This article presents a full-wave method to characterize lossy conductors in an interconnect setting. To this end, a novel and accurate differential surface admittance operator for cuboids based on entire domain basis functions is formulated. By combining this new operator with the augmented electric field integral equation, a comprehensive broadband characterization is obtained. Compared with the state of the art in differential surface admittance operator modeling, we prove the accuracy and improved speed of the novel formulation. Additional examples support these conclusions by comparing the results with commerical software tools and with measurements.

The Internet of Things requires highly-efficient ultra-wideband antenna systems that yield high performance at low manufacturing cost. Therefore, a novel ultra-wideband circular air-filled substrate-integrated-waveguide (AFSIW) cavity-backed annular slot antenna is proposed that enables straightforward integration into general-purpose materials by means of standard manufacturing techniques. The cavity top plane, serving as antenna aperture, contains two concentric annular slots, both split in two by shorting tabs that create a virtual electric wall. This enables the generation of a TE11,slot even mode in both parts of each annular slot, giving rise to a conical radiation pattern. By exciting two such modes and judiciously positioning their resonance frequencies, all unlicensed national information infrastructure (U-NII) 5.15 -5.85 GHz radio band are covered. The annular slot antenna is then made polarization reconfigurable through an innovative excitation of the slot modes by replacing the shorting tabs with four pairs of PIN diodes. These dynamically switch between two orthogonal linear polarizations by changing the DC control current at the antenna RF port through an external bias tee. This simple, yet effective, bias network enables the integration of all polarization control electronics inside the antenna cavity to protect them from environmental effects. A low-cost antenna substrate was realized through standard additive-manufacturing in a 3D-printed substrate while a standard high-frequency laminate was used to implement the upper conducting plane containing the radiating elements and the polarization reconfiguration electronics. The antenna features an impedance bandwidth of 0.93 GHz, a front-to-back ratio of 14 dB, a total antenna efficiency higher than 95% and 4.9 dBi gain for each polarization state.

Although all existing air-filled substrate integrated waveguide (AFSIW) topologies yield a substrate-independent electrical performance, they rely on dedicated, expensive, laminates to form air-filled regions that contain the electromagnetic fields. This paper proposes a novel substrate-independent AFSIW manufacturing technology, enabling straightforward integration of high-performance microwave components into a wide range of general-purpose commercially available surface materials by means of standard additive (3-D printing) or subtractive (computer numerically controlled milling/laser cutting) manufacturing processes. First, an analytical formula is derived for the effective permittivity and loss tangent of the AFSIW waveguide. This allows the designer to reduce substrate losses to levels typically encountered in high-frequency laminates. Then, several microwave components are designed and fabricated. Measurements of multiple AFSIW waveguides and a four-way power divider/combiner, both relying on a new coaxial-to-air-filled SIW transition, prove that this novel approach yields microwave components suitable for direct integration into everyday surfaces, with low insertion loss, and excellent matching and isolation over the entire [5.15-5.85] GHz band. Hence, this innovative approach paves the way for a new generation of cost-effective, high-performance, and invisibly integrated smart surface systems that efficiently exploit the area and the materials available in everyday objects.

A novel single-feed ultrawideband cavity-backed slotantenna with a reconfigurable polarization capability is demon-strated in substrate-independent air-filled substrate integratedwaveguide (AFSIW) technology for Internet-of-Things applica-tions in the [5.15-5.85] GHz frequency band of the unlicensednational information infrastructure. The antenna achieves an ul-trawide impedance bandwidth by exploiting a double ring of slotsand supports four switchable linear polarization states (±45°,0°,+45°,and 90°) by leveraging four quartets of p-i-n diodes. Byelectrically shorting the slots at well-defined positions by these p-i-ndiodes, dynamic polarization reconfiguration is achieved by switch-ing their dc bias current, supplied at the antenna feed through anexternal bias tee and routed from the antenna's back to front cavityplane via the AFSIW sidewalls. This new simple, yet effective, biasnetwork enables the integration of all polarization control electron-ics inside the antenna cavity to protect them from environmentaleffects. Finally, measurements prove that the prototype exhibits anoverlapping impedance bandwidth of 29%, from 4.85 to 6.45 GHz,and a stable conically shaped radiation pattern across the operating band width with a 3 dB beamwidth of 45°and a peak gain of 6.5 dBi for all four states.

We consider uplink multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) communication. The transmit (Tx) side of the envisaged system consists of several single-antenna users or/and several multiple-antenna users. At the receive side, a multiple-antenna access point employs compressive sensing techniques to estimate the channel impulse response from the preamble portion of the observed packets. The traditional approach is that of orthogonal pilot allocation: during a short training period, each OFDM subcarrier is assigned exclusively to a single Tx antenna. In this case, the channel state information can conveniently be acquired on a per Tx antenna basis. To the best of our knowledge, all related research imposes that all Tx antennas are allocated the same amount of pilots (which must then be tailored for the most extreme channel conditions). However, in the considered system, Tx antennas may experience totally different channel conditions. Under these circumstances, the use of a fixed number of pilots per Tx antenna results in a lot of unnecessary overhead. To tackle this problem, our work addresses the design of efficient algorithms for adaptive orthogonal pilot allocation. The following design principles are applied: orthogonal pilot allocation, constant-modulus modulation, minimum measurement matrix mutual coherence optimization, and the condition that the number of pilot subcarriers allocated to each Tx antenna is adjusted to the channel conditions experienced by that Tx antenna. The paper tackles the problem of determining the optimal number of pilot subcarriers as well as the optimal positions of the pilots. To facilitate adaptive operation, we propose a reduced-complexity method to determine the optimal pilot positions. The performance of our algorithms is demonstrated by means of computer simulations, using both theoretical channel models and results from our own channel measurement campaign.

To quantify waveguide dispersion uncertainty, we propose a stochastic analysis technique based on the polynomial chaos method, where Smolyak sparse grids are used as sample spaces for the recently developed nonintrusive stochastic testing (ST) technique. This strategy allows for a smaller set of candidate collocation nodes in the ST algorithm compared with the computationally expensive tensor grid approach. The method is tailored to the analysis of waveguide structures with a statistically spatially varying dielectric-property profile, which is then captured by a discrete set of uncorrelated random variables by means of Karhunen-Loève transforms. In this way, the propagation properties of realistic stochastic waveguides can be predicted, which is of major importance in the electronic design process. The presented method, which is constructed around a second-order full-wave deterministic finite element solver, is illustrated through the uncertainty quantification of two waveguide dispersion problems and is validated using commercial electromagnetic field solvers and the Monte Carlo method.