Mervi Hirvonen

Antenna Effective Aperture Measurement With Backscattering Modulation

A scattering measurement method for antenna characterization is described. The antenna backscattering is modulated by an oscillator circuit. The modulation begins, when a known RF power is transferred to the oscillator circuit from the antenna. This enables the measurement of the effective aperture of the antenna, from which the antenna bandwidth and radiation pattern are obtained. A theory for antenna aperture measurement is developed using a simple circuit model for the antenna-oscillator system. A dipole and a PIFA with a reactive input impedance at the application frequency were measured. The antenna aperture was measured to an accuracy of 9%, and the measurements complied with simulated and measured references. The method provides simple and accurate bandwidth and radiation pattern measurements with the reactive load the antenna is designed to work with.

Decay of groundplane currents of small antenna elements

Expressions are derived for the surface current induced by vertical and horizontal dipoles on a nearby infinite groundplane. The expressions are obtained by means of the exact magnetic field. It is found that for a vertical dipole the surface current density decays roughly as the inverse of the distance from the source, while for a horizontal dipole it decays as the inverse distance squared. The result furnishes an explication for the empirical observation that antennas carrying mainly horizontal currents tend to be less sensitive to the dimensions of a finite groundplane than antennas carrying vertical currents. A formula is given by means of which the groundplane current of a compound source can be evaluated and controlled.

Detection and localization of multiple short range targets using FMCW radar signal

In this paper, a 24 GHz frequency-modulated continuous wave radar is used to detect and localize both stationary and moving targets. Depending on the application, the implemented software offers different modes of operation. For example, it can simply output raw data samples for advanced offline processing or directly carry out a two dimensional fast Fourier transform to estimate the location and velocity of multiple targets. To suppress clutter and detect only moving targets, two methods based on the background reduction and the slow time processing techniques are implemented. A trade-off between the two methods is presented based on their performance and the required processing time.

Movement and respiration detection using statistical properties of the FMCW radar signal

This paper presents a 24 GHz FMCW radar system for detection of movement and respiration using change in the statistical properties of the received radar signal, both amplitude and phase. We present the hardware and software segments of the radar system as well as algorithms with measurement results for two distinct use-cases: 1. FMCW radar as a respiration monitor and 2. a dual-use of the same radar system for smart lighting and intrusion detection. By using change in statistical properties of the signal for detection, several system parameters can be relaxed, including, for example, pulse repetition rate, power consumption, computational load, processor speed, and memory space. We will also demonstrate, that the capability to switch between received signal strength and phase difference enables dual-use cases with one requiring extreme sensitivity to movement and the other robustness against small sources of interference.

2016 Global Symposium on Millimeter Waves, GSMM 2016 and ESA Workshop on Millimetre-Wave Technology and Applications

This paper presents a 24 GHz FMCW radar system for detection of movement and respiration using change in the statistical properties of the received radar signal, both amplitude and phase. We present the hardware and software segments of the radar system as well as algorithms with measurement results for two distinct use-cases: 1. FMCW radar as a respiration monitor and 2. a dual-use of the same radar system for smart lighting and intrusion detection. By using change in statistical properties of the signal for detection, several system parameters can be relaxed, including, for example, pulse repetition rate, power consumption, computational load, processor speed, and memory space. We will also demonstrate, that the capability to switch between received signal strength and phase difference enables dual-use cases with one requiring extreme sensitivity to movement and the other robustness against small sources of interference.