analyzed with the inverted L-stub, feed length variation, and the reflector distance. The maximum gain achieved with the reflector positioned at a distance of λ/4 from the antenna backside is three times greater than the gain obtained without the reflector. The prototype antennas and rectifiers have been simulated, fabricated, measured various parameters, and compared with the simulation results. The antennas provide more than 82% radiation efficiency and an enhanced gain of greater than 5.6 dB. The peak efficiency of rectifiers of more than 30% has been achieved. The aforementioned three antennas are integrated with their corresponding rectifiers for operating at 1.8, 2.1, and 2.3 GHz frequencies. The proposed rectennas are formidably suitable for the reception of RF power from the cellular bands.

A single-layer ultra-wideband (UWB) stop-band frequency selective surface (FSS) has several advantages in wireless systems, including a simple design, low debugging complexity, and an appropriate thickness. This study proposes a miniaturized UWB stop-band FSS design. The proposed FSS structure consists of a square-loop and metalized vias that are arranged on a single layer substrate; it has an excellent angle and polarization-independent characteristics. At an incident angle of 60°, the polarization response frequencies of the transverse electric and magnetic modes only shifted by 0.003 f0 and 0.007 f0, respectively. The equivalent circuit models of the square-loop and metallized vias structure are analysed and the accuracy of the calculation is evaluated by comparing the electromagnetic simulation. The 20 × 20 array constitutes an FSS reflector with a unit size of 4.2 mm × 4.2 mm (less than one-twentieth of the wavelength of 3 GHz), which realizes an UWB quasi-constant gain enhancement (in-band flatness is <0.5 dB). Finally, the simulation results were verified through sample processing and measurement; consistent results were obtained. The FSS miniaturization design method proposed in this study could be applied to the design of passband FSS (complementary structure), antennas and filters, among other applications.

This paper presents an efficient approach for the design of a non-uniform single ring circular antenna array (CAA) for the synthesis of the optimal far-field radiation pattern. A recently proposed meta-heuristic-based optimization technique known as ant lion optimization (ALO) is applied in this paper to determine the optimum set of current amplitude excitation weights and the inter-element distance among the array elements to reduce the side lobe level (SLL) and 3-dB beam width considering the mutual coupling effect. The results achieved by employing the ALO algorithm are compared with the uniform radiation pattern and with those of the recently reported literature containing equal sets of elements to prove the superiority of ALO algorithm. Three different design examples of 8, 10, and 12 elements CAA are presented, and their performances are compared to illustrate the capability of the ALO algorithm-based approach over those of the recently reported literature.

This paper presents the design and development of broadband modified Koch curve microstrip patch antenna with multiband characteristics for spectrum sensing in cognitive radio applications. The proposed spectrum sensing antenna is designed specifically for its efficient operation in the spectrum (1.683–3.05, 4.246–9.714, and 11.25–18 GHz) specified for L, S, C, X, Ku with broadband characteristics and omnidirectional radiation pattern. The validity of the proposed shape is proved by having a comparison with other fractal shapes available in the literature.