Amin M. Abbosh

Design of Ultrawideband Planar Monopole Antennas of Circular and Elliptical Shape

An efficient approach is described for designing ultrawideband (UWB) antennas in the form of planar monopoles of elliptical and circular shape. To avoid the time consuming trial-and-error approach presented in other works, simple design formulas for this type of radiators are described and their validity is tested via electromagnetic analysis and measurements. Full electromagnetic wave investigations are performed assuming three types of substrates with wide range of dielectric constant and thickness. The presented results show that the proposed method can be applied directly to design planar antennas that cover the ultrawide frequency band from 3.1 GHz to more than 10.6 GHz. Four types of monopole antennas were manufactured using RT6010LM substrate and their operation was tested in terms of return loss, radiation pattern characteristics, gain, and time domain response. The developed antennas feature UWB behavior with near omnidirectional characteristics and good radiation efficiency. The time domain transmission tests between two identical elements show that the manufactured circular monopoles offer better performance in terms of distortionless pulse transmission than their elliptically shaped counter parts. These antennas are also assessed in terms of fidelity factor. The manufactured antennas show a high fidelity factor which is more than 90% for the face-to-face orientation.

Design of Compact Directional Couplers for UWB Applications

This paper presents a simple design method for a class of compact couplers, which offer coupling in the range of 3-10 dB over an ultra-wide frequency band from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz. The proposed couplers are formed by two elliptically shaped microstrip lines, which are broadside coupled through an elliptically shaped slot. Their design is demonstrated for a 3-, 6-, and 10-dB coupling assuming a 0.508-mm-thick Rogers RO4003C substrate. Results of simulation and measurements show that the designed devices exhibit a coupling of 3plusmn1 dB, 6plusmn1.4 dB and 10plusmn1.5 dB across the 3.1-10.6-GHz band. This ultra-wideband coupling is accompanied by isolation and return loss in the order of 20 dB or better. The manufactured devices including microstrip ports occupy an area of 25 mm times 15 mm

Microwave System for Head Imaging

A wideband microwave system for head imaging is presented. The system includes an array of 16 corrugated tapered slot antennas that are installed on an adjustable platform. A switching device is used to enable the antennas to sequentially send a wideband 1-4 GHz microwave signal and capture the backscattered signals. Those signals are recorded using suitably designed virtual instrument software architecture. To test the capability of the system to detect brain injuries, a low-cost mixture of materials that emulate the frequency-dispersive electrical properties of the major brain tissues across the frequency band 1-4 GHz are used to construct a realistic-shape head phantom. A target that emulates a realistic hemorrhage stroke is fabricated and inserted in two different locations inside the fabricated head phantom. A preprocessing algorithm that utilizes the symmetry of the two halves of human head is used to extract the target response from the background reflections. A post-processing confocal algorithm is used to get an image of the phantom and to accurately detect the presence and location of the stroke.

Design of a Compact UWB Out-of-Phase Power Divider

The design of a compact out-of-phase uniplanar power divider operating over an ultra wide frequency band is presented. To achieve an out-of-phase signal division over a large frequency range, a T-junction formed by a slotline and a microstrip line accompanied by wideband microstrip to slotline transitions is employed. The simulated and experimental results of the developed divider show a low insertion loss and good return loss performance of the three ports across the band 3.1-10.6 GHz

Simple Broadband Planar CPW-Fed Quasi-Yagi Antenna

In this letter, we present a novel coplanar waveguide fed quasi-Yagi antenna with broad bandwidth. The uniqueness of this design is due to its simple feed selection and despite this, its achievable bandwidth. The 10 dB return loss bandwidth of the antenna is 44% covering X-band. The antenna is realized on a high dielectric constant substrate and is compatible with microstrip circuitry and active devices. The gain of the antenna is 7.4 dBi, the front-to-back ratio is 15 dB and the nominal efficiency of the radiator is 95%.

Ultra-Wideband Phase Shifters

A method with clear guidelines is presented to design compact planar phase shifters with ultra-wideband (UWB) characteristics. The proposed method exploits broadside coupling between top and bottom elliptical microstrip patches via an elliptical slot located in the mid layer, which forms the ground plane. A theoretical model is used to analyze performance of the proposed devices. The model shows that it is possible to design high-performance UWB phase shifters for the 25deg-48deg range using the proposed structure. The method is used to design 30deg and 45deg phase shifters that have compact size, i.e., 2.5 cm times 2 cm. The simulated and measured results show that the designed phase shifters achieve better than plusmn3deg differential phase stability, less than 1-dB insertion loss, and better than 10-dB return loss across the UWB, i.e., 3.1-10.6 GHz.

Design of UWB Planar Band-Notched Antenna Using Parasitic Elements

A method is described to reject certain bands within the passband of an ultrawideband (UWB) planar antenna using parasitic elements. In the presented design, the antenna is created by a planar monopole and a ground plane both of half circle shape, whereas parasitic elements are in the form of printed strips. Four examples of UWB antenna design are shown. The first design is without parasitic, while the remaining ones are with parasitics to reject a single narrow band, a wide band or three narrow bands. The results of simulation and measurements show that all these antenna designs exhibit a 10-dB return loss bandwidth from 3 GHz to 11 GHz excluding the rejected bands. More than 10 dB gain drop is recorded in the suppressed bands. The time domain transmission test between two identical antennas without the parasitic strips shows an almost distortionless pulse performance.

Novel Preprocessing Techniques for Accurate Microwave Imaging of Human Brain

Two novel preprocessing techniques are applied to reinforce the detection performance and the image quality in microwave imaging systems designed for brain stroke detection. The image of energy distribution is obtained by applying a delay-and-sum beamforming to the backscattered signals measured using a hemielliptical array of 16 corrugated tapered slot antenna elements surrounding the head. The beamformer forms a spatially filtered combination of time-delayed response of scattering points in the head exposed to microwave radiation over the band from 1 to 4 GHz. The proposed techniques are validated on a realistic head phantom that is fabricated to emulate the electrical properties of real human head. The results show how the proposed techniques enable the detection and localization of hemorrhagic stroke accurately.

Miniaturized Microstrip-Fed Tapered-Slot Antenna With Ultrawideband Performance

A method to design a microstrip-fed antipodal tapered-slot antenna, which has ultrawideband (UWB) performance and miniaturized dimensions, is presented. The proposed method modifies the antennas structure to establish a direct connection between the microstrip feeder and the radiator. That modification, which removes the need to use any transitions and/or baluns in the feeding structure, is the first step in the proposed miniaturization. In the second step of miniaturization, the radiator and ground plane are corrugated to enable further reduction in the antennas size without jeopardizing its performance. The simulated and measured results confirm the benefits of the adopted method in reducing the surface area of the antenna, while maintaining the ultrawideband performance.

An ultra wideband microwave imaging system for breast cancer detection

An experimental study concerning Ultra Wideband (UWB) Microwave Radar for breast cancer detection is described. A simple phantom, consisting of a cylindrical plastic container with a low dielectric constant material imitating fatty tissues and a high dielectric constant object emulating turnout, is scanned with a tapered slot antenna operating between 3.1 to 10.6 GHz. A successful detection of a target is accomplished by a visual inspection of a two-dimensional image of the scanned phantom.