Search

Realizing antenna arrays that preserve channel capacity in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radio communications is a challenge because of the detrimental effects of mutual coupling. The fact that mutual coupling becomes more pronounced as antenna spacing decreases is therefore a critical issue with compact arrays used in portable MIMO radios. The contributions made in this paper include the realization of compact MIMO arrays designed to preserve channel capacity and the characterization of these compact arrays' performance in field measurements using MIMO radios. A multiport metric is used to characterize the compact arrays in a way that more appropriately measures array performance under MIMO signalling conditions than the traditional scattering matrix characterization. Field measurements show the extent and proportion of the effect that correlation and radiation efficiency have on MIMO channel capacity. The compact arrays' strong performance in field measurements is explained by their ability to preserve the MIMO channel's eigenstructure. Results also show that mutual coupling prevents channel capacity from scaling linearly with the number of antennas. Guidelines for compact MIMO array design are given with supporting results from field measurements. Index Terms--Antenna arrays, channel capacity, mobile antennas, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems.

There is a growing demand for impulse radiating antennas (IRAs) to receive and transmit short pulses. The basic concepts of IRA are reviewed and the far-field pattern versus frequency of an ideal IRA is characterized based on the fundamental properties of IRA. It is shown that the transmitted pulse is ideally in the form of a time derivative of the input pulse. The physical optics simulation results show that the far-field characteristics of a parabolic reflector are very close to an ideal IRA if it is fed properly. The reflector IRA was constructed, analyzed and measured at UCLA. The near-field and far-field characteristics of the reflector IRA are studied using both the method of moments (MoM) full-wave simulations and the frequency domain measurements. In this paper, the radiation mechanism of the reflector IRA is studied using a detailed current distribution on the parabolic reflector and the feeding structure at different frequencies. Applying either the calculated current distribution on the reflector IRA or the measured near-field results, it is seen that the aperture field intensity of the parabolic reflector is not the same in the two principle planes and as a result the beam-widths in the two principle planes are different. The far-field patterns of the antenna are measured and the calculated far-field patterns support the measured results. The calculated current distribution results provide a guideline on how to properly change the feeding structure to achieve a more uniform aperture field and increase the antenna radiation efficiency. Index Terms--Antenna measurements, frequency domain analysis, impulse radiating antenna (IRAs), method of moments (MoM), reflector antenna, ultrawide-band antenna.

This paper considers the improvement of the feeding structure of the reflector impulse radiating antenna (IRA). Full-wave analysis and measured results of the orthogonal cross-coplanar plate reflector IRA shows that the aperture fields are not uniform. The arm angle is varied as an optimization factor and it is shown that the arm angle of 70[degrees] has the maximum radiation efficiency. The termination load and the arm tapering effects are studied using simulation and measurement results. Furthermore, the effect of radius of circle of symmetry is studied and it is shown that a greater circle provides higher gain. A combination of transverse electromagnetic (TEM) horn antenna and the conical coplanar TEM transmission line is investigated to avoid tiny structure at the focal point and make the connection between the coaxial cable and the feeding arms more convenient. It is shown that a small triangle does not degrade the antenna performance but helps to excite the antenna by a coaxial cable. Finally a combination of the Vivaldi antenna and the coplanar transmission line is introduced to improve the antenna performance. The simulation results for the new antenna show that the antenna efficiency is improved to 45% at the frequency band between 2 GHz to 6 GHz in comparison to the 20.9% for the traditional design and 29.7% for the tapered design. The calculated far-field results of all these antennas are used to radiate a 0.5 ns impulse. The radiated impulse from the Vivaldi fed reflector IRA is 3.55, 2.41, and 2.12 dB higher than the same radiated impulses from the reflector IRA fed by a 45[degrees] traditional feeding arms, 70[degrees] traditional feeding arms, and 70[degrees] tapered feeding arms, respectively. Index Terms--Aperture antennas, impulse radiation antennas (IRAs), method of moments (MoM), ultrawide-band antennas.

This paper focuses on the multiport characterization of antennas. In particular, special attention is given to the cavity backed annular patch antenna (CABAPA) for multipolarization operations. We will show that the reflection coefficient is not the best representative parameter to determine the frequency response of the multiport antenna and its radiation performance. Therefore, we seek a new generalized parameter that conveys the frequency response of multiport antennas. The total active reflection coefficient (TARC) is introduced as the square root of the sum of all incident powers at the ports minus radiated power, divided by the sum of all incident powers at the ports. The TARC is a function of frequency and is a real number between zero and one. With this definition we can characterize the multiport antenna's frequency bandwidth and radiation performance. In this paper, a method for calculating the TARC is detailed for different port excitations directly from the scattering matrix of the antenna and independent of the feeding network. First, the CABAPA is analyzed by the method of moments. Next, the corresponding scattering matrix is employed to calculate the TARC for different polarizations. The calculated results, when compared to the measured results, show good agreement. The measured -10 dB TARC bandwidth of the CABAPA is 30% compared with 68% as measured using only the [s.sub.11]. Index Terms--Broad-band antennas, cavity antennas, microstrip antennas, multiport circuits, polarization, scattering matrices.

In this paper, we describe an electromagnetic genetic algorithm (GA) optimization (EGO) application developed for the cluster supercomputing platform. A representative patch antenna design example for commercial wireless applications is detailed, which illustrates the versatility and applicability of the method. We show that EGO allows us to combine the accuracy of full-wave EM analysis with the robustness of GA optimization and the speed of a parallel computing algorithm. A representative patch antenna design case study is presented. We illustrate the use of EGO to design a dual-band antenna element for wireless communication (1.9 and 2.4 GHz) applications. The resulting antenna exhibits acceptable dual-band operation (i.e., better than--10 dB return loss with 5.3 and 7% operating bandwidths at 1.9 and 2.4 GHz) while maintaining a cross-pol maximum field level at least 11 dB below the co-pol maximum. Index Terms--Genetic algorithms, method of moments (MoM), microstrip antenna, optimization, parallel computing.