One of the current trends in the integrated circuit (IC) development is the integration of antennas on-chip or in the package of the IC. This poses challenges in the production testing process of the packaged IC, as the antenna functionality has to be included and at least one of the signal ports cannot be accessed at a conducted manner. In order to measure the reflection coefficient of an integrated antenna, a contactless characterization method (CCM) can be used. In this paper, the practicality of a CCM is assessed, having the application of a cost-effective high-volume testing procedure for integrated antennas in mind. It is shown that the CCM yields accurate results for different imperfections in the measurement setup. Moreover, measurement results around 33 GHz using a connectorized patch antenna are shown, which experimentally verify the validity of using the CCM under near-field conditions.

The artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) formed by meta-materials is used in the micro-strip antenna design for microwave sensor applications. The AMC structures with two uniplanar layers, which include modified square split-ring resonator cells, are repeated and formed into a 5 × 3 array. The antenna's operational bandwidth result is significant, and it is in the range of 2.8–10 GHz with a maximum gain of 11.8 dB. Cancer or malignant tumor cells have entirely different electrical properties than healthy breast tissue. Principal component analysis and specific absorption rate (SAR) are used as a parameter to identify cancer or malignant tumor cells in the breast. The SAR values have been calculated for each layer of the 3D breast model. The results show a difference in the SAR values based on the size and tumors' locations.

In this work, the authors report the operation of a cylindrical dielectric resonator antenna (CDRA) in the high gain HEM13δ mode, for the first time. This mode, excited with a standard microstrip slot, radiates in the broadside direction with gain in the range of 8−10 dBi. It is shown that through feed optimization, the HEM13δ mode can be excited dominantly by suppressing the fundamental HEM11δ mode of the CDRA. Detailed simulation studies show that the HEM13δ mode is supported by cylindrical dielectric resonators with an aspect ratio (radius to height ratio or a/d) >1, and it resonates at a frequency approximately 2.2 times that of the fundamental HEM11δ mode. The above features of the HEM13δ mode CDRA can be used as approximate design rules. For a CDRA with dielectric constant ɛr = 24, diameter 2a = 19.43 mm, and height d = 7.3 mm (a/d = 1.3), the HEM13δ mode is excited at 6.125 GHz with a peak gain of 10.14 dBi in simulation. Corresponding values from prototype measurement are 5.981 GHz and 9.62 dBi, respectively for the resonant frequency and the gain, verifying the simulation.

A planar rectangular slot antenna with dual-band operation and realized higher peak gain is proposed, designed, and fabricated for sub-6 GHz 5G applications. The antenna possesses a rectangular radiating slot with the inverted stub on its upper edge excited simultaneously by a micro-strip feed line having a double folded T-shaped structure. The fabricated design is of compact size with the radiating portion of 0.3 λ0 × 0.17 λ0 (λ0 represents free-space wavelength) and profile of 0.009 λ0. The measured results show the operating frequency bands of 3.29–3.63 GHz and 4.3–5.2 GHz, with a peak gain of around 7.17 dBi. The higher frequency band is generated by the feed patch and the slot whereas lower resonant frequency band is generated by the stub loaded on the slot. The measured results are in a good agreement with the simulated results. The proposed design is suitable for the International Telecommunications Union sub 6 GHz applications.

This paper discusses the design steps and experimental characterization of a monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) power amplifier developed for the next generation of K-band 17.3–20.2 GHz very high throughput satellites. The technology used is a commercially available 100-nm gate length gallium nitride on silicon process. The chip was developed taking into account the demanding constraints of the spacecraft and, in particular, carefully considering the thermal constraints of such technology, in order to keep the junction temperature in all devices below 160°C in the worst-case condition (i.e., maximum environmental temperature of 85°C). The realized MMIC, based on a three-stage architecture, was first characterized on-wafer in pulsed regime and, subsequently, mounted in a test-jig and characterized under continuous wave operating conditions. In 17.3–20.2 GHz operating bandwidth, the built amplifier provides an output power >40 dBm with a power added efficiency close to 30% (peak >40%) and 22 dB of power gain.

Shape-changing mechanical metamaterials have drawn the attention of researchers toward the development of continuous-range tunable frequency selective surfaces (FSSs). In this paper, a novel tunable FSS utilizing an origami-inspired “eggbox” structure is presented featuring four-degrees of freedom that can change the frequency response of two orthogonal linear polarizations. The centrosymmetric “eggbox” structure can be folded or rotated along two axes that lead to unprecedented reconfigurability compared to traditional Miura-Ori-based structures which have fewer degrees of control. The utilized cross-shaped dipole FSS element shows enhanced bandwidth, support for orthogonal linear polarization, and ease of fabrication. The prototype is fabricated using a low-cost fully additive inkjet printing process with silver nanoparticle conductive ink. The outcome of this study shows a 25% frequency tunable range over two polarization directions. The design can be an ideal spatial filtering candidate for advanced ultra-wideband terrestrial and space applications.

A compact ultrawideband (UWB) antenna with reconfigurable triple band notch characteristics is proposed in this paper. The antenna consists of a coplanar waveguide-fed top-cut circular-shaped radiator with two etched C-shaped slots, a pair of split-ring resonators (SRRs) on the backside and four p-type intrinsic n-type (PIN) diodes integrated in the slots and SRRs. By controlling the current distribution in the slots and SRRs, the antenna can realize eight band notch states with independent switch ability, which allows UWB to coexist with 5G (3.3–4.4 GHz)/WiMAX (3.3–3.6 GHz), WLAN (5.15–5.825 GHz), and X-band (7.9–8.4 GHz) bands without interference. By utilizing a nested structure of C-shaped slots and SRRs on the backside, a compact size of 18 × 19.5 mm2 is achieved along with multimode triple band notch reconfigurability. The antenna covers a bandwidth of 3.1–10.6 GHz. A prototype is fabricated and tested. The simulated and experimental results are in good agreement.

A compact multiple input multiple output (MIMO) antenna operating at 2.45 GHz industrial scientific and medical band is presented for wearable devices. Open-end slotting is used to miniaturize the antenna dimensions. Inverted U-shaped ground stub is incorporated to reduce mutual coupling. On-body performance is analyzed on a three-layered equivalent tissue phantom model. The wide bandwidth of 300 MHz and port isolation of 30 dB are obtained from measured results. The antenna shows the efficiency of 40% and directivity of 4.56 dBi when placed at a gap of “s” = 4 mm from the body. Broadside radiation pattern and low specific absorption rate make the antenna suitable for on-body communication. Further, diversity performance is measured in terms of envelope correlation coefficient (ECC), diversity gain (DG), and channel capacity loss (CCL). The value of ECC is 0.025, DG is 9.98 dB, and CCL is 0.12 bits/s/Hz at 2.45 GHz. Antenna robustness is examined by bending the structure at different radii along the x-axis and y-axis. Performance of the proposed structure is reliable with structural deformation.

In this paper, a backfire suppressed aperture coupled circularly polarized (CP) stacked patch antenna for universal ultra-high frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification applications is presented. Cross-polarized backfire radiation patterns were successfully suppressed by a planar high impedance surface (HIS) reflector. The size of the fabricated antenna is 250 × 250 × 26.9 mm3 (0.71λ0 × 0.71λ0 × 0.076λ0) and its peak gain value of 7.1 dBi is measured. The distance between the antenna and the HIS reflector is only 4.8 mm (0.014 λ0). The HIS reflector suppressed cross-pol backfire radiations by about 10 dB. Detailed antenna and HIS reflector design are discussed thoroughly in this paper. The presented backfire suppression technique using the HIS reflector is scalable to other applications and frequency bands. This paper demonstrates the feasibility of the HIS structure at UHF band.

In mathematical definition, a fractal is a self-similar subset of Euclidean space whose fractal dimension strictly exceeds its topological dimension which in turn involves a recursive generating methodology that results in contours with infinitely intricate fine structures. Fractal geometry has been used to model complex natural objects such as clouds coastlines, etc., that has space-filling properties. In the past years, several groups of scientists around the globe tried to implement the structure of fractal geometry for applications in the field of electromagnetism, which led to the development of new innovative antenna configurations called “fractal antennas” which is primarily focused in fractal antenna elements, and fractal antenna arrays. It has been demonstrated that by exploiting the recursive nature of fractals, several marvellous kinds of properties can be observed in antennas and arrays. The primary focus of this article is to provide a compressed overview of the developments in fractal-shaped antennas as well as arrays over the last few decades where the most prominent contributions mostly from IEEE journals have been highlighted. The open intention of this review work is to show an encouraging path to antenna researchers for its advancement using fractal geometries.

Design of single-feed circularly polarized (CP) microstrip antenna is proposed in this article. The design employs the concept of E-shape patch with inclined fractal defected ground structure (IFDGS), which can improve the impedance bandwidth, gain, and axial ratio (AR) bandwidth. The excellent enhanced impedance bandwidth, axial ratio bandwidth, and gain are achieved by an inclined E-shaped fractal etched on the ground plane. The parameter studies of the E-shaped IFDGS are given to illustrate the way to obtain CP radiation. The third iterative IFDGS is fabricated on easily available FR4 substrate with a size of 0.494 λ0 × 0.494 λ0 × 0.019 λ0 (λ0 is the wavelength in free space at 3.624 GHz). The measured results verify the simulated results and show good agreement. The proposed antenna shows an impedance bandwidth of 12.7% at a centre frequency of 3.47 GHz and 3-dB AR bandwidth for this band is 2.39% at a centre frequency of 3.626 GHz. The measured peak gain for the proposed antenna is found as 8.1 dBi. The proposed antenna can be suitable for mobile WIMAX operation (IEEE 802.16e-2005 standard), wireless communication in CA-band and FCC.

In this research, a compact dual band-notched (DBN) super-wideband (SWB) coplanar waveguide-fed antenna with high bandwidth (BW) dimension ratio of 7427.4 has been presented. The proposed antenna covers a very wide frequency range from 2.8 to 40 GHz (BW ratio of 14.28:1) with |S11|<−10 dB. The overall antenna size is 20 × 14 × 1.6 mm3 which consists of an FR4 substrate with a dielectric constant of 4.4, a shovel-shaped radiating patch and the symmetric stair-shaped ground plane. The DBN characteristics are achieved by employing a pair of C-shaped and circular slots on its shovel-shaped radiating patch to reject the interferences caused by two WiMAX (3.7–4.7 GHz) and WLAN (5.7–6.4 GHz) bands. The notched frequency bands can be controlled by changing the radii of slots. The SWB property of the antenna is obtained by using a symmetric stair-shaped ground plane and also a shovel-shaped radiating patch. The measured results of the fabricated prototype in frequency-and time-domain are also presented and compared with the numerical results. The results indicate that the antenna has good performance over the entire operating BW (173.8%) which makes it very potential candidate for modern SWB applications.

The radiation characteristics of the microstrip antenna (MSA) on the frequency selective surface (FSS) based absorbing layer is presented in this paper. It is observed that an absorbing layer placed between the MSA configuration and the ground plane helps in controlling the radiation characteristics of the antenna. It not only reduces the back lobe but also reduces the beamwidth and gain of the antenna simultaneously. This is because the absorbing layer absorbs some amount of power radiated by the antenna in both forward and backward directions. The proposed design is simulated using Ansys HFSS electromagnetic simulation software and the results are validated by comparing it with the results obtained from the equivalent circuit approach as well as experimental results. The effect of absorber on radiation characteristics of the radiator demonstrates its potential use in suppressing the radiation from the printed circuit board traces.

This contribution deals with a frontend for interleaved receive (Rx)-/transmit (Tx)-integrated phased arrays at K-/Ka-band. The circuit is realized in printed circuit board technology and feeds dual-band Rx/Tx- and single-band Tx-antenna elements. The dual-band element feed is composed of a substrate-integrated waveguide (SIW) diplexer with low insertion loss, a low-noise amplifier (LNA), a bandpass filter, and several passive transitions. The compression properties of the LNA are identified through two-tone measurements. The results dictate the maximum allowable output power of the power amplifier. The single band feed consists of a SIW with several transitions. Simulation and measurement results of the individual components are presented. The frontend is assembled and measured. It exhibits an Rx noise figure of 2 dB, a Tx insertion loss of ~ 2.9 dB, and an Rx/Tx-isolation of 70 dB. The setup represents the unit cell of a full array and thus complies with the required half-wave spacing at both Rx and Tx.

We propose simple designs of compact patch antennas with bandwidth enhancement. Firstly, an inverted “L” strip is loaded onto the corner of one radiating patch edge to create an additional resonant mode which can be combined with that one of the conventional patch to enhance the operating bandwidth. Secondly, the “L” strip is replaced by inverted “T” strip to improve further the bandwidth by creating two adjustable resonant modes. The two proposed patch antennas have the particularity of enhancing the bandwidth significantly without increasing their profile and their overall sizes. Two antenna prototypes are fabricated and tested. Measurements reveal that the patch antenna loaded with “L” strip has stable radiation characteristics with 5.2 times enhancement in the relative bandwidth compared with a conventional patch antenna. The antenna loaded with inverted “T” strip has wider bandwidth (6.25 times wider than the conventional patch) and covers the operating band 5.07–5.89 GHz (15%) with measured peak gain and peak efficiency of 6.25 dBi and 78%, respectively. The proposed antennas are easy to fabricate, have a low-profile, and exhibit good performances which make them good candidates to use in real wireless applications.

Identification of human individuals within a group of 39 persons using micro-Doppler (μ-D) features has been investigated. Deep convolutional neural networks with two different training procedures have been used to perform classification. Visualization of the inner network layers revealed the sections of the input image most relevant when determining the class label of the target. A convolutional block attention module is added to provide a weighted feature vector in the channel and feature dimension, highlighting the relevant μ-D feature-filled areas in the image and improving classification performance.

The purpose of this paper is the design of a novel single layer reflectarray antenna in X-band, which can electronically steer the antenna beam and change its polarization. Each antenna element includes a circular patch and rings around it, equipped with two varactor diodes, which are positioned perpendicular together to create a circular polarization. First, using these elements, a circular polarized active electromagnetic band-gap (EBG) reflector is implemented. Then, a special feed is placed in a proper distance with respect to EBG reflector and a circular polarized reflectarray antenna is designed, which has capability of switching electronically between right- and left-handed circular polarizations. An electronic active board is designed and fabricated to provide the biasing voltages, control signals, and indicators. The elements of the reflectarray are designed and arranged in such a way that the varactor diodes can be biased independently. Consequently, a 3D beam is created, which can steer up to ±40o. For evaluating the antenna performance, the radiation patterns and the axial ratio of the antenna are determined at the operational frequency of 11.4 GHz. It is illustrated that, increasing the steering angle in θ direction decreases the directivity and the gain of the reflectarray antenna.

Substrate-integrated waveguide (SIW) technology has recently drawn attention to its benefits in the microwave field, such as integration in planar microwave circuits, low manufacturing cost, and high-quality factor compared to other technologies. In this paper, a broadband and high gain SIW cavity-backed L-shaped slot antenna structure has been designed and made for X-band applications. Three pairs of L-shaped half-wave resonators are placed on the lower wall of the cavity (backed-slots) to further expand bandwidth and improve gain. The final antenna designed operates on a band ranging from 9.4 to 10.5 GHz with a bandwidth of 11%. Moreover, the gain reaches a value of 9.5 dBi. The final antenna is realized on a Rogers RT/Duroid 5870 substrate. The gain, the reflection coefficient, and the radiation patterns are measured and compared to the EM simulation results and a very good agreement is obtained. The proposed cavity-backed L-shaped slot antenna gives a good compromise between a high gain and a large bandwidth.

Vehicle-to-everything communications (V2X), whose main objective is to improve security and efficiency, are provided by ad hoc vehicle networks that allow communication between vehicles. In the current study, a hexagonal microstrip patch antenna has been developed to cover the navigational frequencies, WiMAX at 3.7 GHz and DSRC/IEEE802.11p at 5.9 GHz to meet the demands of various vehicular applications. The antenna design is based on Cantor fractal slot, partial ground plane, and inset feed which is directly fed through the microstrip line. The proposed antenna shields the frequency band from 3.22 to 6.5 GHz with VSWR $\lt$2 within all the frequency bands. The presented antenna can resonate well in the 5.85–5.95 GHz band assigned for DSRC/IEEE802.11p and 3.7 GHz assigned for LTE/V2X. Simulated antenna gain varies from 3.06 to 5.25 dB within the operated frequency range providing an omnidirectional simulated radiation pattern in the most azimuth plane. To prove the validity of the simulation results, the chosen antenna structure has been fabricated and tested using a vector network analyzer MS2630. The measurement shows good results, which make the antenna suitable for wireless applications of interest.

The progressions in the field of wireless technology can be highly attributed to the development of antennas, which can access high data rates, provide significant gain and uniform radiation characteristics. One such antenna called the Vivaldi antenna has attracted the utmost attention of the researchers owing to its high gain, wide bandwidth, low cross-polarization, and stable radiation characteristics. Over the years, different procedures have been proposed by several researchers to improve the performance of the Vivaldi antennas. Some of these different approaches are feeding mechanisms, integration of slots, dielectric substrate selection, and radiator shape. Correspondingly, the performance of a Vivaldi antenna can be increased by including dielectric lens, parasitic patch in between two radiators, corrugations, as well as metamaterials. This paper gives a systematic identification, location, and analysis of a large number of performance enhancement methods of Vivaldi antenna design depicting their concepts, advantages, drawbacks, and applications. The principal emphasis of this article is to offer an outline of the developments in the design of Vivaldi antennas over the last few years, where the most important offerings, mostly from IEEE publications, have been emphasized. This review work aims to reveal a promising path to antenna researchers for its advancement using Vivaldi antennas.