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  • The “Moore than More” Bottleneck

    Kathleen L. Melde, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering – University of Arizona, examines the significant advances in the areas of computing and communication. The ‘Moore than More’ bottleneck she describes stems from the continuous demand for higher data rates. This interview also examines what’s being done at the University of Arizona to enhance wireless communications systems.

  • A Panel of Antennas Experts: Enhancing Military Antenna CapabilitiesA Panel of Antennas Experts: Enhancing Military Antenna Capabilities

    Ahead of the Military Antennas West event, April 22-24 in San Diego, CA, IDGA reached out to three of the keynote speakers to bring you preview of their upcoming presentations. Mr. Satish Sharma, Mr. Amedeo Larussi, and Mr. Mohsen Kavehrad, each highlight their own specific research being conducted into the advancement of military antennas. Read on…

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  • 'Swap'ping Antennas: A Plurality of Challenges
    IDGA’s 8th Annual Military Antennas conference will be moderated by Dr. Joseph R Guerci – IEEE Fellow and Warren D. White Award Recipient, IDGA Advisory Board Member. In the lead up to the conference in September, IDGA’s Online Content Editor, Chris Archer, asked him to comment on the current state of affairs in this space.  Dr. Guerci, we’re so pleased you’ll be joining us again at this years conference - what can you tell us about the current state of military antennas? What are some of the most important programs/initiatives going on right now within the US military? These are amazing times for antennas across the entire military enterprise, from land, sea, air and space! The continuing advancements of wideband military communications and networking, too include mobile communications on the move, continues to spur both demand for, and innovation of new more capable antenna systems. Not to be out done, major advancements and initiatives are
  • Insect-Inspired Miniaturized Antenna Arrays with Super-Resolving Capabilities
    A critical problem Despite the tremendous amount of research conducted on antennas over the past few decades, several fundamental problems in this area remain unresolved. Among these, the challenges involved with designing electrically small antennas and antenna arrays and the inherent performance limitations of these devices are of particular importance in many military systems. To be an efficient radiator, the physical size of an antenna must be comparable to the wavelength of the electromagnetic (EM) wave that it radiates. As the electrical size of the antenna (maximum physical size of the antenna normalized to the wavelength of the wave it radiates) is reduced, its performance degrades rapidly. The relationships between the antenna size and its gain, radiation efficiency, and bandwidth are well known and have been studied since the 1940's. These studies propose a set of fundamental limits that predict the upper bounds of these radiation parameters as demonstrated by the
  • Wearable Antennas Step Forward
    Developers of military antennas are seeing strong demand for new designs and capabilities all across the spectrum, and equally strong demands to reduce costs. Conformal, lightweight, and potentially inexpensive designs are an especially hot area, and within that broad category, wearable antennas are attracting renewed interest. Mobility and communications are typically at odds for foot soldiers, because antennas can be large and unwieldy additions to already heavy loads. Until now, poor efficiency has limited the use of wearable antennas, but Ohio State researchers recently announced a prototype wearable system with significantly greater signal strength than a conventional military “whip” antenna, and a communications range four times larger.  It consists of multiple antennas sewn into a vest and controlled with a master controller. In effect, the vest becomes a lightweight, mobile, and low-cost communications system that can send and receive signals
  • Developing Body-Wearable Antennas for the Warfighter
    Portable body-wearable antennas can provide enormous advantages on the battlefield, but there are significant challenges in developing an effective antenna design that operates in the VHF-FM and EPLRS frequency bands, is light in weight, and small enough to fit on or inside the soldiers’ combat vest.  IDGA recently spoke with Mitchell S. Mayer, Electronics Engineer for CERDEC S&TCD Antennas and Spectrum Analysis Division, about effectively navigating these challenges and developing successful testing procedures within this arena.  The primary challenge, he said, is being able to create antennas to operate in the VHM-FM and EPLRS frequency bands.  The VHF band is 30MHz to 88 MHz (sincgars) and EPLRS is 225 MHz to 450 MHz.  For a 1/4-wavelength antenna that will operate as low as 30 MHz, the antenna would have to have an equivalent length of 2.5 meters, or 8.2 feet.  “The average height of a male in the US is 5 feet, 9 inches, so unless we do
  • IDGA Q&A: Dan Sievenpiper...Active and Nonlinear Structures for Advanced Antenna Applications
    IDGA: First, could you tell us a little about your background? DS: I worked at Hughes Research Laboratory for 11 years prior to becoming a professor at UCSD. During my last three years there I ran the Applied Electromagnetics Lab. My work has been in antennas and electromagnetic structures. My current focus is on active and nonlinear electromagnetic structures. IDGA: How is current antenna technology limited by performance of passive/linear materials? DS: If we limit ourselves to just rearranging metals and dielectrics, we are not going to do any better than what we have today. One example is the Wheeler/Chu limit on the bandwidth and efficiency limits of small antennas. With active circuits such as non-Foster elements (negative capacitors or inductors) we can beat that limit. We can also build other things that would otherwise be considered impossible, such as broadband superluminal waveguides, and squint-free leaky wave antennas. As for nonlinearity, we believe that it will allow
  • Five Minutes with…Professor Tatsuo Itoh on Metamaterial Leaky Wave Antennas
    IDGA: You are an expert in metamaterial leaky wave antennas.  First, could you describe precisely what metamaterial is? TI: Metamaterial is an artificially made structure which has electromagnetic properties not found in nature.  For instance, structures with simultaneously negative permeability and negative dielectric constant can be synthesized. In such a structure the phase of the wave propagates along the opposite direction of the energy transfer, thereby backward wave can be obtained.   This can be realized in a transmission line format.  This is used for realizing a leaky wave antenna.  The latter is an antenna in which the radiation is in the form of leakage while the wave is guided along the axis. IDGA:  You will be speaking at IDGA’s Antennas West conference.  Could you summarize your presentation? IT:  I will first present the basic forms of conventional leaky wave antennas (LWA) and their characteristics and
  • Jodi McGee on Current & Future Navy Antenna Efforts at SPAWAR Systems Center Pacific
    IDGA: What are current developments at SPAWAR Systems Center Pacific? JM: Space and Naval Warfare (SPAWAR) Systems Center Pacific is a Navy lab located in San Diego.  As the head of its System of Systems and Platform Design Division, I manage four branches (approximately 80 people) supporting the Navy in the area of antennas. Our work spans the range of research, development, test, evaluation, and integration.  One branch is responsible for the large land-based antennas used for submarine communications.  Another branch is aligned with the Navy's shipboard Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance capabilities.  We develop shipboard communications antennas, and ensure that their placement on the crowded topside of a ship minimizes the chances of interference with other shipboard systems.  We have a team of antenna designers who are creating cutting-edge antenna designs for a variety of military applications. IDGA: Could you speak to the history of
  • Five Minutes with... Satish K. Sharma, Ph. D.:Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) Advances at SDSU
    The conventional method of beam scanning such as phased array antenna is costly by using multiple antenna elements and phase shifters. Satish K. Sharma, Ph.D., talks about multiple radiating mode aperture antennas for reconfigurable radiation patterns and frequency reconfigurable multimode antennas with MIMO implementations for Portable Devices. IDGA: You will be speaking at IDGA Military Antennas West conference. Could you describe the nature of your presentation at the event? SS: My presentation will include details about reconfigurable aperture antennas. This will describe multiple radiating mode based antennas, frequency reconfigurable antennas and MIMO antenna, etc. Experimental verification results will be included to compare simulated results. Antennas can be used both in commercial and military wireless communication applications. IDGA: Could you describe issues of pattern reconfiguration in this context?  SS: Pattern reconfiguration helps to achieve different types of
  • Do you speak ‘Semi-Conductor’? Focus on the G/ATOR Program
    The G/ATOR program is a highly mobile system intended to fully support the Marine Corps' expeditionary warfare requirements. In the following IDGA exclusive interview, Lee Bond, Program Manager, examines the future for the multi-mission radar, how the USMC are managing costs, and what challenges are unique to the program as it enters the production years. Read on…     Examine the features, aims and role of the G/ATOR system within the U.S. Marine Corps?   G/ATOR [Ground/Air Tasked Oriented Radar] is a multi-mission radar that is being developed to replace several legacy radars, some of which have been retired and some of which are in service, but they’re getting very long in the tooth. It will actually perform three different missions with its different software loads. You basically bring the system up each day and load the particular software that gives it these mission features, but its roles and responsibilities include providing air defense of the

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  • Wearable Antennas Weaving Technology and Textiles Together

    The next gen of military antennas could be as useful as the shirt on your back, at least that’s what Professor John Volakis, Director, Electroscience Laboratory,at the Ohio State University thinks. His team are developing wearable antennas for use in medical, military and commercial applications. This interview explores the latest on this project, and also discusses the various other research and development being done at the university. Listen Up!

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