Inter-element Distance Research Articles

Space Efficient Meta-Grid Lines for Mutual Coupling Reduction in Two-Port Planar Monopole and DRA Array

Traditionally used mutual coupling (MC) reduction techniques such as electromagnetic bandgap structures, isolators and neutralization lines require extra space between radiators. Besides, metamaterial-based techniques require multi-layer arrangements. However, the proposed meta-grid lines overcomes the above demerits by integrating meta-grid lines in the ground plane itself. As a proof-of-concept, two-port CPW-fed monopole antenna array (TPCFMAA) and two-port DRA array (TPDRAA) are designed, fabricated and tested. It has been observed that the TPCFMAA has mutual coupling below −20 dB for frequency between 2.6 to 4.4 GHz. The envelope correlation coefficient reduces from 0.072 to 0.026 by integrating meta-grid lines in the ground plane of the TPCFMAA. At 3.5 GHz, the inter-element distance between the antennas is noted to be <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${0.015}\lambda _{\mathrm {h}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> ( <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\lambda _{\mathrm {h}}\,\,=$ </tex-math></inline-formula> highest operating wavelength). The TPDRAA’s operating frequency can be tuned by changing the parameters of the annular ring slot in the excitation patch. The bandwidth of TPDRAA can be further increased by merging the two resonances of the two annular ring slots in the excitation patch. For TPDRAA, the measured −10 dB impedance bandwidth is from 5.65 to 6.55 GHz. The mutual coupling between the antenna elements is seen to be below −16 dB for an inter-element spacing of 4.8 mm, which is <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.090\lambda _{\mathrm {h}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> . The measured gain of TPDRAA within the bandwidth is from 4.17 dBi to 5.2 dBi. The TPCFMAA can be used in 3.5 GHz Internet of Vehicles (IoV) multi-user MIMO service, whereas the TPDRAA can be used for satellite communication in the 5.925 to 6.425 GHz frequency band, WiMAX in the 5.7 to 5.85 GHz band, ISM in the 5.725 to 5.85 GHz band, and WLAN in the 5.8 GHz band.

Wideband Low-Profile Dual-Polarized Phased Array With Endfire Radiation Patterns for 5G Mobile Applications

In this paper, an endfire dual-polarized phased array is introduced for 5G mobile applications, which operates from 26 GHz to 30 GHz with low profile of only 1.1 mm ( <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\bf 0.1\lambda _0}$</tex-math></inline-formula> at 26 GHz) and small clearance of 3.5 mm. The array consists of interleaved substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) based vertical-polarized elements and notch type horizontal-polarized elements. The bandwidth of each SIW element is greatly improved by introducing a wide-band impedance transition, which is composed by parallel plate resonators and a metallic via in between. The notch elements have very compact size, which helps to keep the half-wavelength inter-element distance. The array has a planar structure and is easy to fabricate. The measured and simulated results align well with each other.

A UWB Antenna Array Integrated with Multimode Resonator Bandpass Filter

This paper presents a novel design of a modified ultrawideband (UWB) antenna array integrated with a multimode resonator bandpass filter. First, a single UWB antenna is modified and studied, using a P-shape radiated patch instead of a full elliptical patch, for wide impedance bandwidth and high realized gain. Then, a two-element UWB antenna array is developed based on this modified UWB antenna with an inter-element spacing of 0.35 λL, in which λL is the free space wavelength at the lower UWB band edge of 3.1 GHz, compared to 0.27 λL of a reference UWB antenna array designed using a traditional elliptical patch shape. The partial ground plane is designed with a trapezoidal angle to enhance matching throughout the UWB frequency range. The mutual coupling reduction of a modified UWB antenna array enhances the reflection coefficient, bandwidth, and realized gain, maintaining the same size of 1.08 λ0 × 1.08 λ0 × 0.035 λ0 at 6.5 GHz center frequency as that of the reference UWB antenna array. The UWB antenna array performance is investigated at different inter-element spacing distances between the radiated elements. To add filtering capability to the UWB antenna array and eliminate interference from the out-of-band frequencies, a multimode resonator (MMR) bandpass filter (BPF) is incorporated in the feedline while maintaining a compact size. The measurement results showed a close agreement with simulated results. The proposed UWB filtering antenna array design achieved a wide fractional bandwidth of more than 109.87%, a high realized gain of more than 7.4 dBi, and a compact size of 1.08 λ0 × 1.08 λ0 × 0.035 λ0 at 6.5 GHz center frequency. These advantages make the proposed antenna suitable for UWB applications such as indoor tracking, radar systems and positioning applications.

Проектирование многолучевой приемо-передающей апертуры низкоорбитальной космической системы связи

In designing the receiving-transmitting active phased antenna array (APAA) an important problem is an achievement of the level of maximum outcome between the receiving and transmitting channels. In the work, the concept of building multi-beam receiving-transmitting antenna systems based on APAA has been considered. The criteria for selecting the type of emitter for an S-band antenna with the specified parameters have been presented. It has been shown that the use of a turnstile emitter based on the printing technology can reduce the complexity of manufacturing without compromising the technical parameters. In accordance with the requirements for volume of the tasks of APAA being designed the optimal geometric and electric characteristics of the turnstile radiator have been calculated. In designing the radiating apertures of the multi-element APAA the specifics of the dependence of their electric characteristics on the inter-element distance has been taken into consideration. To increase the circular polarization coefficient of the apertures being designed, the method of tearing apart of the radiator with further compensation of the obtained phase using the phase rotators APAA has been implemented. The estimates of the energy characteristics of the multi-element antennas with a given scanning sector for various inter-element distances have been given. To ensure the separation of the receiving and transmitting antennas the recommendations have been presented.

Array of stacked leaky-wave antennas in groove gap waveguide technology

The design of an array of stacked leaky-wave antennas in groove gap waveguide technology is presented in this work. The proposed array is formed by simply stacking a number of leaky-wave antennas one on top of the other and feeding all of them with uniform amplitude and phase. The inter-element distance is studied in order to avoid grating lobes and to maximize the directivity. A feeding network based on vertical coupling is designed, where the input port feeds the bottom element, and then the energy is equally coupled to the other elements. To obtain maximum directivity the phase is corrected at each element separately. The central frequency of the proposed design is 28 GHz. With this technique of stacking the elements a pencil beam is achieved, i.e. the radiated energy is focalized in the two main planes. The designed array with four elements achieves an enhancement of + 5 dB, reaching 24.5 dBi of directivity in comparison to 19.6 dBi of directivity of the single leaky-wave antenna made in this technology. A prototype is manufactured and measured and its results are presented and compared with the simulations.

An optimal time modulated compact circular antenna array design using a stochastic optimization technique

ABSTRACT This paper presents a time modulated far-field radiation pattern synthesis of a compact circular antenna array (CAA) by employing a stochastic optimization technique known as grey wolf optimization (GWO). The compactness of the antenna array is achieved by reducing the inter-element distances between the elements of the array which leads to the miniaturization of the antenna array size. On the other hand, an optimal far-field radiation characteristic is achieved by suppressing the side lobe level (SLL) as well as by narrowing the first null beamwidth (FNBW). A lower SLL value is necessary to avoid the interference with the system working in the same frequency, whereas, a narrow FNBW helps the antenna array to attain a high directivity. The performance of a time modulated antenna array (TMAA) depends on the rise on–off time, pulse shape as well as on the switching time duration of each element of the array which radiates at different harmonic frequencies. In this paper, the generation of radiation pattern at the fundamental/central frequency and its first two harmonic frequencies are considered for the design issue.

Spatially Correlated Dual Hop RIS Aided Next Generation Wireless Systems: An Outage Perspective

Design and analysis of Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RIS) assisted new wireless communication systems have attracted much attention among the 6G technology researchers. Recently, studies were made to compare the use of RIS and Decode and Forward (DF) relaying when a weak direct path exists between the transmitter and receiver. Amalgamating the merits of both RIS and DF relay technologies, an RIS assisted DF relay-based cooperative wireless system with energy harvesting is proposed in this paper. A Lambertian model of reflectance is employed in the analysis of the reflecting nature of RIS. Further, the impact of spatial correlation which arises due to the tightly-packed planar RIS array geometry is also considered for performance analysis. By varying inter-element distances and transmit power, the performance of the proposed system is analyzed in terms of outage probability and energy harvesting capability. Numerical expressions are derived for the outage probability of the proposed system and verified using Monte-Carlo simulations. Based on the high performance, the concept of joint use of RIS and DF Relay is extended to the Index Modulation (IM) based wireless system.

An optimal circular antenna array design considering the mutual coupling employing ant lion optimization

AbstractThis 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.

Side Lobe Suppression of Concentric Circular Antenna Array Using Social Spider Algorithm

This paper presents an efficient method to improve the far-field radiation pattern of concentric circular antenna array (CCAA) design using two stochastic optimization algorithms known as social spider algorithm (SSA) and modified social spider algorithm (MSSA). Low side lobe level (SLL) plays a crucial role in reducing the interference with the other frequency components along the entire side lobes of the far-field radiation pattern. SSA and MSAA are the state-of-the-art evolutionary optimization techniques which are applied here to determine the optimal current amplitude and the inter-element distance between two consecutive antennae of the 3-ring CCAA. In this paper, the optimal results achieved by using SSA, MSSA for (4, 6, 8) elements and (8, 10, 12) elements 3-ring CCAAs, with and without centre elements are reported. The results achieved by employing SSA and MSSA show a considerable improvement in SLL reduction as compared to the uniform and the other array patterns reported in the state-of-the-art literature.

Hemispheric specialization in spatial versus ordinal processing in the day-old domestic chick (Gallus gallus).

Different species show an intriguing similarity in representing numerosity in space, starting from left to right. This bias has been attributed to a right hemisphere dominance in processing spatial information. Here, to disentangle the role of each hemisphere in dealing with spatial versus ordinal-numerical information, we tested domestic chicks during monocular versus binocular vision. In the avian brain, the contralateral hemisphere mainly processes the visual input from each eye. Four-day-old chicks learned to peck at the fourth element in a sagittal series of 10 identical elements. At testing, chicks faced a left-to-right-oriented series where the interelement distance was manipulated so that the third element was where the fourth had been at training; this compelled chicks to use either spatial or ordinal cues. Chicks tested binocularly selected both the fourth left and (to a lesser extent) right elements. Chicks tested monocularly chose the third and fourth elements on the seeing side equally. Interhemispheric cooperation resulted in the use of ordinal-numerical information, while each single hemisphere could rely on spatial or ordinal-numerical cue. Both hemispheres can process spatial and ordinal-numerical information, but their interaction results in the supremacy of processing the ordinal-numerical cue.

Frequency Invariant Beamforming for a Small-Sized Bi-Cone Acoustic Vector-Sensor Array.

In this work, we design a small-sized bi-cone acoustic vector-sensor array (BCAVSA) and propose a frequency invariant beamforming method for the BCAVSA, inspired by the Ormia ochracea’s coupling ears and harmonic nesting. First, we design a BCAVSA using several sets of cylindrical acoustic vector-sensor arrays (AVSAs), which are used as a guide to construct the constant beamwidth beamformer. Due to the mechanical coupling system of the Ormia ochracea’s two ears, the phase and amplitude differences of acoustic signals at the bilateral tympanal membranes are magnified. To obtain a virtual BCAVSA with larger interelement distances, we then extend the coupling magnified system into the BCAVSA by deriving the expression of the coupling magnified matrix for the BCAVSA and providing the selecting method of coupled parameters for fitting the underwater signal frequency. Finally, the frequency invariant beamforming method is developed to acquire the constant beamwidth pattern in the three-dimensional plane by deriving several sets of the frequency weighted coefficients for the different cylindrical AVSAs. Simulation results show that this method achieves a narrower mainlobe width compared to the original BCAVSA. This method has lower sidelobes and a narrower mainlobe width compared to the coupling magnified bi-cone pressure sensor array.

A Dual Circularly Polarized Patch Antenna With High Isolation for MIMO WLAN Applications

A dual circularly polarized (CP) stacked patch antenna for Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) WLAN applications (2.4-2.485 GHz) is presented, which exploits a square ring slot feeding technique. The antenna occupies an overall area of 96 mm x 96 mm x 39 mm, when also including the metal reflector. The 7-dBic gain antenna prototype presents an axial ratio lower than 2.5 dB as well as a port isolation higher than 25 dB. An envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) lower than 0.02 is also achieved among the two ports, thanks to the polarization orthogonality. Moreover, the stacked patch has been duplicated and used in a two-antenna system for a 4 x 4 MIMO WLAN which fits an overall volume of 157 mm x 96 mm x 39 mm. Antenna performance in terms of S-Parameters, gain, axial ratio, ECC and channel capacity are compared and discussed, together with the effect of the inter-element distance.

Multi-dimensional scaling (MDS), Euclidean distance matrices (EDMs), matrix completion and outlier identification in array calibration and beamforming

The matrix of inter-element distances, a Euclidean Distance Matrix (EDM), is symmetric with zero diagonal. It thus has N(N-1)/2 distinct values, which we know are a function of 3N-6 xyz coordinates. Indeed, the EDM for the elements of a 3-D array has rank 3. As a result, it is possible to reconstruct missing elements of the EDM, using a process called matrix completion. Array calibration (aka array element localization or AEL) is determining the relative 3-D coordinates of all array elements, so that they can be incorporated into various beamforming processes. The eigenvectors of a complete and noise-free EDM immediately yield the array element xyz coordinates, using a method called Multi-Dimensional Scaling (MDS). If an EDM has missing measurements and/or is noisy, its matrix completion can recover a complete and more accurate EDM that then yields better relative xyz coordinates. Alternatively, testing a noisy EDM for its know properties can be used to identify outlier measurements (among the inter-element distances), before AEL is performed. We will present the mathematics underlying EDMs, MDS, and matrix completion, and demonstrate AEL results for incomplete and noisy EDMs, using these concepts.

Analysis of Tilted Dipole Arrays: Impedance and Radiation Properties

In this article, we investigate the radiation and impedance properties of arrays of tilted dipoles. A spectral periodic method of moments (MoM) is developed for the analysis of infinite arrays with arbitrarily tilted dipole elements, in free space or with a backing reflector. With the aid of this analysis method, the radiation characteristics of arrays of stacked dipoles over a ground plane are studied, explaining the variation of the patterns as a function of the interelement distance and the angle of inclination of the elements. Finite linear arrays of tilted dipoles are also investigated, to assess the dependence of the array characteristics on the number of elements. The developed method can be used to design arrays with nonsymmetric radiation patterns for angular filtering or pattern shaping.

Spatial aliasing effects on beamforming performance in large-spacing antenna array

In the next wireless communication generation, 5G, it is obvious to employ the half-spacing antenna elements as high-resolution antenna array. However, to compensate the lower aperture from short-spacing elements, the number of antennas should be grown larger. It will be costly and increase complexity in terms of antenna array analysis. In this paper, the aliasing effects on beamforming of antenna array geometry utilizes inter-element spacing more than half-lambda. The antenna geometry of linear, circular and planar will be explored in this paper and the center frequency for simulation is 60 GHz. It is also due the fact that many researchers on 5G believe 60 GHz will be employed as 5G frequency band. 60 GHz is truly higher than today Long-term-evolution (LTE) working frequency and it is really challenging to its signal model due to small wavelength and its effective signal working distance as effect of rain attenuation, etc. As our preliminary results, linear array, which only considers the azimuthal, the spatial aliasing appears in the inter-element distance more than 1-lambda. The circular and planar consider the azimuth and elevation properties of incoming signals. In circular array, the power angular of a signal can be detected accurately applying the 3-sector antenna pattern. When the inter-element distance grows more than 1.5 lambda, the spatial aliasing which appear to be side lobe with similar power angular dominate the incoming signal detection. The result shows us that employing the 2-lambda distance or more will be useless. Planar array which actually a 2-axis linear array give unexpected results, most of detections are inaccurate and power angular also low. This concludes that spatial aliasing effects will degrade the beamforming performance due to confusion between real signal and fake signal resulting from similar values of array factor.

Compact circularly polarized beam-switching wireless power transfer system for ambient energy harvesting applications

In this work, we propose a circularly polarized (CP) beam-switching wireless power transfer system for ambient energy harvesting applications operating at 2.4 GHz. Beam-switching is achieved using a low profile, electrically small CP antenna array with four elements and a novel miniaturized 4×4 butler matrix. The CP antenna is designed with an e-shaped slot and four antennas. The CP antenna measures 0.32 λ0×0.32 λ0×0.006 λ0 at 2.4 GHz. The antenna has a gain of 3 dBic and an axial ratio less than 3-dB at 2.4 GHz. A linear antenna array consisting of four elements is designed with the CP antenna element with an inter-element distance of 0.29 λ0. A 4×4 butler matrix with miniaturized couplers and crossovers are used to feed the four antenna array elements. Based on the input port of excitation, the main beam of the antenna array is demonstrated to be switched to four directions: −5°, 65°, −55°, and 20°. A CP rectenna is used to demonstrate the wireless power transfer capability of the combination of the butler matrix and the CP-antenna array. The rectenna consists of a Teo-shaped CP antenna and a rectifier. The open circuit voltage at the output of the rectenna is found to peak value of 30 mV at −3°, 61°, −53°, and 17°. Thus a complete system for CP wireless power transfer including the power transmission system as well as the RF energy harvesting sensor is designed and experimentally verified.

A Reduced Size Planar Grid Array Antenna for Automotive Radar Sensors

A new configuration of a planar grid array antenna for automotive radar applications operating in the 77–81 GHz frequency band is introduced. The proposed array is based on miniaturized loop elements, which are designed to maintain the mutual interelement distance along the azimuthal plane to less than half free-space wavelength, thus allowing a better scanning performance in the final radar system. Moreover, to enhance the gain bandwidth performance, the antenna adopts multiresonant cells realized using variably dimensioned radiation elements. The proposed design was validated experimentally and it is fully compliant with multichannel monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) designed for automotive radar sensor applications.

Passive Decoupling Techniques in Ultra-High Field MRI

In this work a comparison of two passive decoupling techniques for ultra-high field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is presented. An electromagnetic band-gap (EBG) structure and a single passive dipole are compared in terms of their capabilities to decouple two active dipole body array elements at 7 Tesla at an extremely short inter-element distance. Decoupling band as well as distribution of circularly polarized radiofrequency magnetic field inside a homogeneous phantom provided with these two techniques are compared.

The effect of clustering on perceived quantity in humans (Homo sapiens) and in chicks (Gallus gallus).

Animals can perceive the numerosity of sets of visual elements. Qualitative and quantitative similarities in different species suggest the existence of a shared system (approximate number system). Biases associated with sensory properties are informative about the underlying mechanisms. In humans, regular spacing increases perceived numerosity (regular-random numerosity illusion). This has led to a model that predicts numerosity based on occupancy (a measure that decreases when elements are close together). We used a procedure in which observers selected one of two stimuli and were given feedback with respect to whether the choice was correct. One configuration had 20 elements and the other 40, randomly placed inside a circular region. Participants had to discover the rule based on feedback. Because density and clustering covaried with numerosity, different dimensions could be used. After reaching a criterion, test trials presented two types of configurations with 30 elements. One type had a larger interelement distance than the other (high or low clustering). If observers had adopted a numerosity strategy, they would choose low clustering (if reinforced with 40) and high clustering (if reinforced with 20). A clustering or density strategy predicts the opposite. Human adults used a numerosity strategy. Chicks were tested using a similar procedure. There were two behavioral measures: first approach response and final circumnavigation (walking behind the screen). The prediction based on numerosity was confirmed by the first approach data. For chicks, one clear pattern from both responses was a preference for the configurations with higher clustering. (PsycINFO Database Record

Thermal-Aware Synthesis of 5G Base Station Antenna Arrays: An Overview and a Sparsity-Based Approach

Heat removal capabilities and radiation performances of several sparse antenna array topologies are studied for cooling enhancement in 5G millimeter-wave base station antennas. Both electromagnetic (EM) and thermal aspects are jointly considered for the first time in array layout optimization, and a novel connection between layout sparsity and thermal management is presented. Two types of active electronically scanned arrays (AESAs), based on the traditional and planar approaches, are examined. Thermal management in AESAs is discussed, with a focus on cooling challenges at millimeter waves. Being relatively low cost and low profile while supporting flexible beamforming, passively cooled planar AESAs with fanless CPU coolers are proposed, for the first time, to be used in 5G base stations. Additional cooling for such arrays is achieved by increasing the inter-element distances in the layout. Linear irregular arrays, spiral arrays, thinned arrays, circular ring arrays, and heat sink antenna arrays are revisited with a critical discussion on their EM and thermal performance. The results are compared with regular and square layouts that are used as benchmarks throughout this paper.