Xianming Qing

Spectrum Survey in Singapore: Occupancy Measurements and Analyses

We study the 24-hour spectrum usage pattern in Singapore in the frequency bands ranging from 80 MHz to 5850 MHz. The objectives are to find how the scarce radio spectrum allocated to different services is utilized in Singapore and identify the bands that could be accessed for future opportunistic use due to their low or no active utilization. The results from the spectrum measurements taken over 12 weekday periods reveal that a significant amount of spectrum in Singapore has very low occupancy all the time. The occupancy is quantified as the amount of spectrum detected above a certain received power threshold. The outcome of this study suggests that Singapore has a great potential for employing emerging spectrum sharing technology such as the cognitive radio technology to accommodate enormous demands for future wireless services. However, this study of spectrum survey is preliminary in its nature and future long term studies need to be performed to determine any potential secondary usage on those channels that have low or no active utilization.

Small Printed Ultrawideband Antenna With Reduced Ground Plane Effect

A small printed antenna is described with a reduced ground-plane effect for ultrawideband (UWB) applications. The radiator and ground plane of the antenna are etched onto a piece of printed circuit board (PCB) with an overall size of 25mmtimes25 mmtimes1.5 mm. A notch is cut from the radiator while a strip is asymmetrically attached to the radiator. The simulation and measurement show that the miniaturized antenna achieves a broad operating bandwidth of 2.9-11.6 GHz for a 10-dB return loss. In particular, the ground-plane effect on impedance performance is greatly reduced by cutting the notch from the radiator because the electric currents on the ground plane are significantly suppressed at the lower edge operating frequencies. The antenna features three-dimensional omni-directional radiation with high radiation efficiency of 79%-95% across the UWB bandwidth. In addition, a parametric study of the geometric and electric parameters of the proposed antenna will be able to provide antenna engineers with more design information

A Universal UHF RFID Reader Antenna

A broadband circularly polarized patch antenna is proposed for universal ultra-high-frequency (UHF) RF identification (RFID) applications. The antenna is composed of two corner-truncated patches and a suspended microstrip line with open-circuited termination. The main patch is fed by four probes which are sequentially connected to the suspended microstrip feed line. The measurement shows that the antenna achieves a return loss of -15 dB, gain of 8.3 dBic, axial ratio (AR) of 3 dB, and 3-dB AR beamwidth of 75deg over the UHF band of 818-964 MHz or 16.4%. Therefore, the proposed antenna is universal for UHF RFID applications worldwide at the UHF band of 840-960 MHz. In addition, a parametric study is conducted to facilitate the design and optimization processes for engineers.

Asymmetric-Circular Shaped Slotted Microstrip Antennas for Circular Polarization and RFID Applications

Novel asymmetric-circular shaped slotted microstrip patch antennas with slits are proposed for circularly polarized (CP) radiation and radio frequency identification (RFID) reader applications. A single-feed configuration based asymmetric-circular shaped slotted square microstrip patches are adopted to realize the compact circularly polarized microstrip antennas. The asymmetric-circular shaped slot(s) along the diagonal directions are embedded symmetrically onto a square microstrip patch for CP radiation and small antenna size. The CP radiation can be achieved by slightly asymmetric (unbalanced) patch along the diagonal directions by slot areas. Four symmetric-slits are also embedded symmetrically along the orthogonal directions of the asymmetric-circular shaped slotted patch to further reduce antenna size. The operating frequency of the antenna can be tuned by varying the slit length while keeping the CP radiation unchanged. The measured 3-dB axial-ratio (AR) bandwidth of around 6.0 MHz with 17.0 MHz impedance bandwidth is achieved for the antenna on a RO4003C substrate. The overall antenna size is 0.27λo × 0.27λo × 0.0137λo at 900 MHz.

Bandwidth Enhancement for a 60 GHz Substrate Integrated Waveguide Fed Cavity Array Antenna on LTCC

A substrate integrated waveguide fed cavity array antenna using multilayered low temperature co-fired ceramic technology is presented and designed at V-band (60 GHz). The 8 × 8 antenna array is designed with an enhanced bandwidth of 17.1% and a gain up to 22.1 dBi by reconfiguring radiating elements, feeding network, and the transition. The proposed array antenna also features the merits of compact size, stable performance, and high efficiency.

Impedance Characterization of RFID Tag Antennas and Application in Tag Co-Design

In this paper, an experimental methodology for the characterization of the impedance of balanced RF identification (RFID) tag antennas is presented, and the application of the proposed method in RFID tag co-design is demonstrated. The balanced tag antenna is considered as a two-port network and the impedance of the antenna is characterized using network parameters. In the measurement, the antenna is connected to the two ports of a vector network analyzer through a test fixture. The influence of the test fixture is deembedded by using a port-extension technique and the antenna impedance can be extracted directly from the measured S -parameters. The proposed method is useful in practical RFID applications for co-designing the RFID tag with the attached platforms for enhancing the tag performance. An example of co-designing an ultra-high-frequency RFID tag with a plastic Sushi plate is demonstrated. The co-designed tag antenna achieves conjugate matching with the application-specific integrated circuit so that the reading range of the RFID tag is greatly enhanced.

A Broadband UHF Near-Field RFID Antenna

A broadband segmented loop antenna is presented for ultra high frequency (UHF) near-field radio frequency identification (RFID) applications. Using a segmented line, the current distribution along the loop is kept in phase even though the perimeter of the loop is more than two operating wavelengths so that the proposed antenna generates strong and even magnetic field distribution in the near-field zone of the antenna. The antenna prototype, printed onto a piece of FR4 substrate, with an overall size of , achieves a large interrogation zone of with good impedance matching and uniform magnetic field distribution over the entire UHF RFID band of 840-960 MHz.

Compact Asymmetric-Slit Microstrip Antennas for Circular Polarization

Four compact asymmetric-slit microstrip antennas are proposed and studied for circular polarization. By cutting asymmetrical slits in diagonal directions onto the square microstrip patches, the single coaxial-feed microstrip patch antennas are realized for circularly polarized radiation with compact antenna size. The performances of the proposed antennas with several asymmetric-slit shapes onto the patch radiators are compared. The measured 10-dB return loss and 3-dB axial-ratio bandwidths of the antenna prototype are around 2.5% and 0.5%, respectively. The proposed asymmetric-slit configurations are useful for compact circularly polarized microstrip patch antennas and array design.

Dual-Band Circularly Polarized

A dual-band single-feed circularly polarized, S-shaped slotted patch antenna with a small frequency-ratio is proposed for GPS applications. An S-shaped slot is cut at the centre of a square patch radiator for dual-band operation. A single microstrip feed-line is underneath the center of the coupling aperture ground-plane. The frequency-ratio of the antenna can be controlled by adjusting the S-shaped slot arm lengths. The measured 10-dB return loss bandwidths for the lower and upper-bands are 16% (1.103-1.297 GHz) and 12.5% (1.444-1.636 GHz), respectively. The measured 3-dB axial-ratio (AR) bandwidth is 6.9% (1.195-1.128 GHz) for the lower-band and 0.6% (1.568-1.577 GHz) for the upper-band. The measured gain is more than 5.0 dBic over both the bands. The measured frequency-ratio is 1.28. The overall antenna size is 0.46 ¿o × 0.46¿o × 0.086¿o at 1.2 GHz.

S

A substrate integrated waveguide (SIW)-fed circularly polarized (CP) antenna array with a broad bandwidth of axial ratio (AR) is presented for 60-GHz wireless personal area networks (WPAN) applications. The widened AR bandwidth of an antenna element is achieved by positioning a slot-coupled rotated strip above a slot cut onto the broadwall of an SIW. A 4 × 4 antenna array is designed and fabricated using low temperature cofired ceramic (LTCC) technology. A metal-topped via fence is introduced around the strip to reduce the mutual coupling between the elements of the array. The measured results show that the AR bandwidth is more than 7 GHz. A stable boresight gain is greater than 12.5 dBic across the desired bandwidth of 57-64 GHz.