Recent studies have shown that considerable system capacity gains in mobile communication systems can be obtained by exploiting the use of antenna arrays at the base station. Unfortunately, these studies make little mention of practical issues concerning implementation. It is thus one of the objectives of the Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Radio Access Technologies at the University of Natal to investigate the development of a widehand CDMA adaptive array transceiver using Alcatel software radios as the transceiver platforms. Such a transceiver system can be subdivided into three major sections: RF front-end, signal digitization and baseband processing stages. Due to the enormity of such an undertaking, the research outlined in this thesis is focused on (but not isolated to) some aspects of the RF front-end implementation for the proposed system. The work in this thesis can be catergorized into two sections. The first section focuses on the theoretical and practical (or implementation) aspects of antenna arrays and beamforming. In particular, it is evident that digital (rather than analogue) beamforming in a multi user environment, is a more viable option from both a cost and implementation standpoint. The second section evaluates the impact of RF component noise and local oscillator generated phase noise in a DS-CDMA system. The implementation of a RP front-end for a BPSK transceiver also forms part of the work in this section. LO phase noise and Error Vector Magnitude (EVM) measurements are performed on this system to support relevant theory. By use of the HP89410A phase noise measurement utility and the phase noise theory developed in this thesis, a quantitative phase noise comparison between two frequency sources used in the system were made. EVM measurement results conclusively verified the importance of an LNA in the system. It has also been shown that the DS-CDMA simulated system exhibits superior performance to the implemented BPSK system. Furthermore, an EVM troubleshooting methodology is introduced to identify possible impairments within the BPSK receiver RF front-end. However, this thesis was written with the intention of bridging the gap between the theoretical and practical implementation aspects of RP wireless communication systems. It is the author's opinion that this has been achieved to a certain extent. / Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2000.

Wireless communication systems continue to face the challenge of time varying quality of the underlying communication channel. When a slow fading channel goes into a deep fade, the corresponding communication system might face successive decoding failures at the destination, and for delay-sensitive communication systems, this amounts to delays that are not desired. In such situations, it becomes a priority to get out of the deep fades. Many techniques and approaches are already available in the literature to counteract fading effects. This work is motivated by recent advances in fast reconfigurable antennas, which provide new means to change the statistical profile of fading channels, and hence reduce the probability of prolonged fades. Fast reconfigurable antennas are poised to improve overall performance, especially for delay-sensitive traffic in slow-fading environments. This potential enhanced performance motivates this study of the queueing behavior of point-to-point communication systems with reconfigurable antennas. We focus on finite-state channels with memory, and we analyze the queueing behavior of the wireless communication system over erasure channels, for a traditional system versus a reconfigurable antenna implementation. We provide numerical results for situations where using reconfigurable antennas yield substantial performance gains in terms of throughput, delay and buffer overflow.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 200-213). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Carleton University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 157-167). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M.S.)--California Polytechnic State University, 2010. / Mode of access: Internet. Title from PDF title page; viewed on April 20, 2010. Major professor: John Saghri. "Presented to the Electrical Engineering Department faculty of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, California." "In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Electrical Engineering." "March 2010." Includes bibliographical references (p. 119-125).

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Carleton University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 211-219). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

M.Ing. / This study considers improving the azimuth beam steering resolution of the circular Switched Parasitic Array (SPA) antennas (made up of dipoles) by a factor of two or more. In circular SPA antennas, beam steering is conventionally achieved by open-circuiting and shortcircuiting different parasitic elements and usually only one parasitic element is open-circuited at a time. However, such an approach results in low beam steering resolutions especially for the SPA antennas with few parasitic elements. In order to increase the azimuth beam steering resolution for the circular SPA antennas, two beam steering methods are proposed in this research work. In the first method, parasitic elements are open-circuited and short-circuited based on different combinations of the parasitic elements and the possible switch states. The proposed method was first validated by simulation tests using the MATLAB tool and WIPL-D. A prototype of the circular SPA antenna consisting of five elements was then implemented. It is noted that the simulation and measurement results match very well at 2.4 GHz. In order to have at least two combinations (from the first method) with almost similar gain and return loss, another simpler beam steering method was developed. The latter method is based on simultaneously open-circuiting either two or three neighbouring parasitic elements. The performance of the second method was studied through simulations using the circular SPA antenna geometries consisting of five, seven and nine elements. These geometries were first optimized (for gain and input impedance) and then modelled using WIPL-D. It was observed that the two methods double the azimuth beam steering resolution of the circular SPA antennas when compared to the conventional beam steering approaches of open-circuiting one parasitic element at a time. Variations in the structural parameters of the five elements circular SPA antenna at 2.4GHz were also investigated. In this procedure, the effects of variations (also considered as random errors) in the structural parameters (or antenna dimensions) on the performance of the SPA antennas were examined. Firstly, variations in each structural parameter were modelled with other structural parameters fixed as per specifications. Thereafter, effects of combined errors were also investigated. The simulation results demonstrated that variations in the structural parameter can either increase or decrease the gain and input impedance of the SPA antenna depending on the given specifications. The gain and input impedance sensitivities per variations in each structural parameter were computed to determine the degree at which the gain and input impedance can vary for a predefined change (error) in the structural parameter.

The spatially distributed adaptive array is defined and analyzed. It is applied to both time division multiple access (TDMA) and code division multiple access (CDMA) cellular networks to improve the outage probability at either the base station or mobiles. In a TDMA network, the distributed array consists of three sub-arrays at alternate corners of a hexagonal cell. It is shown analytically that the SINR of combined beamforming of the distributed sub-arrays is greater than or equal to the SIR or independent beamforming of the sub-arrays. Closed form solutions are derived for estimating the BER performance of Rayleigh fading mobile signals received at a distributed adaptive array with combined beamforming of the sub-arrays. The simulated TDMA uplink outage probability of multiple same-cell co-channel users in a fading environment is compared between conventional, spatially distributed arrays with independent beamforming of the sub-arrays and combined beamforming of the sub-arrays. The effect of the antenna element spacing, number of elements and angular spread is also investigated. Spatially distributed arrays are formed in a CDMA network on the downlink with arrays in multi-way soft handoff with the mobiles. The outage probability performance of combined beamforming of the arrays in handoff is compared to independent beamforming of the arrays as well as to conventional sectorized antennas. The range between mobiles and distributed sub-arrays in the case of a spatially distribu-ted array can be larger than between conventional center cell arrays and mobiles. Therefore, the effect of interference on the range increase relative to an omni antenna of adaptive and phased arrays in a multipath environment for both narrowband and wideband spread spectrum systems is investigated. An analytical model for predicting the asymptotic range limitation of phased arrays when the angular spread exceeds the array beamwidth is derived. / Thesis (PhD (Electronic Engineering))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering / unrestricted

Les réseaux réflecteurs imprimés connaissent un fort développement depuis la fin des années 80. Ce type d’antenne offre la possibilité de former des diagrammes de rayonnement complexes avec une relative simplicité, un faible coût de réalisation, de faibles pertes et un volume réduit. Cependant, il souffre encore de quelques défauts : - La non régularité de la géométrie de la cellule sur la surface du réseau, dans le cas d’une antenne passive, peut engendrer des dégradations sur le diagramme de rayonnement, surtout à la transition entre deux géométries extrêmes, lorsqu’un nouveau cycle de phase commence. - Le nombre relativement élevé de composants utilisés pour contrôler la phase de l’onde réfléchie, dans le cas d’une antenne reconfigurable, augmente le coût de fabrication de l’antenne et complexifie le circuit de commande des éléments reconfigurables. - La limitation en bande passante, qui a longtemps cantonné ce type d’antenne à des applications bande étroite, est principalement liée au comportement de la cellule unitaire constitutive du réseau. Dans cette thèse, nous nous intéressons donc à la conception de nouvelles topologies de cellules déphaseuses, passives et surtout reconfigurables, qui permettent, tout en conservant une relative simplicité de réalisation, d’offrir une large bande passante. De plus, le contrôle de la phase, dans le cas des cellules reconfigurables, doit être réalisé avec un nombre réduit de composants afin de respecter la contrainte de faible coût de fabrication. / Microstrip printed reflectarrays experience strong development since the late 80s. This type of antenna has the potential to form complex radiation patterns with relative simplicity, low cost, low losses and low profile. However, it still has some shortcomings: - The non-regularity of the geometry of the cell on the surface of the array, in the case of passive antenna, may cause degradation on the radiation pattern, especially at the transition between two extreme geometries, when a new phase cycle begins. - The high number of components used to control the phase of the reflected wave, in the case of reconfigurable antenna, increases the manufacturing cost of the antenna and complicates the control circuit of the reconfigurable elements. - The limited bandwidth has long confined this type of antenna to narrowband applications and is mainly due to the intrinsic bandwidth of the unit cell. In this thesis, we therefore focus on the design of new, passive and reconfigurable, phase-shifting cells that can provide a wide bandwidth while maintaining a simple implementation. In addition, the control of the phase, in the case of reconfigurable cells, must be made with a reduced number of components in order to comply the constraint of low manufacturing cost.

Cette thèse, menée en partenariat avec le CNES et la DGA s’inscrit dans un contexte international très actif sur les réseaux réflecteurs ou reflectarrays. Un reflectarray est constitué d’une source primaire placée au-dessus d’un réseau de cellules contrôlant les propriétés du champ réfléchi. Une reconfiguration du diagramme de rayonnement peut être réalisée de manière électronique en introduisant des éléments actifs dans chacune des cellules. Dans ce contexte, le travail réalisé a consisté à étudier une nouvelle topologie de cellule permettant de réfléchir indépendamment deux ondes incidentes, en polarisations circulaires gauche et droite, en bande X. Cette cellule, basée sur la superposition d’une cellule sélective en polarisation et d’une cellule simple polarisation, est conçue de façon à être compatible avec une reconfiguration électronique à l’aide de commutateurs. Après un important travail de simulation électromagnétique, une première validation expérimentale, menée à l’échelle de la cellule unitaire, a mis en évidence de très bonnes performances dans les deux polarisations (pertes inférieures à 1dB, déphasage atteignant 2 bits de résolution). A cette occasion, un banc de caractérisation spécifique a été développé. Une étude de faisabilité de la cellule reconfigurable a également été menée afin d’identifier les technologies de commutateur les plus pertinentes et de quantifier les perturbations apportées par la circuiterie de commande. Finalement, un démonstrateur de réseau à états figés a été réalisé et mesuré. Constitué de 97 cellules, il a permis de démontrer les potentialités de la structure développée, pour une application spatiale réaliste : dépointage jusqu’à 26°, bande passante de 800 MHz en bande X, réjection de polarisation croisée>20dB correspondant à une pureté de polarisation circulaire satisfaisante (TE<2dB). Il s’agit de la première antenne à réseau réflecteur qui permette de gérer indépendamment et simultanément les deux orientations de la polarisation circulaire à la même fréquence tout en offrant des capacités de reconfigurabilité. / This thesis done in partnership with the French Space Agency (CNES) and the French Defense Agency (DGA) is placed in a very active international context on reflectarrays antennas. A reflectarray consists of a primary source located above microstrip elements on a grounded substrate. The microstrip elements are designed to reradiate the incident wave. A reconfiguration of the radiation pattern can be electronically achieved by introducing switches in each element. In this context, for space applications in X-band, the objective of this thesis is to propose a dual-circular polarization (CP) unit-cell able to separate at the same frequency, the two incident circular polarizations. This unit-cell, made of two layers with reconfigurable capabilities, is based on a circular polarization selective surface (CPSS) and on a single polarization cell. After intensive electromagnetic simulations, the unit-cell in dual-circular polarization with reconfigurable capabilities has been experimentally validated using a specific waveguide measurement. In fact, the unitcell reflects independently and simultaneously the two incidents circular polarizations for a phase resolution around 2 bits in LHCP and in RHCP. A feasibility study of the reconfigurable cell was also carried out to identify the most relevant technologies. Then, a reflectarray in X-band has been designed, fabricated and measured. Made up of 97 cells, it has demonstrated the potentialities of the structure for a realistic space application: scan angle up to 26 °, bandwidth of 800MHz in X-band, cross-polarization rejection>20dB and good polarization purity (AR<2dB). This is the first time that a dual circular polarization reflectarray with reconfigurable capabilities has been validated with the unique capability to reflect independently and simultaneously the two incident circular polarization at the same frequency.