In this paper, we present a non-standalone dual-band shared aperture antenna array that operates at both the current Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) band (viz. 5.9 GHz) and the future 5G millimeter-wave (mm-wave) band (viz. 28 GHz) allocated for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications. The design consists of a 2 $\times $ 2 differentially fed patch array operating at 5.9 GHz, co-printed with a 1 $\times $ 2 series fed array operating at 28 GHz on a single layer substrate. In particular, the shared aperture array operates from 5.84-5.94 GHz (DSRC band) with a 100 MHz impedance bandwidth and from 27.75 - 28.47 GHz (5G mm-wave band) with a 720 MHz impedance bandwidth. Gain improvement of ~1.44 dB at 28 GHz is observed as a result of the higher order modes generated by the 5.9 GHz array. The shared aperture array was fabricated and measured showing a gain of ~9.97 dBi at 5.9 GHz and ~12.3 dBi at 28 GHz. The ports of the array are highly isolated with measured isolation >55 dB at the DSRC band and >33 dB at the 5G mm-wave band.
18 January 2023 in IEEE Open Journal of Antennas and Propagation
A 3-bit beam steerable antenna array based on a microstrip line is designed and implemented at 28 GHz for millimetre-wave application. The antenna consists of an 8-element tightly stacked aperture and a switchable feeding network. The latter consists of a one-to-eight-way uniform microstrip corporate-fed power divider and is separated from the radiating element by a ground plane. To achieve coupled feeding, the ground plane has two rows of slots under each antenna element. A switching mechanism was implemented on the microstrip line to realize 3-bit periodic phase shifting for beamsteering. By sampling 8 feed points with a separation distance of λ/8, a 3-bit phase shifter was constructed with phases of 0º, -45º, -90º, -135º, -180º, -225º, -270º, and -315º. Continuous beamsteering was achieved from -50º to +50º by switching eight different sampling states, both in numerical calculation and in simulation. The design was verified by fabricating and testing three different prototype configurations at 28 GHz. The measured prototypes showed an excellent match with the simulation results. Notably, the maximum measured gain was found to be 13.44 dBi with a gain threshold of 10 dBi within the steering range (viz. 100º).
Wireless technology is growing at a fast rate to accommodate the expanding user demands. Currently, the radio frequency (RF) spectrum is overcrowded. Hence, it is more susceptible to signal fratricide and interference. To enhance spectrum access, in-band full duplex systems are implemented to achieve simultaneous transmission and reception (STAR) and double the spectral efficiency. However, STAR systems require suppression of the high power transmit signals that can leak into the receiver chain. This type of self-interference (SI) can significantly reduce the receiver.s dynamic range and often leads to its desensitization. Therefore, successful STAR implementation requires considerable isolation between the transmitter and receiver to reduce the SI signal. To do so, RF self-interference cancellation (RFSIC) stages are considered. In this paper, we present a two-stage SIC system that includes transmit and receive antennas isolation and RFSIC filter stages. Notably, the isolation between the transmit and receive antennas is based on a novel symmetric suppression technique. The RFSIC filter is based on a hybrid finite impulse response (FIR) filter and resonator architecture. Adding a resonator to the FIR filter provides improved matching to approximate and suppress the direct SI coupling. Our design achieves $\sim$ 52 dB isolation on average across a 500 MHz bandwidth ( viz. 1-1.5 GHz) in simulation. Simulation results show a minimum cancellation of 41 dB and a maximum cancellation of 65 dB. A prototype was fabricated and tested, showing an average of $\sim$ 44 dB cancellation which is in good agreement with our simulation.
This paper presents a single-fed, single-layer, dual-band antenna with a large frequency ratio of 4.74:1 for vehicle-to-vehicle communication. The antenna consists of a 28 GHz inset-fed rectangular patch embedded into a 5.9 GHz patch antenna for dual-band operation. The designed dual-band antenna operates from 5.81 to 5.99 GHz (Dedicated Short Range Communications, DSRC) and 27.9 to 30.1 GHz (5G millimeter-wave (mm-wave) band). Furthermore, the upper band patch was modified by inserting slots near the inset feed line to achieve an instantaneous bandwidth of 4.5 GHz. The antenna was fabricated and measured. The manufactured prototype operates simultaneously from 5.8 to 6.05 GHz and from 26.8 to 31.3 GHz. Notably, the designed dual-band antenna offers a high peak gain of 7.7 dBi in the DSRC band and 6.38 dBi in the 5G mm-wave band.
Electrical Impedance Myography (EIM) is a painless, noninvasive approach for assessing muscle conditions through the application of a high-frequency, low-intensity current to the muscle region of interest. However, besides muscle properties, EIM measurements vary significantly with changes in some other anatomical properties such as subcutaneous skin-fat (SF) thickness and muscle girth, as well as non-anatomical factors, such as ambient temperature, electrode shape, inter-electrode distance, etc. This study has been conducted to compare the effects of different electrode shapes in EIM experiments, and to propose an acceptable configuration that is less dependent on factors other than the cellular properties of the muscle. Initially, a finite element model with two different kinds of electrode shapes, namely, rectangular (the conventional shape) and circular (the proposed shape) was designed for a subcutaneous fat thickness ranging from 5 mm to 25 mm. The study concludes, based on the FEM study, that replacing the conventional electrodes with our proposed electrodes can decrease the variation in EIM parameters due to changes in skin-fat thickness by 31.92%. EIM experiments on human subjects with these two kinds of electrode shapes validate our finite element simulation results, and show that circular electrodes can improve EIM effectiveness significantly, irrespective of muscle shape variation.
For simultaneous transmit (Tx) and receive (Rx), it is a common practice, with monostatic full duplex (FD) systems, to use a single antenna and a circulator to provide isolation between the transmit and receive radio chains. However, most circulators currently on the market are designed to provide 12 to 20 dB of Tx/Rx port isolation, which is not sufficient for full duplex (FD) microwave communication. In fact, it is necessary to provide at least $>$ 30 dB of isolation to prevent the receiver desensitization that is caused by the leakage of high-power transmit signals. For this reason, practical simultaneous transmit and receive (STAR) systems require additional cancellation stages. In this paper, we present a novel STAR system that incorporates two circulators, a hybrid coupler, and a self-interference cancellation (SIC) circuit, based on a Finite Impulse Response (FIR) topology. Our design achieves an average Tx/Rx port isolation of $\sim$ 37 dB over a 25 MHz bandwidth ( viz. 2.395–2.42 GHz) in simulation, with a minimum and maximum cancellations of 35 dB and 41 dB, respectively. A prototype was fabricated and tested showing good agreement with the simulations. All in all, the prototype achieved an average cancellation of 36 dB, with a cancellation range of 33 dB to 42 dB.