Slides from Monday Dec 6, 2010 meeting with John Volakis on 'Small Wideband and Conformal Metamaterial Antennas and Arrays,'

Hi everyone,

Please find the slides from our Monday Dec 6 meeting with John Volakis on 'Small Wideband and Conformal Metamaterial Antennas and Arrays,' here.

Have a great Holliday,

Greg, Chair AP-S Boston Chapter

Metamaterials for Miniaturization of Narrowband and Ultra-Wideband Antennas

Please join the IEEE AP-S Boston Chapter for a special holiday seminar from distinguished lecturer John Volakis, Director of the legendary OSU Electro-Science Laboratory at Ohio State University.

Volakis will present his research on "Metamaterials for miniaturization of narrowband and ultra-wideband antennas."

This talk will be held on Monday December 6, at 6pm in the
MIT Lincoln Laboratory A-Café, 244 Wood Street, Lexington, MA. For directions please see: http://www.ll.mit.edu/about/map.html

For details, please visit:
http://www.ieeeboston.org/org/subgroups/antennas_propagation.html

Please feel free to invite your friends, it is sure to be an enjoyable
evening full of radar, antenna, signal processing, and sensing
discussions.

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ABSTRACT
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It is well-recognized that materials design holds promise in developing novel antennas that are much smaller and allow greater multi-functionality than ever before. Such needs stem from the unprecedented growth of wireless communications and related research that is highly fueled by growth in commercial and defense multi-band and high bandwidth future communication systems. This presentation will discuss how modified materials, inductive/capacitive lumped loads and low loss magnetic materials/crystals (Metamaterials) are impacting antenna design with the goal of overcoming miniaturization challenges (viz. bandwidth and gain reduction, multi-functionality etc.). Dielectric design and texturing has, for example, led to significant size reduction and higher bandwidth for low frequency antennas. Also, recent magnetic photonic crystals (MPCs) and non magnetic versions of these crystals hold a promise for antenna/array miniaturization. Formal design methods incorporating local, global or hybrid optimizers for antenna and their radio frequency (RF) applications will play a critical role in materials design. Practical realizations of these new materials are poised to challenge computational and design methods for a variety of RF applications.

Upcoming AP-S Boston Talks December-March

Hi Everyone,

Here is a list of the lineup of talks we have for you from December to March. We are looking forward to this winter season of learning new things about electromagnetics and more fascinating discussions with authors. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Greg, Chair AP-S Boston Chapter.

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December 6, 2010, 6pm at MIT/LL main cafe.
A special AP-S, AES, GRSS holiday meeting with the world famous John
Volakis, Director of the legendary OSU Electro Science Laboratory.
John will present a lecture to us about: Metamaterials for
Miniaturization of Narrowband and Ultra-Wideband Antennas. For more
information:
http://www.ieeeboston.org/org/subgroups/antennas_propagation.html

January 26, 2011, 6pm at the MIT/LL main cafe.
Paul G. Elliot and Kiersten C. Kerby from the MITRE Corporation will
present their fascinating work on a MULTIPLE-BEAM PLANAR LENS ANTENNA
PROTOTYPE.
ABSTRACT — A new low-height X/Ku-band (8.2-12.2 GHz) antenna was
designed, built and tested which provides full 360 degree coverage
around azimuth using multiple beams, covering the low elevation angles
with peak gain of 12 dBi at 10 GHz. Computer modeling showed that
about 18 dBi gain can also be achieved using this type of lens. The
antenna shape is circular and flat with feed ports in a circle near
the periphery. Switching between beams is accomplished by switching
between beam ports. The prototype antenna built was 13.3 cm diameter
by 1.56 cm high, which is approximately 41⁄2 wavelengths wide by 1⁄2
wavelengths thick at 10 GHz. The weight was 259g. Each feed port
drives a small monocone to feed the lens, which radiates a beam close
to endfire on the opposite side from the driven feed port. This flat
lens antenna is extremely wideband and radiates a leaky wave from the
surface of the beamforming lens, so it combines the functions of
beamformer and planar radiating aperture into one structure, thereby
achieving lower height and weight and simpler construction than other
antenna types with 360° coverage.

Feb 23, 2011, 6pm at MIT/LL main cafe.
The world famous Eli Brookner will present his 2010 IEEE Intl.
Symposium on Phased Array Sys. & Tech Plenary Session talk, Never
Ending Saga of Phased Array Breakthroughs. This is a must-see for
those of you who want a briefing on the state of the art phased array
technology as of this fall.
Abstract
• 3, 4, 6 face “Aegis” systems developed by China, Japan, Australia,
Netherlands, USA • Israel and Australia “Aegis” AESAs have an A/D at
every element, a major breakthrough.
• GaN advancing rapidly. Will be helped by use for PCs, notebooks,
cell phones, servers. • Extreme MMIC: 4 X-band T/Rs on 1 SiGe chip for
DARPA ISIS program; goal <$10/TR.
• Raytheon funding development of low cost flat panel X- band array
using COTS type PCB. • MA-COM/Lincoln-Lab. development of low cost S-
band flat panel array using PCB, overlapped subarrays and a T/R switch
instead of a circulator.
• Purdue Un. developing S-band low cost Digital Array Radar; GaN PA
and A/D at every element. • Revolutionary 3-D Micromachining:
integrated circuitry for microwave components, like 16 element Ka-band
array with Butler beamformer on 13X2 cm2 chip.
• Ultra low cost 77 GHz radar on 72mm2 chip together with >8 bits 1 GS/
s A/D and 16 element array. • Valeo-Raytheon 24 GHz phased array now
available for blind spot detection in cars for just $100’s.
• Lincoln Lab using 2 W chip increases spurious free dynamic range of
receiver plus A/D by 20 dB • JPL’s SweepSAR provides wide swath SAR
from space with 1/6 th power required by ScanSAR.
• Metamaterials: 1. Can now focus 6X beyond diffraction limit at 0.38
μm – Moore’s Law marches on. 2. Used in cell phones to obtain antennas
5X smaller and have 700 MHz-2.7 GHz bandwidth. 3. Provide isolation
between closely spaced antennas and antenna elements.

March 22, 2011, 6pm at MIT/LL main cafe.
A AP-S & AES joint meeting with Duane J. Matthiesen from Technia
Consulting, who will present to us his thoughts on, Efficient Beam
Scanning, Energy Allocation, and Time Allocation for Search and
Detection.
Abstract — Recently-developed unique and innovative concepts for
efficient radar search and detection are reviewed. These results
provide answers to the two fundamental search questions: (1) Where
should the radar beam point during the next increment of search effort
(energy and time)? (2) How much radar effort should be expended
during the next increment of search effort? These results provide the
most efficient allocation of radar search effort in both space and
time which maximizes target detection performance and minimizes radar
search energy and time. Typical savings of several dB of radar
power-aperture product and/or expected (average) detection time are
obtained. These new techniques are practical and can be used in the
next generation of radars with agile beams and variable-energy search
waveforms. Furthermore, the problem formulation and solution are
very general, so these search and detection techniques developed for
radar can also be applied to other both active (transmitting and
receiving) and passive (receive only) electronic sensors: optical,
IR, UV, sonar, seismic, passive RF, astronomy, etc.

10/27: The U.S. Army Research Laboratory Ultra-Wideband (UWB) Low-Frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR): Overview and Signal Processing Techniques

We are very pleased to bring you Lam Nguyen, who is flying up to visit
us from the US Army Research Laboratory. Lam will present his work
on: The U.S. Army Research Laboratory Ultra-Wideband (UWB) Low-
Frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR): Overview and Signal
Processing Techniques.

This talk will be on Wednesday October 27, at 6pm in the MIT/LL
Cafeteria.

For details, please visit:
http://www.ieeeboston.org/org/subgroups/antennas_propagation.html

This is a special multi-chapter talk, brought to you by AESS, AP-S,
GRSS, and SPS chapters of Boston. A special thanks to Eli Brookner
for setting up this talk.

Please feel free to invite your friends, it is sure to be an enjoyable
evening full of radar, antenna, signal processing, and sensing
discussions.

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Abstract

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This talk first presents an overview of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) UWB low-frequency SAR. The second part of the talk presents the SAR signal processing and image formation techniques employed by the ARL UWB radar. ARL has designed and fabricated a vehicle-based UWB low-frequency SAR for the detection of concealed targets such as obstacles behind foliage, and surface and buried mines. The low-frequency radar also offers the capability of mapping of a building interior, as well as detecting moving targets behind the walls. The radar system can be configured in various modes of operation: forward looking SAR, side-looking SAR, and stationary. The radar transmits time-domain impulses that occupy the frequency band of 300—3000 MHz. The system employs a physical array of 16 receive antennas to provide the necessary aperture for sufficient cross-range resolution in the forward-looking and stationary modes. Two transmitters are located at the two ends of the receive array to virtually double the size of the physical receive array and maximize the cross-range resolution in the forward-looking mode.

The signal processing section includes the suppression of interference signals, the removal of signal distortions due to the moving platform with respect to the scene during the data acquisition cycle, the subband filtering, and the SAR image formation. ARL has developed the Recursive Sidelobe Minimization (RSM) technique that is integrated with the standard back-projection image formation. The technique has been shown to significantly reduce the artifacts due to sidelobes and noise in SAR imagery. This talk presents results from the forward-looking experiments for the detection of obstacles. SAR imagery of a building interior from the side-looking SAR mode is also presented.

Mr. Lam Nguyen received the BSEE, MSEE, and MSCS degrees from Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, VA, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, and The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, respectively.

He started his career with General Electric Company from 1984 to 1985. He has been with the Army Research Lab (ARL) and its predecessor organization, Harry Diamond Labs, from 1986 to the present. He has been primarily engaged in the research and development of several versions of ultra-wide-band (UWB) radar since 1992 to present. These radar systems have been used for the proof of concept demonstration in many concealed target detection programs. He has been developing algorithms for SAR signal and image processing. Mr. Nguyen has authored or coauthored over 70 conference and journal publications. Mr. Nguyen received the U.S. Army Research and Development Achievement Awards in 2006, 2008, and 2010.

Huge Success! 2010 IEEE Intl. Symposium on Phased Array Sys. & Tech

I want to thank everyone for attending the 2010 IEEE International Symposium on Phased Array Systems and Technology. There were a total of 520 attendees, approximately 180+ papers, two excellent tutorial sessions, and may outstanding meals too!

The papers were very good, most were about systems that were completely modeled, fabricated, and tested.

With all of this ongoing we also found time for some dancing. Shown here are a series of photos of Eli Brookner dancing with my fiancee.

Thank you for attending, looking forward to our next conference.

Greg,

Chair AP-S Boston

This week in Waltham MA: 2010 IEEE International Symposium on Phased Array Sys. & Tech.

Hi everyone,

This week don't forget to drop by the 2010 IEEE International Symposium on Phased Array Systems and Technology, in Waltham MA.

You can register at the door if you have not done so already.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

Greg,

Chair AP-S Boston Chapter

Don't forget to sign up to the student event at the 2010 IEEE Intl. Symposium on Phased Array Sys. & Tech

Are you a student who is interested in learning about phased array systems, what they are, how they work?

Then be sure to sing up to the free 1-day student event at the 2010 IEEE Symposium on Phased Array Systems & Technology, October 12, 2010 in Waltham, MA.

The IEEE is trying to encourage young people to study engineering as a profession, as a result many of our interesting conferences like this one are offering 1-day student events free to anyone.

The event is free, it includes lunch and a lecture by Eli Brookner, who is well known in the field of phased array radar systems and a great speaker. After lunch the students will get to see the symposium welcome speech by Mark Russell, and keynote by Dennis Picard. Finally, students will get to meet with companies, talk to engineers in the field, and meet other students who are studying antenna arrays in grad school.

As you might guess, it's not easy getting attendance levels up for something as specific as phased array antennas, or even raising awareness of how much fun phased array engineering can be as a career path.

For more information please visit:

website:

http://www.array2010.org/student.htm

student event flyer:

http://www.array2010.org/pdfs/past2010_studentevent_flyer.pdf

student event schedule:

http://www.array2010.org/pdfs/past2010_studentevent_schedule.pdf

To register, go here:

https://mandalore.tchmachines.com/%7Eqtzycpf/forms/phased_array_stu/student_pa_regpay.php

Please encourage any students or student groups that you know to check out this unique and free event. Looking forward to seeing you at the Phased Array Symposium!

Greg

Chair AP-S Boston Chapter