Welcome to IMAS-2023

At NASA, over the years, we have been developing radars for space science applications at the frequency bands of microwave, millimeter-wave, and terahertz frequencies. These radars are primarily used for Earth observations and planetary science applications. In this presentation, we will present an overview of the state of the different radar developments in our laboratory. Specifically, the focus will be on some of the recent developments in the highly compact and low-power radars for planetary applications for places such as Mars and Europa. Some of these radars are being planned to be mounted on future Mars helicopters to provide unique science data. Moreover, in recent years, we have developed novel differential absorption radars both for Earth Observations (at millimeter-waves) and Mars (at terahertz frequencies) to measure the water content in the respective atmospheres. Some of the design and implementation details will be provided in this lecture. The research described herein was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Conventional satellites for Earth science observations are a well-demonstrated and established technology. However, they cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build and a long time to develop. On the other hand, CubeSats represent a class of miniaturized satellites that can be as small as 10x10x10 cm3 in volume and weigh under 1.44 kg. Indeed, the small size and weight of CubeSats allow for a significant reduction in cost and deployment time. This affordability of CubeSats has led to the concept of using clusters of networked CubeSats to enable missions deemed impossible with conventional satellites. That is, CubeSat constellations have great potential as platforms for Earth science missions. However, so far, imaging hardware payloads for CubeSats has been limited to higher frequencies. Specifically, RainCube operates at 35.75 GHz and the CubeSat Imaging Radar for Earth Sciences (CIRES), InSARs, operates at 2.9 GHz. On the other hand, it is well-known that lower frequencies can penetrate through foliage and deeper into soil and ice surfaces. This presentation is focused on foldable ultra-wideband arrays at low frequencies (VHF and UHF, S-band, and L-band). Foldability is necessary to overcome the space limitations of CubeSats. This is done via a realization and demonstration of Origami/Kirigami folding concepts. antenna arrays. Further to achieve narrow beamwidths, constellations of CubeSats are proposed to achieve SAR slant range resolution is 0.375 m using the large bandwidth of the packable tightly coupled arrays. Designs will be discussed to achieve imaging resolutions in the order of 1 m (along-track and cross-track) and ground range resolution of 1.46 m.

With the increasing number of space assets along with the need for space interferometric systems, there is a need for robust, efficient, and wideband communication links between the assets. Similarly, high-data-rate communications between a mother orbiting ship and landed assets are highly desirable not only for navigation but for science data as well. THz communications systems present a number of advantages in implementing efficient data links between various scenarios for space applications. This talk will discuss the recent advances in building blocks, such as coherent sources and super-heterodyne receivers, needed for such applications. An example architecture at 240 GHz has been suggested and demonstrated utilizing the current generation of solid-state transmitters that can provide hundreds of mW of power in the submillimeter-wave range. With highly sensitive and linear heterodyne mixers, such a system could potentially provide the needed higher data rate capability without the drawbacks associated with optical technology.

This presentation highlights the design of reflectarray antennas operating at X- and Ka-bands with gains of 27 dBi and 34 dBi, respectively, which have been proposed for 3U CubeSat relay communication. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) collects around 573 GB of data per day and the data is sent to the ground station (WS1) located in White Sands, New Mexico. The LRO communicates with the earth station an average of 4 times per day throughout the year. The LRO has several instruments in the lunar orbit, ranging from passive imagers to an active altimeter, as well as a synthetic aperture radar. There is a growing need to transfer more data to the earth station for future missions. In order to accomplish this goal, we propose to use a CubeSat relay between the earth and the moon orbiter. This CubeSat will communicate with the deep space network (DSN) instead of communicating with WS1 and this will help in improving the connection time between the moon orbiter and the ground station. The data rate of the proposed method would be 4.5 Mbps with binary phase shift keying (BPSK) modulation. We share the design of the reflectarrays using two commercial simulation tools and characterization of the Ka-band design.

This presentation highlights the design challenges faced by Global Positioning System (GPS) service providers when creating wide-frequency-range receivers, which require a wideband feed network and circularly polarized antenna. The presentation also emphasizes the importance of high-performance systems for precise localization in the GNSS market. It also notes that developers of GNSS receivers must be aware of the risks posed by jamming and take measures to protect their systems and users. Additionally, it stresses that understanding the impact of jamming and implementing techniques to mitigate the threat is crucial for the development of safety-critical and mission-critical systems.

Frequency-modulated (FM) radars have continued to evolve steadily since they were first demonstrated at the beginning of the 20th century. Although their general operating principle has been known for some time, the availability of new and ever-improved related technologies has resulted in ultra-wideband (UWB) systems with unprecedented detection capabilities, which are applicable to multiple fields. In this presentation, we will review the current state-of-the-art UWB FM radar systems along with general design constraints and performance metrics. In particular, we will provide an overview of system-level considerations for short- and long-range operations. We will focus on radar assets employed to address some of today's global challenges in the context of geosciences. Lastly, we will explore the future landscape potentially enabled by emerging technologies.

Over the past seven decades space has been transformed from being an unreachable safe haven into a congested, contested, and competed environment. Both military and civilian applications have found it to be a very useful domain. All nations are now striving to leverage space with very little international oversight or any enforceable regulations. The current status seems to be untenable. This presentation reviews how we got to this point and describes some of the high-power radars that are being used daily by the Space Surveillance Network (SSN) to maintain awareness of that domain (Space Domain Awareness).

With the ever-increasing development of microwave, mm-wave, and THz integrated circuits of various semiconductor technologies (e.g Silicon, SiGe, GaAs, GaN, Diamond) there is an increased need for a heterogeneous integration and packaging solution to build useful and lightweight radar hardware and front-ends by successfully combining these different semiconductor technologies. Additive manufacturing has emerged as a promising technology to address this highly important challenge. In this presentation, we will cover examples of Polyjet and Aerosol Jet 3D printed RF front ends and antennas that offer competitive RF performance and unique new RF hardware capabilities in a cost-effective manner, and pave the way for future highly integrated, lightweight, and possible conformal radars for a variety of applications.

Recent Advances in High-Power and Wide-Bandgap RF Devices

Wireless Power Transmission

Analysis of Non-Covalent Functionalization of CVD Graphene for Sensors and Devices Application

Metasurfaces (MTS) are thin layers of subwavelength elements which are employed to control the wavefront of guided waves and reflected waves and the transformation from surface wave (SW) to leaky waves (LWs). Particular cases of MTSs are self-complementary metasurfaces (SCMs), single-layer metal patterns floating in free-space whose elemental cell remains invariant after complementary inversion except for a rotation of the elemental cell in the metasurface plane, where "complementary inversion" means interchanging the metal pattern with the free space. The concept of SCM can be also extended to impenetrable type of boundary conditions, modifying the shape of the elements with the objective to maintain the basic properties of reflection/transmission and/or SW degeneration of modes. The application of SCMs to antennas opens new possibilities, especially for antennas in dual-polarization. In this talk, after illustrating the basic principle, various examples will be presented about the use of SCM in microwave frequency range which include gaussian horns, surface-wave based antennas, hyperbolic surfaces, flat reflectors, optical control of the reconfigurability, and propagation which is robust against backscattering.

Microwave and Millimeter-wave switches are key components in communication systems. They are used for signal routing and for realizing a wide range of reconfigurable microwave and millimeter-wave devices. Phase Change Materials (PCM) have been widely used in optical storage media and non-volatile memory device applications. Over the past recent years, there have been interest in exploiting the PCM materials such as germanium telluride (GeTe) and metal insulator transition materials such as vanadium oxides (VO2) for RF applications. The principle of operation of PCM devices is based on the ability of the material to transform from a high-resistivity state (amorphous phase) to a low-resistivity state (crystalline phase) and vice versa with the application of short duration pulses. Several orders of magnitude in resistivity change can be achieved by PCM technology allowing the realization of highly miniature microwave and millimeter-wave switches. In addition to miniaturization, GeTe based switches offer latching functionality and ease of monolithic integration with other RF circuits. This talk will address recent developments in PCM switches and their applications to the realization of switch matrices, phase shifters, variable attenuators, reconfigurable filters and reflective intelligent surfaces.

Modern reservoir management in oil and gas industry relies on accurate water fraction measurement which is produced as a by-product with oil. The water-cut sensors available at the moment are either costly, heavy, intrusive, incapable of covering full water-cut range and/or require mixer as a flow conditioner. In this talk, we present inline, pipe conformable microwave resonator-based sensors which are capable of detecting full range (0-100%) water cut. First, a basic microwave resonator-based water cut sensor will be presented which is implemented in a curved fashion on a pipe surface. To realize the sensor on the pipe, a concept of dual ground plane will be introduced. Later in this talk, an advanced design will be presented which can operate consistently on horizontal or vertical pipe sections, negating the effect of either orientation of the pipe or oil-water mixture flow regime on sensor's performance. A compact downhole version of the sensor is also presented. This talk will also describe realization of these sensors through screen printing, and their characterization in an industrial flow loop test setup that emulates oil field conditions. Finally, all the steps required to transform a lab prototype (TRL 2-3) into a field deployable product (TRL7-8) will be explained. Field test results and challenges of measuring the water fraction in presence of gas will conclude this talk.

A program led by the Tanzanian NGO Rural Development Organization (RDO) established a honey farming hub funded partly by ISV. A pilot honey-producing site was built and operated by expert beekeepers from outside the village. The production, harvesting, and processing cycle were completed to demonstrate how the farming hubs should be operated. A significant portion of the program was to provide knowledge and training to local villagers on modern beekeeping methods. A curriculum was created, enabling local beekeepers to become fully familiar with all honey farming activities and capable of training others. The successful first phase pilot has been scaled up to a 2nd site; each site has 30 hives and together can generate 500kg of honey. The RDO had access to markets to sell the product. Local village farmers observed and were trained on the marketing process.

This project introduces renewable energy to provide electricity for pumping water for Omupo community residents. Electricity will be used to power rice-producing machinery. The pumping station will be in the Omupo village, eliminating the need to manually transport water over 1-5 km of trails. Women are traveling up to 100 km to take advantage of the machinery.

The global demand for rice continues to increase, and rice production is expanding to meet this demand. Consequently, the need to dry rice at peak harvest time has also increased. However, the rice harvesting window is relatively short and is often characterized by warm and humid conditions that favor the proliferation of microbes and pests in grain storage systems. New harvesting technologies have increased the speed at which rice can be harvested. Larger and faster grain carts, trucks, and trailers for transporting rice from combines to dryers have resulted in much higher delivery rates to commercial drying facilities. Unfortunately, the rice drying infrastructure has not grown at the same rate as the harvest and transport technology. Temporary "wet holding" of rice has become inevitable, and this delayed drying poses risks, especially for rice coming in with higher moisture content. Courtesy of a USDA SBIR-NIFA grant, the Rice/Grain Processing and Post-Harvest Systems Engineering Lab at the University of Arkansas' Department of Food Science has a long-term goal to develop, validate, and commercialize rapid, one-pass drying technology for rough rice that maximizes head rice yield and ensures rice quality. In collaboration with our industry partners, this research project harnesses the volumetric heating characteristics of 915 MHz microwaves to minimize moisture content, temperature, and material phase gradients during rough rice drying and thereby discourage kernel fissuring, which reduces rice milling yield and quality. This one-pass drying process provides the microwave energy level and treatment duration required to decrease the moisture in a unit mass of rough rice from the harvest moisture level, which is typically about 22% to 20% wet basis (w.b.), to a safe storage moisture content of 12% to 13% w.b. This new drying approach is expected to dry rice without reducing the milling yield and without reducing the nutritional, functional, and sensory properties of rice.

Zambia has been a major producer of gemstones in the world, but it still remains a poor country as most of the gemstones are not added value. For example, Zambia accounts for at least 20 percent of emerald's value. Despite the country having an abundance of these precious stones, the trickledown effect has not been corresponding downstream such as in the lapidary industry. Without value added to the gemstone, the country has lost earnings with the rough material being exported which later adds value. Despite the challenges in the industry, women do not participate in this process as they are believed not to be masculine enough to do the work. The stereotyping has encroached on the industry coupled with gender and cultural expectations in Zambian's Copperbelt province. The struggle to access land and mineral resources continues to be an impediment for most women, including them not acquiring mining licenses. Looking at the history of women in mining, they have continued to experience low remuneration compared to the other gender. For those women that migrate to mining areas in hope of gaining meaningful employment, many end up working in bars or hotels. Kuumba Smart Vision Zambia was established in 2021 as a Non-Profit Organisation, aimed at empowering rural women in value addition skills in the gemstone industry. The organization is actively working with the Ministry of Education through Gemstone Lapidary and Processing Training Centre (GLPTC) to train women in a two-year program.

VertSTEM is a registered non-profit that aims to make STEM education accessible to all. We volunteer with IEEE Smart Village and are a beneficiary of Snap Circuit Kits in conducting Nigeria's STEM outreach. In response to rural students surveyed during the COVID lockdown, we are working with community leaders to develop solar-powered computer hubs, to raise vocational awareness in neglected communities. We engage students in emerging technologies such as AI, IoT, etc. These hubs will also serve as an online examination center for students to write the UTME. The initiative will be profitable because UTME pays center owners per student usage.

ISV was an initial supporter of the Global Telehealth Network (GTN). GTN was founded on the belief that no one should be denied access to health care because of location, social status, or ability to pay. Notably, many locations in Africa are medically underserved. The GTN's mission is to reduce health disparities and inequities in medically underserved areas. As its contribution to GTN, ISV supports local entrepreneurs who develop solar power installations and Internet access for health care, education, and economic development. throughout the world. ISV is teamed with Rotary International on this project. In Kenya and Uganda, 3 hospitals, 4 health centers, and 2 school clinics are participants. Once fully operational and vetted, the activity will extend to Liberia, Tanzania, and Nigeria. IEEE Smart Cities (ISC) is also a technical community within the IEEE. Whereas ISV works with local entrepreneurs to improve their communities, ISC coordinates the broad array of IEEE technical expertise to advance the state of the art of Smart Cities technology. What is a Smart City? It is a regular city but one where ISC has identified and developed technical best practices within the context of the urban infrastructure system. Smart Cities benefit from the usage of intelligent sensors and electronic devices, communication networks and cyber security, systems integration, intelligence and data analytics, and management and control platforms. No new industries are normally created, but existing industries are enhanced and augmented by various new technologies. Some enhancements will be described in this workshop.

The advancement of science and technology is fairly quick. It forces people to consider how quickly and drastically the social landscape and environment may change. It is evident that the concentration of industrial activity in large cities leads to a number of urban problems, particularly environmental ones. Industrial regions are currently being revitalized and relocated, which brings up the question of new urban development methods. The UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Sustainable Development Goals, 2015) asks for innovative methods of developing sustainable human settlements, including addressing the problems caused by growing urbanization. Sustainable cities and communities are one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Making cities sustainable means creating career and business opportunities, safe and affordable housing, and building resilient societies and economies. It involves investment in public transport, creating green public spaces, and improving urban planning and management in participatory and inclusive ways

The continent Africa had for a very long time experienced difficulty in attaining a technological level of development and sustainability, especially in the areas of Energy/Energy Access, Education, Agriculture, and Transportation. While these issues are not peculiar to the countries and communities in Africa, but rather globally, African communities possess a unique potential for resilience, adaptability, and easily scalable solutions that can greatly accelerate the growth and transformation of communities into Smart Villages and by extension, Smart Cities. By Facilitating and proffering solutions to Rural Development (Urbanization) through interconnectivity and Access to Clean Energy (Electricity), STEAM Education, Agriculture, and Transformation, one can set up a framework to ensure a self-sustaining ecosystem. In addition, the interaction between these systems and their utilization by the people at the fundamental level also provides a unique opportunity for collaboration not just between individuals in a community, but between two or more communities, thereby creating a system for development while opening the door for more opportunities. These include Energy Access and Management, Sensing as well as an acceptable level of automation and intelligence for Transportation, Agriculture, Healthy Living, and Clean environment among others.

Egypt as a model of middle east countries is turning its communities to be sustainable and intelligent. The students of Engineering in different fields have bigger chances to involve renewable energies and sustainable water management as sustainable steps and also to apply IoT and artificial intelligence as thoughtful steps in their projects. These projects are turning out to be startups and products used by Egyptian citizens from different educational and financial levels. Examples of these projects are simple wind turbines to feed homes with electricity, 100% on-grid PV solutions, IoT electric vehicles, conversion of gasoline cars to electric vehicles, and others done by undergraduate students at Heliopolis University into startups.

Initially, an introduction to wireless charging technology for electric vehicles is provided to highlight the importance of this technology, state-of-the-art solutions proposed, different modes of operation of the wireless charger (static, stationary, and dynamic), etc. Then it will discuss the impact of these charging technologies on the smart grid, which includes challenges around harmonic mitigation, power factor control, and bidirectional operation of wireless power chargers. Next, it introduces the opportunities and challenges around developing smart charging infrastructures, routing, scheduling, and planning strategies in smart cities. Finally, it will discuss the future of this technology in the global and African context to enable smart cities.

This study describes a non-invasive method for measuring the glucose level in aqueous solutions using a microwave-based system. The test sample (i.e., glucose-water solution) is subjected to a microwave signal. Two RF microstrip patch antennas manufactured using an FR-4 substrate and resonating at 5.7 GHz are used to create the suggested glucose sensor. The glucose-water solution is placed between the two antennas. An electronic conditioning circuit (i.e., analog readout circuit) is used to condition the received signal. A novel method to measure the amount of glucose is to observe the variation in the DC output voltage on the receiver side. Utilizing glucose-water testing samples, the technique is experimentally validated. For a concentration range of 0-5000 mg/dL, the experimental findings support the relationship between glucose concentration and the DC output voltage.

A compact asymmetric orthomode transducer (OMT) for the characterization and measurements of dual polarized 5G communication systems is designed. The OMT is customly designed for the n260 (37 - 40 GHz) and n259 (39.5 - 43.5 GHz) bands. The OMT covers 20% fractional bandwidth (36 - 44 GHz) with a measured return loss and isolation better than 15 dB and 35 dB respectively. Good agreement between simulations and measurements is obtained.

In this paper, a microwave heating system controlled by temperature is presented. Each system component is described, and the system's design is provided. The system uses a solid-state microwave generator as the source. The power delivery method is also discussed, and the waveguide environment is shown. An infrared temperature sensor is used to collect the temperature of the sample which is then fed to a python program to control the operation of the microwave generator. A study of the temperature profile for three different power levels is shown with and without using the control system. Using a preset temperature range, the result is shown and discussed.

This paper presents a switch based on GeTe (Germanium-Telluride) phase-change material (PCM) suitable for millimeter-wave applications. A shunt configuration with indirect excitation through heating is proposed to facilitate the implementation process in integrated circuits and to reduce impact on RF signal. Electromagnetic simulations, from 30 GHz up to 90 GHz, of two parallel switches shunted a CPW transmission line (TL) show an overall ON-state resistance (RON) of 3 Ω with an OFF-state capacitance (COFF) of 7.1 fF. This leads to a high Figure-of-Merit with a cutoff frequency of 7.5 THz. The demonstrated performance is validated through the design of a reflection-type phase shifter (RTPS), where a 3-dB branch-line coupler is loaded with tunable-length lines using those shunt-switches. Simulation results of the RTPS show great precision in terms of phase tunability with an insertion loss (IL) less than 2.7 dB at 60 GHz.

The manuscript investigates the capacity enhancement derived from the new trend of Coded-Beam High Throughput Satellite (CB-HTS) System; CB-HTS is a methodology of adoption of Direct- Sequence Code Division Multiplexing (DS-CDM) orthogonal coding as a resource allocation associated with each beam of multi-beam satellites. This system offers no spectrum reuses and there is no co-channel interference between beams as they are isolated with the code orthogonally, therefore the system throughput increases without scarifying any resources or increasing neither system complexity nor latency. The presented work uses the affordable polarization resource at the user terminal side to increase the capacity in each beam by using both vertical and horizontal polarization support with the conventional multiple accessing techniques between users in the beam. Results show the superiority of proposed scheme compared to current state of- the art in cases of practical interest.

This paper attempts to present a survey on techniques for beam scanning with circularly-polarized reflector antennas, concentrating on the ones that keep each reflector antenna element focused, including a new technique previously introduced by the author [1-3]. High gain reflector antennas are of main concern in this work (≥ 50 dBi), and possible scanning techniques are reviewed in light of geometrical concepts in conjunction with phased array methodology and notions of interferometry. It is not claimed that the work represents the state-of-the-art in phase-shifting control, but it does explore concepts and geometries involving intrinsic properties of circularly-polarized reflector antennas, explained in a straightforward manner, highlighting the educational aspect of the contribution. The concepts herein discussed are a work in progress and only preliminary results are discussed to illustrate the proposed configurations, without loss of generality.

This paper presents a brief overview of the Transient Array Radio Telescope (TART) and the improvements made on the TART structure. A novel antenna platform for the Rhodes University (RU) TART is designed using three (2.5 m) unistrut beams and two laser-cut galvanised steel plates. The newly assembled antenna platform offers a lot of flexibility in terms of antenna positioning and configuration. With a three-arm layout of the RU TART, an improved angular resolution of 2◦ 37' 41"is achieved.

In this paper, a compact horizontally polarized microstrip based directional dipole element is proposed for LoRa applications. The presented dipole element is designed for compactness and efficiency by minimizing the side lobe level (SLL) in the radiation pattern. The dipole element is then used in an omnidirectional ring array antenna unit that is in turn used to construct a five-unit directional linear antenna array system for LoRaWAN base-station applications. The five-unit antenna array system demonstrates high directivity with a simulated gain of 9.5 dBi. Moreover, the omnidirectional unit shows satisfactory matching properties with a return loss value below -14 dB for both single-element and multi-element mode operation. A small antenna footprint was also achieved with the dimensions of the omnidirectional unit being smaller than the operating wavelength of 0.868 GHz.

This paper presents the analysis and design of a low-profile circularly-polarized folded reflectarray antenna (FRA) for wireless communication applications in the ku band. The proposed FRA consists of a main reflectarray (MR), a tilted linearly polarized (LP) horn antenna and a transmitarray. The main reflectarray consists of 436 pentagonal patch elements on a grounded dielectric substrate. The reflecting elements are adjusted to produce a 90° phase shift between the reflection coefficients in the two principal planes. On the other hand, the transmitarray consists of conducting circular patches on a dielectric slab. The combination of the reflectarray and transmitarray are designed to convert the linearly polarized radiation of the feeding horn antenna to circular polarization. This design operates in the band from 11.5 to 12.5 GHz and the results show that the maximum antenna gain 21 dBi and the AR is 1.67 dB at 12 GHz.

Radiation pattern synthesis of a planar antenna array using relative elements axial rotation is proposed to generate broadside flattop or cosecant beams for surveillance, radars, and mobile communications. For a proof of concept, 5 x 5 planar Hertzian dipoles are utilized to synthesize all space-desired radiation patterns over a solid angle ratio of 13.4%. The rotation of each element is adjusted using a built-in MATLAB-based particle swarm optimization (PSO) technique. The deployed algorithm can be extended to include more elements and deploy different radiating elements.

This paper presents the structure of an unequal power division system to achieve a low sidelobe level and applies the power division system with monopulse comparator and two types of Vivaldi and patch antenna elements to obtain an antenna array for monopulse tracking application. The resulting SLL of radiation pattern of an array antenna using a Taylor divider ratio unequal power divider system (SLL= -25dB, n=6) with a Vivaldi antenna element at the center frequency is: -24.1 dB (E plane), -21 dB (H plane), and with patch antenna element is: -22 dB (E plane), -24.4 dB (H plane).

This presentation shows the strengths of microwave technologies in atmospheric research. It will illustrate its applications in a wide field, including ground-based monitoring of Earth atmospheric molecules, research of planetary and cometary atmospheres using Earth-based and space borne telescopes and complex microwave instruments on satellites flying deep into the solar system to investigate its planets and comets.

Radar Micro-Doppler signatures are used for detection and classification of drones. The movement mechanism of drones affects their micro-doppler signatures. When the impact of the mechanical control information is not included in the classifier, the accuracy of the classifier would decrease. In this study, a full-wave EM CAD software is utilized to model the mechanical-control data for a hexacopter and a quadcopter UAVs. Notably, it is discovered that the mechanical control information has a significant influence on their micro-doppler signatures. The two drones are then classified using a Mechanical Control-Based Machine Learning (MCML) method, which has an accuracy rate of over 90%.

This study presents the transmission of harvested energy data from ambient wind using smart turbine energy harvester (STEH) on a rooftop, and its cloud-based remote monitoring. Internet of things (IoT) devices connected to the STEH are made to serve as autonomous devices by which the energy harvester is observed, and monitored via cloud by means of transmit and receive devices connected through LoR while also obtaining supply from the STEH. The STEH is battery-less, and a micro-controller unit (MCU) ESP32 module, programmed to read the output of the power management unit (PMU) from the harvesting circuit of the STEH, while another MCU received the data via LORA transmission and relay it to the IoT analytics cloud platform ‘ThingSpeak'. The STEH network was setup in a city, and the results which are the values of the voltage and corresponding current from the harvester were recorded and observed with respect to the environmental wind using the cloud platform.

One of the main challenges in the development of millimetre (mm) and sub-mm astronomy is the capability to map large structures in the nearby Universe with a high spectral resolution and a fast observation speed. This is due to the difficulties in deploying a large pixel count heterodyne array while maintaining the quantum limited sensitivity of the receiver in the THz range, especially for operation beyond 1 THz where even the driest location on Earth would only have limited amount of high-quality time for observations. Hence, the preferred solution to this predicament is to deploy a high-altitude balloon/flight mission, or a space satellite mission. In the latter case where the space satellites generally have a shorter lifetime compared to the balloon and flight mission, it is therefore even more important to fully maximise the scientific output by incorporating a high-pixel count heterodyne receiver.

In this talk, we will summarise and present our latest research works on developing the various generic technologies in an attempt to find the innovative solutions for constructing such focal plane array, based on the Superconductor-Insulator-Superconductor (SIS) mixer technology. This includes the use of the planar superconducting circuit technology to replace the commonly used bulky waveguides, therefore simplifying the radio frequency (RF) operation and minimising the size of the array. We will also describe the design of a novel easy-to-machine feed horn technology which enables deployment of large arrays with minimal cost. This technology has been demonstrated successfully and has since been used in various existing and up-coming telescope. We shall demonstrate these capabilities by presenting the design and built of a small pixel-count array near 220 GHz range, combining the two polarisation chains required within a single mixer block. We will also explore a potential method to distribute the local oscillator (LO) signal needed for the mixer operation on chip, further simplifying the construction of an array. Finally, we will briefly describe our recent works on the superconducting parametric amplifier technology, which could potentially achieve quantum limited noise amplification with negligible heat dissipation, replacing the use of conventional semiconductor-based low noise amplifiers (LNAs) such as HEMTs. This is particularly important for application that require a large number of LNAs or experiments that have limited cryogenic capacity such as airborne or space instruments.

We present here an overview of the latest technological developments for the next generation of (sub)millimeter-wave receivers, sources and radiometers dedicated to the atmospheric remote sensing ground-based instruments and space missions. As examples, a 183-664 GHz receiver front-end developed for Ice Cloud Imager instrument ESA/EUMETSAT MetOp-SG satellite will be presented. Applications of this technology for atmospheric characterization in the field of Satcom applications in ground-based instruments and Cubesat E-band receiver payloads will be also be discussed.

Future wireless networks are expected be more than allowing people, mobile devices, and objects to communicate with each other. The sixth generation (6G) of mobile networks are envisioned to include high data rate applications and ultra-massive, connected things. This also includes bio and nano-internet of things (IoT) tele-operated driving, unmanned mobility, haptic communications, unmanned aerial vehicles, and many more. Given the size of nano sensors, THz frequency is proposed to do various sensing activities at this scale. However, it will be ideal to use the same radio frequency for communications as well. Furthermore, THz is also proposed as an enabler of extremely high data rate applications in 6Gcommunications. The talk will be focused on Terahertz antenna design and new technology, which is referred to as Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RISs) which will be enabler for future 6G communication.

This paper proposes a novel methodology to synthesize a reconfigurable cosecant-squared /pencil beam antenna array for radar systems. The reconfigurability is achieved based on pseudo inverse synthesis. The antenna array can transform its radiation pattern from cosecant-squared to pencil beam and vice versa by changing solely the phases of only half of the array antenna elements. To validate the methodology, a 14-element antenna array is designed to form either a cosecant-squared or pencil beam radiation pattern utilizing the same feeding network. By changing the feeding phases of only 7 antenna elements, full reconfigurability is achieved. This efficient and simple remodelling technique makes the proposed methodology a good candidate to build a reconfigurable antenna array for radar systems.

A compact dual-band, dual polarized square microstrip antenna with circular polarization in one band and dual polarization in other has been proposed here overcoming the inherent narrow bandwidth shortcoming of microstrip antenna by incorporating shorting post and parasitic loading. The proposed antenna achieves 84% and 56% 10 dB Return Loss bandwidth at two resonating frequencies 6.17 GHz and 9.28 GHz respectively.

In this paper, a simple approach is presented toward switching the radiation beam of the Cylindrical Dielectric Resonator Antenna (CDRA) using helical wire in two directions for S-band applications. The antenna radiation pattern may be altered to focus energy in two specified directions by introducing helix while reducing gain in other undesirable directions without changing the antenna impedance bandwidth because of its structural symmetry. The investigation of the proposed beam switching CDRA is designed and simulated using electromagnetic simulation. The proposed antenna has an impedance bandwidth of 50.10% and a simulated bandwidth that ranges from 1.78 GHz to 2.97 GHz. The proposed antenna is capable to switch the beam in two directions at 2.4 GHz.

This paper introduces a new design of wideband planar antenna arrays based on space-filling curves with low Side-Lobe Level (SLL). The unique geometrical features of such arrays are exploited to provide wideband operation and to avoid grating lobes in the radiation pattern even when the minimum spacing between elements is increased to one-wavelength. Three antenna array configurations based on space-filling curve, namely heighway dragon, twindragon and Z_2heighway dragon arrays, are investigated and compared for various set of parameter regimes. Results reveal that the introduced array designs offer several highly desirable radiation pattern advantages over their conventional periodic planar array counterparts, including wideband operation, SLL reduction, and grating lobe elimination. This demonstrates the importance of the introduced array configuration as a promising design in modern wireless systems.

The physical concepts underlying the wave-matter interaction, particularly at millimeter-wave frequencies, are reviewed and discussed in this talk. Health hazard associated with electromagnetic wave exposures are then discussed. These can generally be categorized in ionizing and non-ionizing effects. Health impact of millimeter-wave exposures belong to the latter, and therefore can be either the direct increase in the body temperature or the indirect overloading of the biological processes responsible for the body thermal regulation. At wavelengths that are much larger than the atomic/molecular scale, a continuous spatial distribution of the electromagnetic wave is an adequate mathematical representation. The wave power density is described by the Poynting vector, and the power transfer from the wave to the biological substances can be calculated with high precision using the concept of constitutive parameters (conductivity, permittivity, and permeability). These are macroscopic spectral quantities (moving spatial averages), which cannot account for special treatment of specific molecular-scale structures similar to that of, e.g., DNA strand. Millimeter Waves and even Tera-Hertz Waves belong to this category. In addition, the Millimeter Waves suffer from very strong attenuation inside the human body, so that they cannot penetrate deeper than few millimeters.

Tunable non-reciprocal components with ferrites that can be integrated using a foundry suitable process are key to achieving low-power adaptive microwave circuits. The current state-of-the-art still relies on electrical tuning or resistive absorbers to facilitate unidirectional propagation. Here, we demonstrate a novel process for spin-coating thick films of ferrites without the complexities of vacuum processes or high-temperature annealing. Composites of yttrium iron garnet (YIG) nanoparticles in a matrix spin-on-glass are spin-coated on silicon substrates, and magnetic properties comparable to bulk YIG are obtained in films exceeding 30 microns. We also propose a design for tunable phase shifter based on periodically serrated coplanar waveguide with a YIG cladding. A non-reciprocal phase difference of 20 - 60 degrees is obtained over a tunable band of 550 MHz between 3.85 - 4.4 GHz from a tuning magnetic field of 8 - 40 kA/m.

A wideband septum-based orthomode transducer (OMT) is designed to characterize and measure dual circularly polarized 5G communication systems. The OMT is designed for the n260 (37 - 40 GHz) and n259 (39.5 - 43.5 GHz) bands. The OMT covers 20% fractional bandwidth (36 - 44 GHz) with a measured return loss and isolation better than 18 dB. The OMT achieves a simulated cross polarization discrimination (XPD) and axial ratio (AR) of 42.5 dB and 0.45 dB respectively. Good agreement between simulations and measurements is obtained.

In this paper, classical rat-race coupler based on coplanar stripline is presented. It was built using BiCMOS 55nm technology. Parametrical analysis targeting the position of additive compulsory dummies from the coplanar stripline is carried out. Two versions of the rat-race couplers are compared: without and with metallic dummies. Simulation results show that isolation and reflection coefficients are preserved under 20 dB. With dummies considered, insertion loss value is 4.2 dB at 118 GHz. With the addition of metallic dummies 2 GHz downshift in coupler performance is noticed. Maximum amplitude imbalance is 0.4 dB reported at 140 GHz. Phase imbalance difference between both cases doesn't exceed 3.1° for the whole bandwidth of interest. Between coupled and through ports 181.8° is the value of the phase difference.

Power combiner/divider plays a vital role in many microwave applications, particularly, in radar systems and power amplifiers. The rush order for many applications and modern technologies in radio frequency systems to be low-cost and more compact is enticing more awareness. In this paper, a new power divider/combiner is introduced as one device instead of using two devices by achieving equal return loss for input and outputs ports side by side with the insertion loss. The proposed design is developed by replacing the third half wavelength Transmission Line (TL) of the traditional Gysel Power Combiner/Divider (GPCD) by a microstrip Chebyshev bandpass filter with a center frequency of 1.5 GHz to widen the operating bandwidth. The robustness of the suggested design is elucidated by examining measurement and simulation results and comparing them with other state-of-the-art designs. The proposed GPCD design provides efficient operation in the L-band with equivalent fractional bandwidth of 69 % for all S-parameters. This demonstrates that the introduced GPCD design can be efficiently utilized in wideband and low-cost microwave applications.

A low-cost innovative MIMO antenna configuration with minimal separation between the radiating elements and high isolation over a wide frequency band is presented. Several precisely designed slots with various forms, locations, and sizes are etched on the radiating patches to improve inter-element isolation throughout the mm-wave band of 30-41 GHz impedance bandwidth. This achieved elements isolation better than 70 dB with an inter-element spacing of 0.2 mm (0.02λ at 30 GHz). The suggested self-isolation method is validated by designing a 1x2 MIMO array configuration. The innovative mm-wave antenna has the following characteristics over the desired bandwidth: high impedance bandwidth (30%) and low mutual coupling (70 dB). To the authors' knowledge, the present design is the first to demonstrate such broadband isolation enhancement in the mm-wave frequency range without any sophisticated decoupling structure such as metamaterial or frequency-selective surface.

the goal of our study is to design, fabricate, and verify a dual band 4-element MIMO antenna that can address both the WLAN and the WiMAX bands. The suggested antenna is made up of two radiating patches that work together to operate in the 5.8 GHz WLAN and 3.5/5.5 GHz WiMAX bands. The four element MIMO antenna with size of 64×64 mm2 is fabricated on a 1.6 mm in thickness FR-4 sheet with a dielectric constant of 4.4 and a loss tangent of 0.02. To boost the performance of the structure in respect to operating bandwidth; a parametric study was done based on FDTD technique resulting in an optimized dual band antenna. Moreover, a four element MIMO configuration separately 50Ω-fed is considered, and the prototype is fabricated and measured using VNA. Spatial diversity is introduced in the MIMO configuration resulting in good isolation without employing the known decoupling structures and techniques. The measurements reveal that the system operates on two desired bands with a coupling of less than -15 dB between the different elements. In addition, the MIMO metrics are analyzed and found to meet the practical standards of: ECC < 0.04, DG > 9.80, -12 dB < MEG < -3 dB, TARC < -10 dB, and CCL < 0.4 bits/s/Hz over the concerned bands.

A co-planar waveguide (CPW)-fed MIMO antenna design with compact resonators and suitable features is introduced for smartphone applications. Two rows of antennas are mounted on two different sides of the mainboard to arrange an 8×8 MIMO configuration. The antenna elements of the introduced MIMO design have been etched onto the same layer as the ground plane. The antenna element contains a T-ring CPW-fed resonator operating at the frequency range of 3.2-4.2 GHz of sub 6 GHz 5G cellular communications. The designed array occupies a relatively small area of the board. Its critical properties are studied in detail. Due to the arrangement of the CPW-fed resonators, the proposed design is able to operate as two sets of beam-steerable arrays with high-gain radiation. It has been determined that the optimal S-parameters, patterns, efficiency, and gain are all achievable with the planned MIMO array design and meet the needs of future 5G handheld smartphones.

A wide-scan broadband phased array with highly-miniaturized resonators is studied in this paper for 5G cellular networks. Simple and straightforward design procedures are followed. Eight modified dipole antenna resonators have been arranged linearly across the top of the smartphone substrate, which is made of RT5880. The suggested array design is exhibiting a broad impedance bandwidth from 25 to 36 GHz (more than 10 GHz) supporting several candidate bands of 5G spectrum such as 26, 28, 32, and 36 GHz. In addition to its wide operation band and high efficiency, the introduced array offers several promising features such as highly miniaturized profile, well-defined end-fire radiation, wide beam steering capability, as well as sufficient efficiency and gain levels

This work presents a new modality for human body imaging using low-frequency electromagnetic radiation and Radon Transforms. While the physics of electromagnetic energy transmission through human tissues is different from that of X-ray propagation in the same tissues, strong analogies exist between the two phenomena when the object to be imaged has dimensions significantly shorter than the wavelength. We demonstrate the validity of this modality using a simple but highly instructive numerical experiment involving an axially asymmetric body.

This study suggests a dual band flexible antenna for use at 900 and 2450 MHz. With a footprint of 0.23 o, 0.120 o, and 0.0007 o, where o is the lowest resonance wavelength, the antenna is relatively tiny. The antenna is built from a straightforward geometrical structure consisting of a W-shaped serpentine structure supplied by a microstrip line and a partial ground plane utilizing the Defected Ground Structure (DGS) technology in order to achieve wide operational bandwidth. In order to boost resonance, an additional capacitor was inserted between the slots, creating a portable dual-band antenna. Several performance metrics' findings and the ones that had been measured were compared. The antenna's potential for rigid and flexible electronics is increased by its good size, bandwidth, gain, and radiation pattern.

With the increased concern over contact-transmitted diseases and the rapid growth in the field of telemedicine, it is critical to develop remote diagnostic systems to meet these needs. In this paper, multiple methods of remote vital sign estimation are explored and combined to form a multi-functional remote health monitoring system. Camera-based systems are utilized to estimate patient heart rate, blood pressure, SpO2, and temperature under the assumption of adequate lighting. Similarly, radar-based systems are used as a more robust method to estimate patient heart and respiration rate. These two methods are used simultaneously to capture all of the major vital signs of human subjects. Results show the proposed system can perform with high accuracy in each of its functionalities.

The opportunistic use of ambient radio-frequency (RF) signals for e-healthcare, smart living, security, and IoT applications has been attracting significant attention over the last years. Researchers and engineers have already proposed various approaches to integrate wireless communication with remote sensing by passively collecting Wi-Fi 2.4-GHz frequency band signals in indoor environments. Most of the existing passive sensing methods demand complex digital signal processing algorithms and/or adaptations to existent radio topology. In this paper, a passive microwave topology based on simultaneous injection-locking and injection-pulling of a RF oscillator for indoor passive sensing applications is presented. The direct-path signals from a source of RF waves and the signals that are phase-modulated by the target's motion are captured, combined, and fed into the injection-locking port of an oscillator. Due to the highly selective injection-locking for the stronger direct-path signal, and the injection-pulling behavior for the weaker scattered signal, the phase shifts of the electromagnetic waves that bounce off a moving target can be recovered. Experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed technique for microwave passive vital signs monitoring.

Egypt has made great strides in its Digital Transformation journey where ICT has become a salient feature and one of the key building blocks for development. Under its ICT 2030 strategy, the Egyptian government is undertaking a series of investments, capacity building and training programs, digital government services reforms, and infrastructure upgrades. The strategy calls for launching new initiatives to maximize the contribution of the ICT sector to Egypt's economic growth by focusing on capacity building, electronics design and manufacturing, and technology parks.

ICT skilled workforce is the corner stone for the growth and flourishing of the ICT sector in Egypt. While focusing on developing skills for the workforce is a necessity, it is not enough to address the needs of today's workforce and market environment. The pace of change is too rapid, quickly making even typical reskilling efforts obsolete. What is needed is a workforce development approach centered on personalized learning, leadership, experiences, and growth in the flow of life that considers both the dynamic nature of jobs and the equally dynamic potential of people to reinvent themselves. In this session we will shed the lights on a number of initiatives that address the skills gap for the ICT sector and demonstrate the effectiveness of these initiatives on the labor market.

The industry revolution that is currently happening worldwide along with its orientation toward the digital era; where the technology is at the tip of the finger mandates highly skilled personnel that can adopt with this vast moving pace. To do so, educational entities cannot remain without change since they are considered the seeds and basis for those highly skilled required personnel. In the present education system, a clear gap exists between what is being taught to the students and what is expected by the industry. The two sectors often have different goals and ways of operating. In industry, the focus is on commercialization and profitability, while in academia, the focus is on research and knowledge production. In this presentation, the reasons that caused this gap will be analyzed and discussed. The local efforts distributed on several pillars to reduce this gap in Egypt will also be introduced and explained and some of the outcome of these efforts will be finally demonstrated.

Graduate unemployment is a major challenge for higher education institutions in many countries, particularly in Africa. There is an increasing need to reform higher education curricula to keep them in line with the needs of the labor market and the expectations of companies, which are constantly changing. Thus, strong partnerships are being built between higher education institutions and industry, to bridge the gap between academia and business.

In this Talk, a brief introduction of the Higher School of Communication of Tunis (SUP'COM) will be presented followed by a summary of my professional and research activities. The last part of this talk will be dedicated to the actions that SUP'COM has undertaken with companies to increase the employability of its graduates, leading to a win-win partnership.

There is an increasing demand for a low cost and a low weight antenna array for different communication applications. In this work, a comparison between H and E plane-network antenna array structures is introduced. In addition to comparing between horn antennas and sub-arrays as aperture elements for both feeding networks. A novel E-plane-network antenna array has been developed to operate at 13.5 GHz and fabricated using 3D-printing in 3 different methods to demonstrate the advantages and challenges of each method. It exhibits 18% fractional bandwidth with 20.5 dBi gain and around 92% efficiency at the operating frequency.

A highly linear 8-bit current-steering digital-to-analog converter (CSDAC) for wireless applications is designed. The DAC is the main core for the direct transmitter that is widely used nowadays. The DAC is segmented to the thermometer and binary sub-DACs as an optimization between its size and linearity. The DAC achieves a simulated 3 σ Max. Differential non-linearity (DNL) = + 0.083 / - 0.084 LSB least significant bit and Max. Integral non-linearity (INL) = + 0.2 / - 0.183 LSB across the 3 σ Monte Carlo simulation. In addition the spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) that represents the CSDAC linearity is ranged from 65.7 dB at 11 MHz signal frequency to 54 dB at 1.770 GHz with an effective number of bits (ENOB) equals 7.97 bits at a low frequency while degraded across the input frequency to reach 7.67 bits at 1.77 GHz.

"A compact solution for the design, and analysis of the Active Integrated Antenna Array (AIAA) to improve its performance under high mutual coupling, and mismatch losses. The block diagram summarizing the design process. The process utilizes two computer-aided design (CAD) packages, one for EM simulations (CST) and microwave circuit simulations (ADS)."

"The project aim to implement wearable microwave imaging systems for breast cancer detection and monitoring using textile-based antenna , then using machine learning techniques to create a dataset of features to train Support Vector Machine (SVM) in order to real time detect malignant tumors."

This work mainly focuses on how to control the wave propagation speed through a dielectric loaded helix for technological applications. Controlling the group velocity of waves in the medium can help with this. In order to do this, we take into account the waves in a sheath helix loaded guide and create the eigenvalue equation by using appropriate boundary conditions. The investigation conclusion shows that the structural model will support fast waves that could be precisely controlled. It has been established that the guide supports the mode degeneracy property, which mostly depends on the guiding section's dimension and operating frequency range. In this context, the helix structure's pitch angle also has a significant impact.

The In-Band Full Duplex (IBFD) uses both receiver and transmitter at same band and time, providing double spectral efficiency, double throughput, and less conjunction. Its limitation is Self-interference (SI) from Transmitter leakage in receiver that degrades the S/N. ▪ Single antenna configuration provides more compact implementation with much smaller size but, at cost of more transmitter/receiver leakage.

This work presents a systematic design methodology of linearity enhancement of two in phase parallel RFPA at optimum efficiency point Based on the IM3 phase variation voltage changes Vs. input power and gate bias.

This work proposes a four-pole wideband bandpass filter using a single metallic cylindrical cavity. The filter employs quadruple-mode resonator by using simple symmetric pair of perturbation and 2 symmetric feeding lines are deployed to implement a quadruple mode resonator. Both, the pairs of perturbation and extended feeding line, work together with the mode to constitute a four-pole wide passband with a fractional bandwidth of 46% at the central frequency of 3.9 GHz. The simple symmetric proposed bandpass filter is fabricated from Aluminum 6061 using CNC machining technology. Measured S-parameter frequency response have satisfactorily matched with the simulated results.

This poster presents a mm-Wave Voltage-Controlled Oscillator (VCO) aimed at minimizing flicker (1/f 3 ) phase noise (PN) by suppressing 1/f noise upconversion using Impulse Sensitivity Function (ISF) manipulation technique via drain current shaping. In addition, the proposed design adopts multiple solutions to preserve excellent thermal (1/f 2 ) PN levels while guaranteeing an ultra-low power consumption operation. The proposed VCO incorporates an optimally designed NMOS-based digitally-controlled varactor bank to mitigate the traditional capacitor banks low quality factor at mmW frequencies. Designed and simulated in a standard 65 nm RF CMOS technology, the VCO exhibits an ultra-low 1/f

3PN of -52 dBc/Hz at

1kHz offset with an outstanding 100 Hz 1/f

3PN corner frequency,

which is notably the lowest 1/f

3 PN corner ever reported for a CMOS VCO. The VCO exhibits a tunability from 20 GHz to 21.44 GHz while consuming a total current of 0.98 mA at maximum from a 1 V power supply. Simulated PN results showed low 1/f

2 PN levels of -112.4 dBc/Hz and -132.4 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz and 10 MHz frequency offsets respectively. Consequently, the designed VCO achieves a superior state-of-the-art FoM of 199.1 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset, which is remarkably one of the best

This poster presents a wideband Low- profile cavity backed antenna (CBA) based

on substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) with Fractal patch for X-band applications. The proposed antenna has been designed using Roger RT duroid-5880 substate having dielectric constant of 2.2. The proposed antenna has been designed and simulated using CST Microwave Studio. The proposed

antenna covers the whole X-band (8 GHz- 12 GHz) frequency band making it suitable

to be employed for satellite communication applications. Apart, the proposed antenna finds its applications in indoor location and RFID tag (tracking equipment) applications.

Educational systems in Egypt face a shortage in the number of teachers as there is an annual increment in the number of students who are enrolled in the public schools. Therefore, a voluntary teaching is proposed to assist the hierarchy of educational objectives and to compensate for this shortage. With the help of technologies such as QR code scanner, Bluetooth, Wifi, RFID, and Computer Vision, a technological system that guarantees a high quality and high performance of monitoring teaching activities. Nevertheless, an implementation of a mobile application guides the volunteer, the student and the school administrators to monitor and access the course content easily along with a rewarding system that credits the volunteers for their effort.

"This work presents a compact size wideband power amplifier based on input/output high- order matching networks. The design methodology of these matching networks is to absorb the transistor parasitic and package elements to achieve wider frequency operation."

"Nano antennas require the implementation of graphene that can sustain terahertz frequencies. However, graphene is naturally an inert and hydrophobic substance that limits its ability to be applied onto other substances. Graphene must undergo functionalization to allow bonding with a wider range of materials. Functionalization can done with a surfactant. Non-Covalent to preserve electronic properties. Sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) or sodium cholate SC is promising choice for future applications."

"Localization is considered a crucial information that must be obtained accurately to achieve many goals and tasks in different fields as in robotics and industrial fields to then be able to easily control robots or automate factories or build maps. In this project, the object of interest to localize is a solar panel cleaner that moves only in the x-direction and this is done by using a ThinkMagic M6e embedded UHF RFID reader module, and passive tags. multiple antennas were tested. The near field antenna have achieved an accuracy of 90% with distance 12 cm deviation. The accuracy of the RFID technology has exceeded and proven to be better than other famous traditional localization systems making it the most preferable system for this project."

"Nowadays, different autonomous mobile robots, such as automated guided vehicles have been developed and improved, because of their crucial role in many aspects like agricultural and industrial fields [3]. However, they need power to operate, and it should be transmitted efficiently. Magnetic Resonant Coupling is used because it is proven to transfer power up to few meters with great efficiency. our approach is to use double-layer coil and an intermediate coil to further increase the transfer distance while maintaining high power efficiency transfer to the robot.

"The demand for better-performing filtering components has been rapidly increasing ever since wireless communication systems became the de facto standard in the global communications and information scene. Such high demand for better, more efficient filters saw the proliferation of cavity filters in recent years, due to their low-loss nature and high power-handling capability. One of the challenges that face filter designers is to achieve higher-order filters, capable of working in different resonance frequencies and this is the goal of this work. CST software is used to implement the design of the filter and by using its ability to sweep on the parameters, the best dimensions for the designed filter are chosen."

"Design and fabrication of a smartwatch with heart rate, GPS tracking and emergency alert capabilities using Arduino IoT and WIFI ESP8266-12-E module. We aim for it to be reliable and help people monitor their health."

Terahertz applications in wireless communications promises high improvement in network performance, for instance by enabling throughput per device up to terabits per second. This requires the design of THz components with frequencies ranging from 300 GHz, but to what extent can we push frequencies higher

The FSO or laser communication system meets the criteria to address the demand for increased bandwidth required in present operations. Hence, it is necessary to understand the network performance of this system and the guideline parameters that affect its functionality. In this poster, we perform an example of analysis for the proposed serial and cooperative relays for downlink and serial uplink optical satellite communication using different techniques such as relay, aperture averaging, and diversity to mitigate channel turbulence. The results are compared with those of the direct link using analysis and simulation methods using log-normal, gammagamma, and exponential Weibull (EW) distribution channel turbulence. The results reveal a significant improvement in the proposed system's performance over the traditional direct link at different system parameters, up to 99%.

In this paper, we introduced a new real frequency line segment technique (RF-LST) to assess the gain bandwidth limitation of double matching problems. The new method possesses all the outstanding features of the classical RF-LST, and it is the only practical tool available in the current literature to assess the gain-bandwidth limitations of double matching problems numerically. An example is presented to show the application of the newly proposed method. It is expected that the newly proposed RF-LST technique will be useful to assess the power and efficiency performance of interstage matching networks in designing single or multistage microwave amplifiers and communication systems such as transmitters, receivers phase array antenna systems, Electronic Warfare systems etc.

While millimeter-wave technology provides the advantages of footprint reduction and enhanced range resolution for radar systems, output power tends to decrease with frequency. Furthermore, the assembly of these components can pose several challenges due to the enhanced losses and parasitics introduced at higher frequencies. In this study, an amplification module consisting of commercial components is designed and integrated with a commercial FMCW W-Band radar system to increase the maximum detectable range. The amplification module consists of power amplifier dies which are assembled for low insertion loss, and power supplies for the power amplifiers. The expected range improvement for the radar is estimated by considering the insertion loss of the GCPW transmission and ribbon bond interconnect which are obtained from electromagnetic simulation. The amplification module is expected to double the range of the original radar.

This paper describes the design and fabrication of a 1500 watts multi-stage L-band RF solid-state power amplifier (SSPA). The basic approach is to use 50-volt Gallium Nitride High Electron Mobility Transistors (GaN-HEMT) for all the stages to ease the requirements for DC power supply, and a step towards the integration into a single chip. So, the main structure of the proposed power amplifying chain is to use 2-parallel connected 800-watt PAs to provide the required output level preceded with a multi-stage cascaded drivers to provide the required gain and the power level required by the output stage. A 5-watt amplifier plays the role of a pre-amplifier stage, followed by a 30-watt PA, and finally, a 100-watt PA was employed to generate the necessary power level required to deliver the power stage. The implemented solid state power amplifier chain achieves 1.5 KW total output power, 57 dB power gain associated with total power added efficiency (PAE) of more than 50% when derived with a pulsed input signal with a duty cycle of 5% and pulse duration of 100 μsec.

In this paper, a 150 nm GaN on Si technology design-based Ka-band monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) low noise amplifier (LNA) for 5G front-end wireless systems is presented. The LNA is created using a multi-stage noise matching approach realized with a topology of series inductive degeneration common source. Using this method, active devices may retain high flat gain while achieving a low noise figure (NF) throughout a larger frequency spectrum. The LNA has a typical small-signal gain of over 8 dB, according to the post-layout simulation, while a noise figure performance of less than 2.8 dB was achieved over a bandwidth from 22 to 30 GHz. The proposed LNA linearity characterization indicates that the output 1-dB compression and third-order intercept point (OIP3) of 22 dBm and 27 dBm were obtained, respectively. The Ka-band MMIC LNA die has a full size of 850x1700 m2 including the pads

This paper presents an inductor-less CMOS current-reuse common-source ultrawideband amplifier, operating in the 1-9GHz range. The LNA uses resistive-feedback for wideband input matching thus forming a self-biased inverter-based amplifier; however, a novel buffering scheme is used in conjunction with the amplifier to avoid loading from the resistive-feedback. The LNA was designed using the tsmc 65nm process and it achieves (S11) of better than -11dB across the entire bandwidth, S21 of 13.2dB, minimum noise-figure (NFmin) of 1.9dB while consuming only 4.3mW under 1V supply.

Planar surface wave excitation provides two-dimensional wireless communication when compared to traditional wired and space communication systems. In this paper, a novel design of wide-band, low-profile quasi-rectangular aperture with compact CPW surface wave launcher is developed. The proposed design provides a slotted Co-planar wave guide fed by 50 Ω coaxial cable through quasi-rectangular wave guide to excite a surface wave on high reactive surface impedance. When compare to surface wave launchers approached, the proposed design has ability to excite high efficiency surface wave travel along a reactive platform. The surface wave launcher is designed for millimeters-wave and 5G communication systems with frequency band between 22 GHz to 30 GHz. It provides a high band width between 22 GHz to 30 GHz with return loss lower -10 dB.

This paper presents a new configuration of a printed helical circular polarization antenna with a rectangular cross-section to emit an end-fire beam. The antenna is designed for anti-attacking systems that work against attackers guided by global navigation satellite systems. It has the ability to handle a peak power up to 696.3 kW. The antenna achieves a wide impedance bandwidth and 3-dB axial ratio bandwidth range from 1.13 GHz to 1.7 GHz covering the whole global navigation satellite systems frequency band. The antenna has a stable gain of 6.4 dBi across the whole frequency band. It has a low profile of 0.16λ0. The antenna small size, low cost, simple structure, high power handling capabilities and good performance make it suitable for anti-attacking systems.

An antenna system based on a wideband printed monopole is proposed for the estimation of electromagnetic field radiation in the frequency range 0.7-3.5 GHz. Such system is envisaged to be integrated into protective vests worn by professional users in their working space environment as part of an intelligent multi-risk protection. Four dual-linearly polarized monopoles are integrated into the coat (chest, back, left and right shoulders) and an extra one in the helmet. Numerical simulation results, for the antenna system integrated into a simplified phantom model of the human torso and head indicate that the proposed solution can provide the required electromagnetic field evaluation.

In this work, a wearable off-body antenna with very-low profile dimensions of 0.21λ0 × 0.27λ0 × 0.007λ0, operating at 5.8 GHz, is proposed. This antenna is capable of working in both free space and on -body. Thus, it has been characterized and fabricated for both scenarios. The on-body gain, efficiency, and bandwidth of the antenna are 4.4 dBi, 13.2%, and 42%, respectively, which shows a better performance than its counterparts. Being low-profile, small, robust, easy-to-fabricate, efficient, fairly wideband, and low-cost, this antenna can be used in biomedical sensing applications. Also, owing to its unidirectional radiation pattern, this antenna can be used in off-body WBAN communication systems.

This work presents a compact circularly polarized (CP) implantable antenna operating at 2.45 GHz industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) Band. The antenna is etched on a top layer of high dielectric substrate Rogers RT/duroid 6010 and it is featured with very good miniaturization with an overall dimensions of 7 × 7 × 0.5 mm3(0.057λ0×0.057λ0×0.004λ0). To mimic the human body environment, the antenna was studied in a numerical three-layer phantom with an implant depth of 14 mm. The simulated results show that the antenna has a good performance; an impedance bandwidth of 140 MHz (5.66%), an axial ratio (AR) bandwidth of 590 MHz (23%) and a peak gain of -26.25 dB were obtained, respectively. Furthermore, for health safety considerations, the specific absorption rate (SAR) was also investigated. All these features make the introduced antenna a promising candidate for implantable health care applications.

Advancement in nanotechnology has made it possible to manufacture sensors, circuits and devices measuring only nano-meters in size. This development is creating an extraordinary opportunity to observe, interact, and optimize physical systems from the very bottom. Wireless communication and networking at nanoscale, however, faces new challenges not encountered in conventional sensor networks. For example, nanoscale antenna calls for wireless communication in the Terahertz band, which encounters new path loss d noise phenomena posing significant challenges for many target applications of such networking. Nanoscale computing and communication is a new and rapidly growing field of research promoting collaboration between wireless networking, nanotechnology, and other fundamental disciplines. However, the research is in its early stages to realize communication and networking at the nanoscale. Currently, there is no definitive standard that provides guidelines and regulation for nanoscale communication and networking. This motivates this proposal to shed light on and promote this area of research and foster.

In this presentation, I will give an overview of the science and engineering capacity development activities at the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). I will particularly focus on programs that foster partnerships between U.S. researchers and their counterparts in Africa and the Arab region. For example, NASEM developed the very successful Arab-American Frontiers of Science, Engineering, and Medicine program over the past decade which resulted in joint collaborations, research grants and fellowships. Using the same model, my unit recently launched a similar Frontiers program on the African continent. Through the presentation, I will also highlight NASEM programs that promote the participation of women in STEM and science policy.

Affordable and high performance front end modules (FEMs) have been identified as key research challenges for millimeter wave communications. While the design of active components and sub-systems has been explored by many research groups, there is still a need to provide integration and packaging strategies that can meet system requirements and not inhibit the performance obtained at the wafer level. Antenna in package (AiP) is a key technique enabling the realization of future millimeter wave FEMs.

This presentation highlights the design, modeling, and characterization of planar antennas integrated into enhanced quad flat no-lead (eQFN) packages in WR8 (90GHz-140GHz) and WR5 (140GHz-220GHz) frequency bands. Further, the design, modeling, and simulation results of chip-to-package transitions, transmission line structures, and antenna feed elements are provided. The simulated bandwidth and gain of the integrated antennas is compared with their standalone versions. A description of the designed test vehicles and measurement methodology for antenna bandwidth, and radiation pattern characterization in the WR5 frequency band is also presented. To facilitate accurate design of the antennas and packaging transitions, high frequency material characterization is needed. This work will include results on the dielectric properties of the packaging substrates and overmold materials utilized in the frequency ranges mentioned. Dr. Henderson will also highlight her career journey and transition from industry to academia. She will share how volunteering activities in IEEE MTT-S have been an asset in her academic roles and advancement.

Managing power consumption and providing effective integration strategies for heterogenous integrated systems are two of the most important, yet challenging aspects of building high performance complex integrated systems operating in 5G and 6G regimes where available power diminishes. This talk will highlight enabling technologies we have been developing to enhance integrated systems performance in the microwave to sub-mm-wave frequency regime. In wired integrated systems, vertical via integration methods of copper interconnects, commonly used in silicon CMOS integrated circuits, are developed using nanowire technology to enhance performance of designs operating up to 180 GHz. In wireless systems, chip to chip communication is studied and solutions are developed to reduce losses associated with printed interconnects and vias using novel wireless approaches. Our methods use meta-material free space Fabry Perot antennas to provide high gain and high directive chip to chip coupling, power division, beam splitting, and polarization shifting from a single antenna with uniquely designed metamaterial lenses. Our approaches provide important enabling solutions to reduce power consumption while facilitating effective complex integration of heterogenous system designs that operate into the sub-THz regime.

Antennas play a crucial role in modern wireless communication, enabling the transmission and reception of electromagnetic signals over a wide range of frequencies. In recent years, there has been a significant increase in demand for antennas that can support higher data rates and longer ranges, as well as those that can operate in challenging environments such as urban areas and inside buildings. To meet these challenges, researchers have been developing new types of antennas that leverage advances in materials science, metamaterials, and computational techniques. These include ultra-wideband antennas, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antennas, beamforming antennas, and adaptive antennas, among others. Additionally, there has been a growing interest in the use of small, low-profile antennas, particularly for mobile and wearable devices, as well as in the integration of antennas and other wireless components into a single device. Overall, the field of antennas for modern wireless communication is rapidly evolving, with new technologies and design approaches emerging to enable more efficient and effective wireless communication. In this talk, the design, simulation and implementation of various antenna types will be presented in details. This include: coplanar-fed patch antennas, slotted MIMO antennas, compact antennas with defected ground structure .. etc. The aim was to design compact light weight patch antennas with reflection and radiation characteristics that meet the market requirements and overcome the existed challenges and limitations. Most of the designed antennas were fabricated using PCB technology and their performance (such as S-parameters and radiation pattern) was tested in the anechoic chambers and compared with that obtained by simulations. The results have shown excellent agreement between simulated and measured results and have shown the great feasibility of the designed antennas for modern wireless communication systems.

With enormous academic works and findings on ‘Energy Harvesting Mechanisms' that enable the use of naturally replenishing energy sources from the immediate environment, to support smart city realization, there is need for all-embracing rapid transfer of knowledge from research activities to adaptable conventions that are practicable, and with participatory roles by the industries. Smart city is any municipality that is concerned with modernisation by using information and modern communication technologies to acquire, process, and disseminate information; manage resources and services efficiently; and improve the standard of living of the people. Several means have been explored to provide energy needed to sustain smart city implementation; some of which are considered harmful, and many practices that promote modernisation and industrialisation are often times disruptive to the ecological system. This has made many governments around the World to issue different legislations that drive consumption of green energy to enhance ecological sustainability. Meanwhile, energy harvesting schemes answer most of smart city energy challenges. In this talk, the need for application-specific green-energy harvesting in this modern time is emphasized, and the concern here is to make the subject more practicable; with more involvement of various stakeholders. Interests need be developed in the design of simple harvesting circuits for electrical energy converters; load configurations; and storage systems, from ambient sources such as wind, water, heat, sunlight, wastes, etc. This is important for various needs of homes, small groups, and the society. Increased mobilisation for green and sustainable smart city integration is an all-important task for both the academia and industry to embark upon. There is need for synergy between them; for training and re-training of the public, in the form of short courses and internships that are carried out at the Universities and research centres from time to time; which are to be funded by energy industries and governments. To this end, they will be able to continually solve real-world challenges of smart city development and sustenance.

This work proposes a four-pole wideband bandpass filter using a single metallic cylindrical cavity. The filter employs quadruple-mode resonator by using simple symmetric pair of perturbation and 2 symmetric feeding lines are deployed to implement a quadruple mode resonator. Both, the pairs of perturbation and extended feeding line, work together with the mode to constitute a four-pole wide passband with a fractional bandwidth of 46% at the central frequency of 3.9 GHz. To prove the validity, The simple symmetric proposed bandpass filter is fabricated from Aluminum 7075 using CNC machining technology. Measured S-parameter frequency response have satisfactorily matched with the simulated results.

In this work, a dual band rectenna system is presented for radio frequency energy harvesting. A broadband high gain Yagi-Uda antenna operating at GSM 1800 and 2100 is designed for scavenging radio frequency radiations. The antenna's return loss is below -10 dB over a fractional bandwidth of 28.6% extending from 1.65 till 2.2 GHz. The antenna has a gain of 3.8 dBi and 5.7 dBi at 1.8 and 2.1 GHz respectively. A half wave rectifier using single shunt diode and a matching network using radial stubs were designed and integrated with the proposed antenna forming the rectenna. The proposed rectenna system achieved an output voltage of approximately 0.23V at 1.8 and 2.1 GHz, and an overall efficiency of 28% for an input power of -10dBm, which makes it suitable for powering wireless sensor nodes.

Technology integration has enabled value-added services and quality-of-life enhancement in almost all aspects of modern life. In this paper, we present a UAV and low-cost Bluetooth low energy (BLE) tags-based location search system which enables a cart take-home service for shoppers of a supermarket in a model smart colony. The presented system has quality-of-life enhancement as well as carbon footprint reduction effects and can be integrated with the existing security and/or transport system of the model smart colony. Conducted field trials on location accuracy of the system are also presented, showing that carts left by residents outside the home can be located within 6.58m and carts taken inside homes or buildings can be located within 16.43m.

A segmented 8-bit 3.54 GS/s current-steering digital-to-analog converter (CSDAC) designed and simulated in 130 nm CMOS technology. The spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) that represents the CSDAC linearity is ranged from 65.7 dB at 11 MHz signal frequency to 54 dB at 1.770 GHz with an effective number of bits (ENOB) equals to 7.97 bit at low frequency while degraded across the input frequency to reache 7.67 bit at 1.77 GHz.

This paper presents an ultra-low phase noise and low-power CMOS LC VCO intended for 5G applications. The proposed design adopts a class-B voltage-biased topology besides incorporating high Q common mode harmonic resonance for ultra-low phase noise performance. Moreover, the design exploits the inherent current reuse mechanism of the complementary cross coupled configuration to attain a low-power consumption level. Furthermore, targeting a sufficient wide tuning range for wideband operation, the designed VCO incorporates both continuous tuning using a low k vco controllable varactor and discrete capacitive tuning through a proposed optimal NMOS-based digitally controlled varactor bank. Designed and simulated in a standard 65 nm RF CMOS technology, the proposed VCO achieves a 16% wide tuning range from 9.2 GHz to 10.8 GHz while consuming a total current of 2.5 mA from a 1 V power supply. Simulated phase noise results showed ultra-low phase noise levels of -125 dBc/Hz and -145 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz and 10 MHz frequency offsets respectively. In addition, the design successfully achieves an outstanding ultra-low simulated flicker (1/f 3 ) PN of -57.1 dBc/Hz at 1kHz with a 70 KHz corner frequency. Accordingly, the designed VCO achieves a superior state-of-the-art FoM of -201.6 dBc/Hz and a corresponding -205.7 dBc/Hz FoMT at 1 MHz offsets, which are remarkably the best simulated VCO FoMs of the recent published 10 GHz VCOs.

A very simple and compact metal-mountable structure is proposed as a tag antenna in UHF RFID systems. Two shorting vias are adopted to connect the ground plane and to reduce the tag size. Some folded meander strips are introduced to further miniaturize the tag size, achieving a compact tag antenna size of 10×30×1.5 mm3. The input impedance of this tag antenna can be easily matched to the complex conjugate of a chip's impedance by using a double T-match network. The measured maximum read distance can reach 4.5 m at the resonant frequency of 912 MHz.

Infants, the elderly, people with disabilities, and patients in hospitals are among those who use disposable diapers. Event-based alerting regarding the wetness level of diapers can improve care for this population by improving incontinence management, decreasing the risk of getting cold, rashes, and infections. Therefore, this paper presents an inkjet printed ultra-high frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) sensor for wetness detection of diapers. The proposed sensor design consists of an L-shaped radiator, a T-shaped loop, and two small stubs. The loop is connected to Impinj R6 RFID chip and joined at the middle of L-shaped radiator. This sensor design covers a bandwidth ranging from 900 - 935 MHz along with a read range of 2.5 m. The tag antenna is optimized to work on water filled slab with a low conductivity value (0.05). However, the realized gain of this sensor reduced drastically after increasing conductivity. An experiment is conducted to record the difference between received signal strength indicator (RSSI) of the empty, water and urine-filled diaper. So, the proposed sensor can be useful for sensing the wetness level of both adult and baby diapers.

We propose an efficient high gain millimeter-wave planar antenna array. The packaging of the antenna array feeding structure is eliminated by aggregating the feeding network in between the antenna elements, which has a significant advantage in maintaining neat and symmetric radiation characteristics with low cross polarization level. The proposed antenna array is extremely low in cost and can be used as either a linearly or circularly polarized antenna array. The antenna array has a realized gain of 20 dBi in both scenarios. The matching bandwidth is 4.1% and the 3-dB axial ratio bandwidth is 6%. The antenna array only uses a single substrate layer with no need for any vias. To switch to circular polarization operation, a 3D printed dielectric polarizer is used. The proposed antenna array suits well various applications at 24 GHz, while maintaining high performance metrics, and extremely low cost. The antenna array can be easily integrated with transceivers due to the use of printed microstrip line technology.

A dual-port fed Bessel beam launcher designed for 10 GHz microwave wireless power transfer is proposed in this article. The annular slot rings placed on the top plane is excited with a two-port coaxial probe fed circular loop placed in the middle layer. The feed circular loop is designed such that the structure exhibits a parallel combiner feature at the design frequency. The proposed structure is designed and simulated in the full wave numerical solver of ANSYS HFSS. The obtained results indicate a Bessel beam generation within a non-diffracting range of 6λ and parallel combiner nature at 10 GHz.

For a variety of wireless applications, a new small multiband uniplanar CPW-fed antenna design is examined. A rectangular slot, three parallel strips, a T-shaped slot, L Stub tuning and an inverted slot in the ground plane constitute the 25x25mm2 proposed antenna. The CST microwave Studio was implemented to optimize the antenna settings, and to verify the CST results, we conducted a second simulator using Agilent Technologies' Advanced Design System. With a return loss of less than -10dB, the final prototype antenna operates over the three frequency bands: (0.75GHz-1GHz), (2.4GHz-2.48GHz) and (5.(GHz-6GHz).

This paper presents our study on a circularly polarized (CP) beam steering quadrifilar helix antenna (QHA) for the applications of wireless communication, satellite navigation and wireless power transmission. The proposed antenna is composed of four helical wires with variable feeding phase differences, which is different from a conventional QHA. It is shown to realize one cardioid pattern towards the broadside, and four off-boresight tilted beams over a half space by controlling phases on the helix elements in simulation. A feeding network was developed to excite the broadside and tilted beam modes for proving the concept in experiment. The measured results of the broadside radiation mode are in good agreement with the simulated ones. The impedance bandwidth of the proposed antenna can cover 1.26-1.65 GHz with a 3-dB axial ratio bandwidth of 1.1-1.8 GHz. The gain in the whole working band is higher than 2.1 dBi. And over 70% radiation efficiency can be achieved.

We present an alternative version of the Rational Functional Method (RFM) which can explicitly retrieve the Debye parameters of the material under test (MUT) without any data fitting. A simulation of the open-ended coaxial probe with the MUT is performed to obtain the reflection coefficient from 0.5 to 6 GHz. A newton-based inversion method is used to reconstruct the Debye parameters of the MUT, and the complex dielectric property (CDP) variation on the measurement spectrum is calculated via these model parameters. The error rate for the reference materials formamide, methanol, and chlorobenzene is 2.7-8.6 %. The numerical results show that retrieving Debye parameters with the proposed inversion method is possible.

The olfactory ability of humanoid robots makes them more human, it gives them one of the five main senses. A scalable sensor prototype based on an optical phenomenon known as whispering gallery modes (WGMs) in polymeric resonators was designed for odorant detection. The olfactory sensor will act as an electronic nose (E-Nose) for the humanoid robots. The polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is the main material for the proposed sensor; once the odorant starts to propagates inside this polymeric material it will leads to a change in the sensors morphology then the detection for the odor will be captured based on the corresponding shift on the transmission spectrum for the wavelengths of the WGM. To increase the reliability and lifetime of the sensor, the polymeric cavity was created and sealed from the environment with a permeable PDMS membrane which only allows odor to reach the polymeric resonator. A study was conducted using PDMS membranes of different thicknesses to verify and study the sensor sensitivity. Also, a tracking algorithm based on signal cross-correlation was used for accurate WGM wavelength shift quantification which can also be programmed on a real-time platform for portability. This allows for easy utilization of the WGM as an olfactory prosthetic.

Deployed optical transport networks are predominantly closed, turn-key solutions that behave as a single-vendor managed domain. In these rigid one-size-fits-all solutions, the optical transport system components are tightly integrated to optimize the system performance and simplify operations. Despite the optimization and simplification advantages, a trend to disaggregate optical networks has steadily emerged. Network operators are increasingly interested in minimizing vendor lock-in, accelerating innovation, and selecting best-of-breed network devices that best support their specific needs. Disaggregation involves assembling open, multi-vendor network elements (such as Re-configurable Optical Add-Drop Multiplexers- ROADMs, transponders, inline amplifiers, etc.) into optical networks that are based on Software Defined Network (SDN) principles and open standard Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). In this presentation, we review optical network disaggregation drivers, models, challenges, requirements, and describe a reference architecture for control and management of open optical networks implementing a partial disaggregation model. We also highlight optical network disaggregation key enabling technologies by the industry, and a recently published lab trial as a proof-of-concept demonstration.

This technical lecture presents a holistic overview of RF energy harvesting and its applications in low-power wireless sensing. From how to co-design antennas and rectifiers for maximum RF-DC efficiency, to associated power management and sensor node integration, a holistic coverage of rectenna design will be presented. First, an overview of rectenna topologies will be provided, presenting a clear definition of each class of rectennas and its design requirements. State-of-the-art methodologies for designing, simulating, and optimizing antennas and rectifiers will then be introduced, providing a clear approach to designing scalable rectennas with best-in-class efficiencies. Tightly-coupled rectenna arrays will also be discussed for voltage and current-boosting in ultra-low-power energy harvesting applications. Simultaneous Wireless Information and Power Transfer (SWIPT) rectennas will then be detailed. The potential for minimizing the complexity of SWIPT and improving its RF-to-DC efficiency based on shared-aperture antennas, including dual-band and dual-polarization systems, will be explained. The challenges specific to electromagnetically harsh environment such as reflective metallic environments and absorptive biological media will be discussed from an antenna design perspective. Moreover, methods of overcoming RF insertion losses on lossy substrates and conductors will be discussed, in the context of wearable rectenna design. DC power management strategies, based on the target RF power levels, will be discussed highlighting the trade-off between sensitivity (i.e. wireless range) and efficiency (i.e. charging rate), in RF-powered sensing systems. The lecture will conclude by showing emerging cutting-edge applications of low-power wireless power transfer including autonomous robotics, wearable therapeutics, and terrestrial applications.

Photoconductive antennas are promising sources of terahertz (THz) radiation, which is frequently used to investigate and analyze biological organisms. These compact antennas make it possible to generate ultra-broadband pulses and continuously tunable THz transmissions at room temperature without the need for high-power laser sources. Here, a high efficiency spiral THz photoconductive antenna (PCA) is proposed. The design consists of a gallium arsenide (GaAs) substrate and a silicon (Si) hyper hemispherical lens. The proposed design has a radiation efficiency of up to 92.4% between 2.5 and 3.4 THz, with a directivity up to 17.6 dBi. With several current PCA designs as references, comparisons and analyses are made, indicating that the proposed work shows higher efficiency and radiation directivity at a wider band. The design of electrodes and hyper hemispherical lens are demonstrated in the paper. Simulations of contrast designs are shown as well, illustrating a 25%-40% efficiency and 12.8 dB gain increase by this design. Due to its performance and small structure, this antenna is ideal for T-ray medical imaging.

In this research, we presented an electromagnetically induced transparency-like (EIT-like) metasurface. The structure is composed of pairs of L-shaped resonators, and by increasing the asymmetry between the coupled resonators, the dark mode has been excited with a transparency pick at 2.84 THz. The transmission spectra based on various asymmetry degree shows the intensifying trend of EIT-like resonance. The distribution of the electromagnetic field and the surface current were also examined to demonstrate the dark mode excitation. The sensing performance of the biosensor was studied based on various refractive index and thicknesses of the sample, and a total theoretical sensitivity of 800 GHZ/RIU based on a narrow line width of 230 GHz was achieved. The results also were compared with similar research works and proved a massive enhancement in sensitivity and Q-factor. The proposed structure can be served as an ultra-sensitive, inexpensive, and label-free biosensor for applications including biological sensing.

This work presents highly sensitive resonant sensors for liquid characterization. The proposed sensors combine multi-mode coplanar waveguide and microstrip lines in a double-layer PCB, one layer constitutes the feed while the other forms the resonator (sensing element), with a paper superstrate. Equivalent circuit models are derived, which enables the understanding of the behavior of the sensors as lossy transmission lines and, consequently, predicts the changes in the response due to different concentrations of sodium chloride. A prototype was manufactured, and the measurement results are in very good agreement with the EM simulations around the operating frequency (1.6 GHz). The sensor achieves a sensitivity of 4.2 dB between 0.01 and 0.1 mol/L.

This work proposes and experimentally validates a high-fineness fiber-optic Fabry-Perot high-resolution sensor for the cylinder stroke monitoring in the industrial hydraulic field using optical technology. The proposed cylinder stroke sensor's Faber-Perot cavity is created by pair or partially transmitted mirrors with reflectivity up to (R=0.95) to make the signal has a high-fineness interference patterns. The test results demonstrate that the new stroke monitoring sensor has a free spectral range (FSR) up to 0.58GHz with bandwidth equal to ~28.36MHz with total resolution for the cavity spacing up to 10nm with 33% peak transmission. The new sensor also has the following benefits of the fiber-optic cylinder stroke sensor: high a wide range of applications due to its fineness, excellent uniformity, and less expensive nature of the monitoring system suggested in this research is another aspect. This is because earlier measurement techniques needed the sensor rods to be integrated into the piston for the whole measuring route, which usually necessitated very lengthy and precise bore holes in the piston. This damages the structure of the piston and is also expensive. Due to the system's ability to deliver large potential cost savings, production lead times and, ultimately, the price of hydraulic cylinders are impacted.

Measuring distance in air accurately is of a great importance for several applications such as surveying and metrology. The technique proposed here is based on measuring more than 50 m in air by measuring the change in repetition rate in a passively mode-locked laser when the measured distance be part of its cavity. The measurement uncertainty reached 21 µm for the maximum measured distance.

In this paper, COMSOL Multiphysics software is used to simulate lightning impulse applied to nose, wings, and fuselage of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Based on that, the electric field levels at different points inside the UAV are computed. The 3D model of UAV is created using SOLIDWORKS software. Since the impulse has no single frequency, the model is used in the time domain to simulate the lightning strike. Furthermore, hardening the UAV to reduce electromagnetic interference (EMI) by shielding against lightning strikes is examined. The results confirm that an overlay of good electric conductor can essentially prevent lightning strikes from entering the UAV, even when necessary narrow seams and holes are not shielded. To show the validity and usefulness of the model, the computed results are compared with measured data where acceptable agreement is observed.

This paper investigates the performance analysis of the uplink fixed gain Amplify and Forward (AF) for the Hybrid Satellite Terrestrial Cooperative Networks (HSTCNs). The proposed HSTCN utilizes both the orthogonal and the non-orthogonal Direct Sequence Code Division Multiple Access (DS-CDMA) technique between the uplink users and it applies the maximal ratio combining (MRC) scheme at the destination receiver. The mobile-satellite and the base station-satellite are assumed to have independent uplink channels, described as shadowed-Rician fading channels whereas the mobile-base station link experiences Nakagami-m fading channels. The performance for HSTCN different Techniques are performed under different numbers of relays. Moreover, a closed form Moment Generating Function (MGF) for the uplinks are derived for the total end-to-end instantaneous signal to noise ratio (SNR) to obtain the outage probability and the probability of error. Furthermore, the closed form nth Moment function derivation will be used to estimate the Ergodic capacity of the system. The analytical results are confirmed by Monte Carlo simulations for the uplink HSTCNs. Furthermore, the paper studies the significant parameters of the applied channels for the mobile-satellite, the base station-satellite and the mobile-base station links that affect the system performance.

The frequency bands for communication standards are continuously increasing, as it can be seen from fifth generation (5G) and beyond 5G communications. This is done, to increase the capabilities of communication systems and enable new technologies, e.g. autonomous driving and wireless sensor networks. Therefore, reliable channel characterization methods, such as ray tracing, are needed to implement and guarantee the functionality of these new technologies. The effects of vegetation on ray tracing simulations are often times dismissed, due to their modeling challenges and high resulting computational overhead for simulations, as well as their generally small influence on the communication channel. However, with increasing frequencies for 5G, these effects cannot be dismissed anymore. So despite the modeling challenges, vegetation effects have to be included in ray tracing simulations for an accurate channel characterization. This paper aims to create a vegetation model with low computational complexity for ray tracing simulations, while depicting the effects of real vegetation as close as possible. It is shown, that even simple approaches to model vegetation with low computational overhead are often times sufficient to capture significant effects on the communication channel.

Forecasting is the process of making predictions based on past data to predict future data development tendencies, which can help to make appropriate decisions ahead. In this study, the ARIMA model was built using the Box and Jenkins method to forecast long-term rainfall and the associated rain-induced attenuation in the provinces of South Africa: Kwazulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, Gauteng, and Northern Cape. The datasets of the daily rainfall collected by the South African Weather Station from 1994-2019 were used to build and check the model after generating rain-induced attenuation using synthetic storm techniques (SST). The basic steps, namely: identification, estimation, diagnostics checking, and forecasting, were fitted into the developed model. After completing the necessary checking and forecast observation, the ARIMA (2, 0, 2) was found to be the most effective algorithm to predict future precipitation and the associate drain-induced attenuation with a 98% confidence interval. The results show that this long-term prediction will help decision makers with efficient flood prediction, urban planning, rainwater harvesting, crop management, and mitigating signal attenuation in the sub-tropical regions.

Accurate asset tracking and indoor localization (IL) is of interest in many applications including IoT sensing, shipping warehouse organization, and indoor navigation. Angle-based IL methods, such as angle-of-arrival (AOA), are known for their excellent accuracy. Moreover, their built-in support in the Bluetooth low energy (BLE) stack enables scalable and straight forward IL implementations. In this investigation, important considerations regarding the localization system parameters, including the number and location of anchor nodes, and tracked assets are explored.

This paper discusses a simple choke antenna composed mainly of a circular waveguide surrounded by a choke. An analytical model that plots field patterns and currents of the choke is presented. Also, this model can obtain the total amplitude and phase of antenna far-field radiation characteristics to get the desired gain, half-power beamwidth, or radiation maxima direction. A comparison in CPU time between this model and the finite element method is introduced. At a selected operating frequency of 2.45 GHz, finite element method solver Ansys HFSS is utilized to validate the resulting radiation patterns of the proposed analytical model and to export the choke currents.

A combination of Random Auxiliary Sources (RAS) and Method of Moments (MoM) is presented to solve the electromagnetic (EM) scattering problems from 2-D PEC structures, including the challenging geometries with sharp corners. The proposed technique is developed to overcome the corner limitation of the RAS method while maintaining its speed. In addition to the typical random set of distributed infinitesimal sources within the scatterer boundary based on the RAS method, the proposed technique incorporates surface currents at critical regions to capture the fast variations of the due to edge conditions. A comparison is held between the proposed hybrid method, conventional MoM and RAS method, and the other corner treatment methods for RAS, showing a significant advantage when using the proposed approach.

The design of a three-fold symmetry tri-ridged waveguide orthomode transducer is presented. This ridged waveguide setup enhances the single-mode bandwidth of the structure, ensuring that higher-order modes are not excited which in turn eliminates unwanted resonances when the component is used as a horn antenna feeding network. The simulated performance shows a return loss that is below −20 dB across the entire 3:1 operating bandwidth.

Advances in wireless and satellite communications have created a demand for high-power microwave and millimeter-wave components due to cost, loss, and manufacturing complexity considerations. One of the newest and most promising guiding technologies is the Gap Waveguide, which is expected to have an effective role in mmWave and submmWave applications, not only in 5G communications, but also in other future communications. In this article, we propose a corrugated grooved bow tie antenna based on PRGW to enhance the side lobe level in E and H planes. The antenna is operating from 32-36 GHz with a -10 dB matching level. The obtained side lobe level is in the range of -15 dB in both planes with 10 dB gain over the whole band of operation.

This paper presents a compact, dual-band high-power antenna system, operating in L-band at 1.3GHz -2.5 MW and S-band 3GHz - 5.0 MW. The design consists of a wide band corrugated horn antenna and a dual-band waveguide combiner. Numerical simulations of the S-parameters of the combiner and the radiation pattern of the antenna are presented. The radiator demonstrates good performance in terms of Return Loss, isolation, and radiation at both frequencies of operation. The resulting system is compact and can be manufactured by standard CNC techniques or metallic 3D printing.

This article presents a polarization reconfigurable intelligent metasurface (PRIM) to realize on demand switchable cross polarization conversion and circular polarization conversion by linearly incident electromagnetic (EM) wave through globally tuned PIN diode models. The unit cell structure of PRIM consists of I-Shaped structure supported with split circle and biasing lines to control the states of voltage-controlled PIN diodes. The modeled PIN diodes are incorporated in between split circle and on the edges of unit cells. The ON/OFF states of these PIN diodes can switch the polarization state of a wave between linear and circular polarizations. The novel approach ensures the provision of electronically controlled, ultra-wide band (UWB) reflective circular-polarization in one state and cross-polarization in the other, over same functional frequency band of X- and Ku-band. The results demonstrate that in open/off state the metasurface presents cross polarization ranging from 9 GHz to 19 GHz, while in short/on state metasurface presents circular polarization ranging from 10 GHz to 22 GHz. The designed metasurface is fabricated using hardwire-bond technique to replicate functionality of diodes and tested to validate the performance of PRIM.

This paper investigates the minimum size of the metasurface needed for beam steering applications using anomalous reflection. First, using 1-bit and 2-bit digitally coded unit cells, we analytically model a programmable metasurface in MATLAB for a reflected beam direction of θr = 30o, ϕr = 0o, and perform the far-field radiation pattern analysis for different aperture sizes. We observe the metasurface size of 10λ0 × 10λ0 (where λ0 is the free-space wavelength at 10.5 GHz) provides anomalous reflection in the desired direction having beamwidth of nearly 5o for both 1-bit and 2-bit coding. We verify the reflection angle and half-power beamwidth (HPBW) obtained from the analytical method with the full-wave electromagnetic simulation using CST Microwave Studio. It is also observed that the 2-bit coded metasurface having 10λ0 × 10λ0 size provides a far-field pattern with a reduced sidelobe level (SLL) of nearly −11.54 dB compared to 1-bit.

Thanks to the development of theory, design, fabrication and applications, metasurface has become a new research highlight in microwave, terahertz and optical bands. Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) can dynamically modulate electromagnetic (EM) wave with unparalleled flexibility, which leads to great research tide in recent years. Numerous RISs with powerful capabilities and various functions are presented explosively. However, various terminologies based on their functions appear correspondingly, which make the architecture of RIS seem complex and confusing. In light of the dimensions of EM wave, this talk introduces a unified model to describe the interactions among RIS, EM wave and EM information, and suggests an information bit allocation strategy to categorize different types of RISs systematically. Based on this strategy, 1-bit reconfigurable elements manipulating one of five EM wave dimensions are firstly reviewed and categorized. Then, the advances of multi-dimensional and multi-functional 2-bit elements are reviewed and categorized. Various 2-bit elements are divided into two large categories, 2-bit-manipulating types (15 kinds) and multiplexed-manipulating types (25 kinds), and the existing ones are reviewed respectively. Finally, this talk discusses the future research trends of RIS. Hopefully, RISs with diverse dimensions and functions can propel the next generation of communication, detection, sensing, imaging and computing applications.

In this paper, reconfigurable chessboard coding plasma-based dielectric resonator structure for radar cross section reduction is investigated. The radar cross section (RCS) reduction is essential in military applications. The metallic conductor surface is covered with plasma-based dielectric resonator (DRA) unit-cells arranged in chessboard configuration. The plasma DRA unit-cell consists of concentric cylindrical ring filled with ionized plasma placed over FR4 dielectric substrate. The plasma ionization voltage values are tuned to reflect the electromagnetic wave with phase shift of 180o and equal amplitudes. The phase 0o state represents the logic "0" while the phase 180o state represents the logic "1". The chessboard arrangement consists of super-cells with 0/1 logic states. Different sizes of uniform super-cells 3×3, 4×4, 6×6, and 12×12 unit-cells are investigated for maximum RCS reduction. The scattered beams are directed to (±30o, 180o±30o), (±25o, 180o±25o), (±20o, 180o±20o), (±15o, 180o±15o) and (±10o, 180o±10o) for 3×3, 4×4, 6×6, 8×8, and 12×12 uniform super-cells, respectively. The RCS is reduced over a wide angle range reduction with -18 dBm2 at the broadside direction and below -32 dBm2 over the angular range from -90o to 90o according to the super-cell size. The non-uniform allocation of unit-cells in the super-cell chessboard arrangement is investigated. The RCS reduction bandwidth extended from 8.5 GHz to 9.65 GHz. The scattered beam produces null in the broadside direction with wideband RCS reduction. The proposed structures are simulated using CST-MWS electromagnetic simulator.

Energy is at the center of all our activities, and especially now, electricity is a need for basic human survival. Nevertheless, the resources are limited. On certain occasions, we need to rely on the opportunity to have specific energy availability and energy on demand so that sensors, emergency communications, and ICT, in general, continue to operate even if the energy grid is not there. This talk will discuss the electricity generation problem and how to cope with the massive demand for ICT (Information Communication Technologies) technologies. We will address new paradigms for radio communications and alternatives to make energy available when needed and where needed. It is expected that Net Zero Radio alternatives will be available on the market in the future.